Leo XIV’s meeting with Sarah Mullally fuels legal campaign against male-only priesthood

PARIS (LifeSiteNews) — French legal scholars have pointed to Pope Leo XIV’s cordial reception of female Anglican “archbishop” Sarah Mullally in renewed efforts to have the Catholic Church’s male-only priesthood treated as unlawful sex discrimination.

In an article published in the French newspaper La Croix on July 12, a group of French academics pushed to challenge the Catholic Church’s exclusion of women from Holy Orders, arguing that Pope Leo’s April reception of Mullally has reignited the issue as one of unlawful sex discrimination under European law.

“The exclusion of women from ordained ministries constitutes, from the standpoint of ordinary anti-discrimination law, a differentiation that is difficult to justify,” the French legal scholars wrote.

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The article stated that Leo XIV’s meeting in April with Mullally generated “astonishment” and “hope” because it highlighted the contrast between Anglicanism, which ordains women to senior offices, and the Catholic Church, which continues to reserve the priesthood to men.

The authors also linked the meeting with the Catholic Church’s continuing calls to pray for priestly vocations, arguing that such appeals “implicitly reaffirmed a call reserved for men only for the priesthood.” They said this coincidence revived long-standing questions about whether the Church’s exclusion of women from ordination can still be considered “legitimate” in light of contemporary juridical and social developments.

Rather than disputing Catholic doctrine directly, the signatories sought to relocate the debate into the civil sphere, because they concern “equality between men and women and the prohibition of discrimination.”

For this reason, they argue that the debate over women’s ordination should no longer remain inside the Church, but instead be addressed by European civil courts.

Their legal analysis contends that reserving ordination exclusively to men constitutes “direct discrimination” on the basis of sex because women are categorically denied access to positions that exercise the “governing, teaching, and sanctifying” authority within the Church. Since the distinction is explicitly based on gender and applies without exception, they maintain that it corresponds to the definition of direct discrimination found in French and European law.

The essay highlights that international law requires states to “combat discrimination” wherever it occurs, even when it is “rooted” in institutional or social norms.

However, the scholars acknowledge that religious freedom presents a “major obstacle” to such claims. The group notes that the European Court of Human Rights consistently recognizes “broad institutional autonomy for religious communities, including the right to define their internal rules and the conditions for accessing religious positions,” without state interference.

Nevertheless, they argue that this autonomy should not be regarded as “absolute.” Referring to European Union law, they contend that “differences in treatment based on religious beliefs” must be “essential, legitimate, and justified – and be subject to effective judicial review.”

This leads, they claim, to what they describe as the central juridical problem. Accepting sex as a criterion for priestly ordination amounts to claiming that “biological affiliation,” in itself, represents a “professional qualification.” Furthermore, they complain that this criterion “establishes a hierarchy among the faithful based on sex.”

They further state that the issue extends beyond the Catholic Church itself, presenting what they describe as a broader question for democratic societies: how far exemptions based on religious autonomy should be permitted when they appear to conflict with the universal application of “fundamental rights.”

The text concludes with a warning-like declaration: “Ultimately, one thing is certain: equality between women and men is intended to apply to all social spaces – including those that claim religious autonomy.”

The Catholic Church has consistently taught that it lacks authority from God to confer priestly ordination on women. In 1994, Pope John Paul II declared in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis that “the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women,” adding that this judgment “is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful.”