Spanish diocese to host feminist ‘revolt’ group urging Pope Leo XIV to ordain women

MALAGA, Spain (LifeSiteNews) — The Diocese of Malaga in Spain is set to host a two-day event for a Catholic women’s group lobbying for female ordination.

The Women’s Revolt in the Church of the South announced it will hold its second regional gathering at the Diocesan Center in Malaga on June 6 and 7, bringing together “[m]ore than 60 Christian and feminist women from Andalusia, the Canary Islands, Extremadura, and Murcia.”

The event was announced on the official website of the Diocese of Malaga just days after the group penned an open letter to Pope Leo XIV to demand he end what they call the “discrimination” of excluding women from the priesthood.

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According to the organizers, the event will take place under the theme “Disciples of the Gospel, Artisans of Renewal.” The group said that participants “will meet in an atmosphere of reflection, spirituality, dialogue and commitment around the challenges that women face today within the Catholic Church.” The gathering purportedly aims to encourage discussion about “ecclesial renewal” through the lenses of synodality and what they describe as “baptismal equality.”

One of the central events of the meeting will be a keynote address by theologian Carme Soto Varela. Her presentation, titled “Women in the Renewal of the Church: Gospel and Synodality,” is intended to provide a basis for discussion about current opportunities and supposed challenges for women in the Church. Organizers say the lecture will be followed by “dialogue” sessions and “the development of proposals for the future.”

The gathering follows the June 1 publication of an open letter to Pope Leo by Women’s Revolt in the Church of the South on Spanish language website Religión Digital. In the text, members of the movement welcomed the new Pontiff while voicing concerns about the place of women in the Catholic Church, arguing that they “do not feel united with our male brothers” because of what they regard as unequal treatment based on gender.

“If we lift our gaze toward the Church, we feel invisible, ignored, separated, and discriminated against,” the women wrote, adding:

We hear you [Pope Leo] repeatedly calling for unity. Unity among Catholics is one of your favorite themes, but we women … do not feel united with our male brothers; rather, we feel separated simply because we are women.… Baptism has full consequences for men. It gives them the possibility of participating fully in the seven sacraments, placing them in a hierarchy above half of humanity. And for us women, simply by virtue of being women, there is one sacrament forbidden to us: Holy Orders. With the exception of the sacrament of marriage, we can only participate partially, solely as “listeners”: we can receive them but not administer them.… We will continue to raise our voices “until equality becomes the norm in the Church.”

“We have the feeling that our baptism is not complete; it is of water, not of the Spirit, not of Ruah, as we like to say,” the feminists claim.

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The word Ruah means “Holy Spirit” in Hebrew and is grammatically feminine, and for this reason it is instrumentalized by feminist theologians to support a feminine or androgynous identity of God.

“Baptism unites us to Christ with equal belonging and charisms, making all of us Sons and Daughters of God. That is the true union of all baptized people,” Women’s Revolt states, explaining their position that baptism represents “the filial relationship with a God who is Father‑Mother.”

“But in the Church, this is not the case,” they lament, before calling for Pope Leo to “do something: repair the damage, get involved in restoring the place to which we are called as daughters of the same God, and do not make excuses or pass by our wounds as the Levite and the priest did.”

In the original text, the word used to refer to “God” is rendered as Dixs, a misspelling of the Spanish word Dios (“God”) and an ideological neologism used by feminist and pro-LGBT groups to avoid the masculine gender of the original term.

The letter was signed by members of the movement from numerous Spanish dioceses and regions, including Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Malaga, Seville, Zaragoza, Santiago de Compostela, Bilbao, and others.

The group’s upcoming Malaga gathering represents the second such meeting organized by the network, the first having taken place in 2024. According to organizers, the movement has continued to “develop” since then as a network of women from different communities and regions who share a “common commitment” to their Catholic faith.

The bishop of Malaga, José Antonio Satué, courted controversy in an interview with the newspaper Málaga Hoy on February 15, stating that “being homosexual is not a sin” and that, consequently, the “blessing” of same‑sex couples permitted by Fiducia Supplicans would be “a step forward” for the Church.

He also added that, although the ordination of women to the priesthood is a “door that remains closed today” in the Church, a greater female presence in positions of responsibility within dioceses and Vatican dicasteries would be desirable, arguing that feminine leadership in the Catholic Church would be “normalized” in public opinion in this way.