Diane Winston on Pope Francis, women in the church

Knight Chair in Media and Religion Diane Winston wrote an op-ed for the LA Times concerning the absence of church gender equality discussions in the thus-far progressive tenure of Pope Francis. Noting the pope's open-minded stance on homosexuality, Winston said that women are more "neglected, disenfranchised and marginalized" by the church than the LGBT community. "The pope said the church needed to develop a theology that addressed the role of women," she wrote. "But, he clearly stated, those roles would never include the ordained ministry because Pope John Paul II expressly forbade it. (I leave it to Catholic scholars and theologians to explain why Francis can all but countermand Benedict's directives on gays but not John Paul's on women.)" Read the full article here.