It has been 22 years since Pope John Paul II declared that the exclusion of women from the priesthood was a settled matter and no longer up for discussion. The decree was so absolute that at least one bishop was fired after he suggested, years later, that elevating women to the priesthood could be one way to solve the Roman Catholic church’s chronic shortage of clergy.
But on Friday, thousands of priests and other Catholics who live and work in the Vatican will come face to face with a feminist movement that aims to break one of the church’s most salient taboos. Dozens of posters of women serving illicitly as priests – essentially under excommunication – are due to be plastered across the Rome neighbourhood of Trastevere and around St Peter’s Square, as part of a provocative campaign against the ban.
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