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When talk turns to “women in the church,” the normal association in the public mind is with debates over the ordination of women to the priesthood. Because there’s been no movement on that front, the tendency is often to assume the “women’s question” is frozen in place.
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In reality, however, the last few decades have seen a broad trend towards appointing women to positions of ecclesiastical leadership that don’t require sacramental ordination. In the United States, for example, 48.4 percent of all administrative positions in dioceses today are held by women. At the most senior levels, 26.8 percent of executive positions are held by women.
On Thursday, another crack in the glass ceiling appeared in the Vatican itself: For the first time, a lay woman was appointed to one of the three key leadership positions inside a dicastery, or department, of the Roman Curia.
On January 21, Pope Benedict XVI named Italian lay woman Flaminia Giovanelli, 61, a longtime official of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, as the new under-secretary of that council.