Women will never be priests, Pope Francis says

Pope Francis has spoken against discrimination against gay and lesbian people and divorced Catholics, but when it comes to female priests he’s sticking with tradition.

When a female reporter asked the Pope on Tuesday if he thought women would one day be able to serve as priests and bishops, the pontiff’s response was a resounding no.

“St. Pope John Paul II had the last clear word on this and it stands,” Francis said during a news conference aboard the papal plane on the flight from Sweden back to Rome, according to Reuters. While in Sweden he was greeted by the head of the Lutheran Church, who is a woman.

Former Pope John Paul II, who passed in 2005 and was canonized a saint in 2014, wrote a document in 1994 essentially saying women would never become priests of the Catholic Church.

“Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church's divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren, I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful,” John Paul II wrote at the time.

The reporter pressed on with Francis, asking, “But forever, forever? Never, never?”

“If we read carefully the declaration by St. John Paul II, it is going in that direction,” Francis responded.

The Second Vatican Council held in the 1960s explained the church’s view on this point.

“The Lord Jesus chose men to form the college of the twelve apostles, and the apostles did the same when they chose collaborators to succeed them in their ministry. The college of bishops, with whom the priests are united in the priesthood, makes the college of the twelve an ever-present and ever-active reality until Christ’s return,” the Catechism of the Catholic Church states. “The Church recognizes herself to be bound by this choice made by the Lord himself. For this reason the ordination of women is not possible.”

This story was originally published November 1, 2016 at 2:41 PM with the headline "Women will never be priests, Pope Francis says."