Catholics across the world are listening closely to the words of Pope Leo XIV to glean insight into what his papacy might look like.
On Monday, he stressed the importance of a free press in a meeting with journalists. In his first Sunday blessing, he spoke in Italian about the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.
One issue that he has not spoken about is the role of women in the church, a topic that has been at the center of religious debate for years.
Sister Rose Pacatte is a daughter of St. Paul — an order known as “the media nuns.” She is a film critic and the founding director of the Pauline Center for Media Studies.
“Just being present in the square when the white smoke came out,” Pacatte said, “it was such a joyful celebration. It was so peaceful, and I don’t know, we’re all kind of on a bit of a spiritual high.”
6 questions with Sister Rose Pacatte
At his first mass last week, Pope Leo had two women give readings. Did that say anything to you about how Leo views the role of women in the Catholic Church?
“It’s pretty normal. If you’ve watched Pope Francis, there were sisters and women who often did the readings.”
Has that always been normal, even before Francis?
“Oh yes, I would say it. Sure. It would’ve started under John Paul II after Vatican II. After a while, there were altar servers for girls. People started doing readings for the mass. Men and women were included.”
The question of women in the church was important to Pope Francis. As a cardinal. Pope Leo gave women a leadership role in the office that he ran, which selected new bishops. What do you hope for with this papacy when it comes to women and ministry?
“I think he’s going to continue what Pope Francis started, and I think that there’ll be more women in the dicasteries, you know, in the curia as we say, the offices serving the church at the Vatican, and that’ll probably trickle down in the diocese. Like in many dioceses around the world, there are already lay women chancellors, religious women who are chancellors. That’s a pretty high post in a diocese. But I think one of my favorite things to think about is the ancient order of women deacons. It kind of fell out of use around the 12th century, and I hope it can be restored.”
Are you hoping to see women deacons?
“There’s two different kinds of deacons here, and in fact, it’s mentioned in The New Testament in Romans 16:1-2, where Paul talks about Pheobe, who was a deacon of the church. When you think about it, that women could have this role of service in the church, especially when you see that vocations to religious life, to sisters and two monasteries are less and less, could this be a future for women in the church? I don’t know the answer to that. Maybe that’s where the door will open.”
If you had the opportunity to become ordained as a deaconess, is that something you would want to do?
“That’s such an interesting question because I’m a Catholic sister and I’ve taken vows and I’m practically living the life of what a deaconess would be living already.”
Since you’re a film critic, do you have any insider knowledge about the Pope’s favorite movies?
“I don’t, but how do you tell a Pope what to see? I have a feeling that Pope Leo watches movies, and I have a feeling he’s seen the movie that I would recommend to him, and that would be ‘Of Gods and Men.’ It was a French film from 2011. And it was about the Trappist monks who were martyred in Algeria in the 1990s. It’s about dialogue, it’s about discernment, it’s about community, it’s about service. It’s about everything that I know is important to this Holy Father.”
This interview was edited for clarity.
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Lynn Menegon produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Michael Scotto. Allison Hagan adapted it for the web.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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