These Catholic Women Lit Pink Smoke To Protest The All-Male Conclave Choosing The New Pope
For the women, the pink smoke symbolized women being shut down from important meetings and lack of leadership roles in the Church.
A group of Catholic women released pink smoke near the Vatican to protest an all-male conclave choosing the new Pope, calling for gender equality in the Catholic Church.
In the Roman Catholic Church, women are not allowed to become priests, bishops or the pope based on the idea that Jesus’ apostles were all men.
Despite comprising the majority of the Church’s global membership, women also have no formal say in papal elections or doctrinal decisions.
The Women’s Ordination Conference, an US-based organization that advocates and trains women to become deacons, priests and bishops, organized the protest on Wednesday, May 7.
The women chanted, “Smoke out sexism”, while they released pink smoke, which was meant to mirror the white and black smoke released from the Sistine Chapel chimney to signal whether the cardinals had selected a new pope.
For the women, the pink smoke symbolized women being shut down from important meetings and lack of leadership roles in the Church.
“Our pink smoke is also a distress call that the cardinals cannot ignore: women’s equality cannot wait,” a press statement said.
Pope Francis’s successor, Pope Leo XIV, was elected by the conclave on May 8, and while he has publicly supported some of Francis’s decisions to increase women’s roles in the Church — such as allowing women to vote at a major meeting of bishops for the first time — he has also shown reservation about women’s ordination.
In 2023, he said ordaining women “doesn't necessarily solve a problem. It might make a new problem”, according to the Washington Post.
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