Pope Francis has been slammed over his stance on women’s role in society, after he claimed it is ‘bad when the woman wants to be the man’.
Students at a Belgium catholic university, where the 87-year-old made a speech yesterday afternoon, distributed a statement afterwards in which they expressed their ‘incomprehension and disapproval’ at his views.
‘UCLouvain … deplores the conservative positions expressed by Pope Francis on the role of women in society,’ said the statement.
He had been at the educational institute, which has around 38,000 students studying across 20 faculties, to celebrate its upcoming 600th anniversary.
His speech largely called for global action on climate change, but he also responded to a letter to him from students and professors that had asked about the Catholic Church’s teaching on women.
The Pope said: ‘We must remember that women are at the very heart of salvation history. It is thanks to the ‘yes’ of Mary that God himself came into the world.
‘The woman is a fertile welcome, care, vital dedication. That is why the woman is more important than the man. But it is bad when the woman wants to be the man.
‘No, it is the woman. And this is heavy, it is important. Let us open our eyes to the many daily examples of love, friendship, work, study, social and ecclesial responsibility, from marriage to motherhood, to virginity for the Kingdom of God and for service.’
In response the catholic university of Louvain rector said: ‘We cannot agree on this position for sure. We are fighting against discrimination for women, and we would like women to have another role in the society and in the church also.
‘We are happy that he agrees on other points of our brief, but, regarding the place of the woman in the society, we cannot agree with his position.’
‘It’s very conservative, and it’s not the way we want to do in Louvain. We want to be open that everybody can develop in our university; women, men, whatever their sexuality or their sexual orientation.
‘It’s really not our position. So we we are we are not agreeing with him on this point.’
The Catholic Church has an all-male clergy and although Pope Francis created two commissions to consider whether women could serve as deacons, but this issue has still not yet moved forward.
However, during his 11 years as pontiff, Francis has also changed the Vatican’s primary governing document to allow women to lead departments, and has also allowed women to vote at major global meetings of bishops, known as synods, for the first time.
Victoria Coppin, a 21-year-old civil engineering student said: ‘I am quite disappointed and deeply shocked by the statements of the Pope on the place of women.
‘We can see that he is separating the roles of women and men in society by reducing women to their roles of motherhood, being wives and ‘fertile welcome.’
‘For me, that’s extremely problematic right now, especially when we here that just a couple of hours ago, he deemed the position on abortions as a deadly position.
‘When we hear him talk about dignity, the dignity that is in the flesh, in his speech, for me, this (comments on women) is a direct attack on the dignity of women to have this discourse on abortions because their bodies are directly being seen as instruments, and that’s quite shocking to me.’