The Pope has appointed a woman as prefect of a dicastery of the Apostolic See, the one for religious orders.
The case is puzzling. Either the new “prefect” can exercise ecclesiastical authority in the name of the Pope (cf. Codex Iuris Canonici, can. 360), as is the case with the other prefects of the curia.
As she is a layperson, we would be back in the days of the German imperial Church.
At that time, as is well known, there were “bishops” who held the office in question and exercised ecclesiastical authority without having been ordained bishops.
The damage was immense. The outbreak of the Reformation had a lot to do with this serious grievance.
Or the new “prefect” cannot exercise proper executive Church authority in this function after all.
Then the appointment is a fake, a pure show.
The “prefect” would then only be a kind of titular prefect. Her title would be a title without means. Has she been given a cardinal, who is a bishop, as a “pro-prefect” on the same day, who has to sign everything that has to do with ecclesiastical jurisdiction because the “prefect” herself has no authority to do so?
The appointment was made public without comment.
It therefore appears that the Pope is willing to restore the medieval abuse mentioned above. If this is the case, the following must be stated:
A layman as prefect with jurisdictional power – whether man or woman – would first of all be a betrayal of the Second Vatican Council. For this Council cleared up the medieval abuses by stating (Lumen Gentium, 21): “Episcopal ordination confers with the office of sanctification also the offices of teaching and leadership, which, however, by their very nature can be exercised only in hierarchical communion with the head and members of the college.” This expresses the unity and inseparability of the power of consecration and the power of leadership. Consecration is the ability to receive the power of governance. It has therefore no longer been possible to separate these powers.
It has always been disgraceful that the incumbent pope has insulted believers by saying that they are “indietrists,” backward-looking people. Now, however, this would also become hypocrisy. For the Pope would make himself an “indietrist,” going back before Vatican II and restoring medieval abuses.
And that’s not all: the Codex Iuris Canonici of 1983, in can. 129 § 1, based on Lumen Gentium 21, states: “Those who have received sacred orders are qualified, according to the norm of the prescripts of the law, for the power of governance, which exists in the Church by divine institution and is also called the power of jurisdiction.”
Can. 274 states more clearly: “Only clerics can obtain offices for whose exercise the power of orders or the power of ecclesiastical governance is required.”
If a woman religious, who cannot be and is not a cleric, were now to exercise ordinary vicarious authority as prefect of a dicastery of the Roman Curia, this would constitute a breach of canon law on a vital issue.
Of course, the Pope can break canon law. There are no consequences for him, but there are for the Church. Can. 333 § 3 reads: “No appeal or recourse is permitted against a sentence or decree of the Roman Pontiff.” And can. 1404 emphasizes accordingly: “The First See is judged by no one.”
However, the problem of the pope breaking the law is not a legal one but a moral one concerning the unity of the Church. In his commentary on the “Nota explicativa praevia,” which is an integral part of Lumen Gentium, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger emphasized “that in his actions the Pope is not subject to any external tribunal that could act as an appellate authority against him, but is bound by the internal claim of his office, the revelation of the Church. This inner claim of his office, however, also undoubtedly includes a moral commitment to the voice of the universal Church” (Commentary on ‘Lumen Gentium,’ in: Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, 2nd edition, Supplementary Volume I, p. 356).
If this “pact” between the Pope and the universal Church, which – as already mentioned – is not a legal but a moral one, were to be broken by the Pope, it would plunge the Church into chaos.
For if the Pope still had a last shred of integrity, he would no longer be able to accuse anyone of disregarding Vatican II or breaking canon law. For he would now have done both himself on an important issue. Who should abide by doctrine and laws if the “guardian” of doctrine and laws no longer abides by them?
If the appointment of a “prefect” is anything more than a deepfake that only pretends that a layperson can exercise proper vicarious leadership, the Feast of the Epiphany in 2025 will go down in the history of the Church as the day on which all members of the Church were de facto released by the Pope from obedience to the doctrine and order of the Church.
After all, no one would then be able to honestly demand obedience if the supreme shepherd himself was no longer willing to do so.
But even if the new “prefect” is only an operetta prefect, the damage has already been done.
Because the anger of women who are enthusiastic about becoming bishops would be boundless.
They would feel that they had been taken for a ride, the victims of an attempted deception. And anyone who has tried to maintain the last remnants of theological seriousness under this pontificate would also be the victim of such a premature April Fool’s joke.
Enough is enough.