In his first Apostolic Exhortation"Evangelii gaudium" from 2013, he already spoke of the "legitimate rights of women", the equal dignity of men and women and the "deep questions" that "challenge" the Church and which "cannot be circumvented superficially" (EG 104).
As a priest and later Archbishop of Buenos Aires, he has worked with many women who have taken on pastoral responsibilities, he has experienced violence and hardship, especially among women in the poor areas of the big cities, and has not held back in his criticism of machismo.
He is aware of the competences of women in educational work and theology; he has supported the network of women theologians Teologanda, which was established at the theological faculty in Villa Devoto in Buenos Aires, and he explicitly mentions the "new impulses" that women theologians give in "Evangelii gaudium" - in the knowledge that "the spaces for a more effective female presence in the Church still need to be expanded" (EG 104).
It is precisely here that the Pope took key steps during his pontificate that even his successor cannot take back: During his pontificate, there has been an opening of leadership positions in the Church to women - in the Vatican itself, but also in many local churches around the world.
In April 2022, Pope Francis appointed the Italian economist and Don Bosco sister Alessandra Smerilli as the first woman to be appointed "secretario" of a Vatican authority, the Dicastery for Integral Development.
In July 2022, three women were appointed as members of the Dicastery for Bishops, including the President of the World Union of Catholic Women's Organisations (WUCWO), María Lía Zervino from Argentina.
For the first time, a woman heads one of the central Vatican authorities
The appointment of the Italian nun Simona Brambilla as Prefect of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life on 6 January 2025 is particularly significant; this is the first time a woman has headed one of the central Vatican authorities.
The reform of the Curia, which the Pope initiated on 20 March 2022 with the Apostolic Constitution "Praedicate Evangelium", prepared the ground for this step.
Certainly, the Consolata Missionary Sister Simona Brambilla, Superior General of her community from 2011 to 2023, has been given a pro-prefect, a priest, at her side - here it becomes clear that it still needs to be clarified how the leadership and associated decision-making powers in a Roman authority can be understood by a woman, by a non-consecrated person.
The last significant step to date was the appointment of Raffaella Petrini, an economist and nun, as head of government of the Vatican State on 1 March 2025.
Alongside these clear church policy decisions, the Pope's theological statements on women - especially in speeches, addresses and interviews - remain highly ambivalent. It becomes clear how he struggles to honour women and at the same time make it clear that the participation of women has a very specific limit: their inclusion in sacramental ministries.
He emphasises that women are "even more important in the life of the Church" and bases this on specifically "feminine" values, that women are "fruitful receptivity, care, living devotion - that is why women are more important than men", he said during his visit to the Catholic universities in Leuven and Louvain-la-Neuve on 27 and 28 September 2024.
These are statements that are not only met with criticism in the secular contexts of Europe - it is precisely here that a boundary becomes clear that affects not only the Pope's theology, but also the gender anthropology of the Church's magisterium.
During his studies in Germany, Pope Francis, born in Buenos Aires in 1936, studied the theologian Romano Guardini, who speaks of a difference between the sexes in the context of a romantic idealisation of women and ascribes specific typologies to the male and female. This gender model based on polarity and complementarity pervades the Pope's "theology of women" and has an impact on the doctrine of the sacraments and the theology of ministry.
The Church is female, she is the bride of Christ, and Christ stands opposite the Church, he can only be represented by a man - these are formulations that are repeatedly taken up in the magisterial rejection of the admission of women to sacramental ministries in the years of Francis' pontificate.
Pope Francis already emphasised in "Evangelii Gaudium" that precisely this question is "not open to discussion": "The priesthood reserved for men as a sign of Christ, the Bridegroom, who gives himself in the Eucharist, is a question that is not open to discussion." (EG 104)
"Female mysticism is more important than the ministry of men"
On the return flight from Brussels to Rome after his trip to Belgium in September 2024, he took up this argument again, rejecting the criticism levelled at his statements on women in the Church from various quarters. "Female mysticism is more important than the ministry of men," said the Pope, criticising above all a "feminism" that would "masculinise" women.
Following the Amazon Synod in October 2019, at which many women involved in pastoral work and theology spoke of the need to establish a diaconate for women in view of the pastoral emergency in the vast regions of Amazonia, Pope Francis set up a commission to clarify this issue theologically.
In view of the controversies within the commission and the divergent results on the historical and theological status of the diaconate for women, the work of this commission was discontinued, but even after the work of a new commission was completed, no results have yet been presented.
These will - presumably - be included in the publication of the work of Study Group 9 on "theological criteria and synodal methods for a common discernment of controversial doctrinal, pastoral and ethical issues", which, following the meetings of the 16th Ordinary Synod of Bishops held in October 2023 and October 2024 on the topic of"For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation and Mission", will also deal with questions regarding further opportunities for women to participate in the Church and the diaconate for women.
Pope Francis and his vocation of women
Pope Francis has taken an important step by appointing 55 women from different continents out of a total of 368 synod members as voting members of the synod and other women - including theologians and canon lawyers - to the group of "esperti" and "periti".
Likewise, the consultation process for the Pope and the Council of Cardinals, which took place in the Vatican between December 2023 and June 2024, should not be underestimated and in which controversial questions of a "theology of women", the gender anthropology of Hans Urs von Balthasar, the debates on women's access to ordained ministries and questions on gender relations and power in the Church were discussed.
It is a novelty in the history of the Roman Catholic Church that a pope initiated such a consultation process and wrote a foreword for each of the publications that immediately followed the symposia.
These developments make it clear that even in the Vatican it is no longer possible for men alone to talk about women and issues affecting them, but that women - theologians, philosophers, canon lawyers, economists, etc. - must be included in these consultations.
Even if the Pope himself has not distanced himself from a "theology of women" and the doors remain closed with regard to the admission of women to sacramental ministries, the insistence on a "theology of women" that is outdated in theological and scientific terms makes it clear that the debate on sacramental ministries for women has become one of the central questions of the reform of the Church during Francis' pontificate, which even a successor to the Pope can no longer silence.