Editor’s Note: This is an honorable mention from CBE’s 2025 Writing Competition. It is an open letter written by the author.
To His Holiness Pope Leo XIV and the Catholic Church,
With deepest respect and hope in the risen Christ, this message is offered as a testimony to Christ himself and to the kingdom he inaugurated.
Christ did not come to improve the systems of Caesar’s empire. He came to make all things new/kainos — qualitatively new and different, transformed (2 Cor. 5:17, Rev. 21:5). The Kingdom of God is not a cleaner or more benevolent version of male hierarchy but a Spirit-filled community of justice, dignity, and partnership — where daughters and sons alike proclaim, bear witness, and shepherd God’s creation and church.
Before pulpits or priesthoods, there were women who touched, carried, and anointed the body of Christ. In life, death, and resurrection, God entrusted his son’s body to women’s hands — a precedent both sacramental and apostolic.
- Mary of Nazareth, whose Magnificat became Scripture (Luke 1:46–55), carried the Holiest of Holies in her womb and was the first to whom God entrusted the care of his living incarnate body. As an icon of obedience to God, through her, God raised the status of women and the eligibility of such women to be his co-workers (1 Cor. 3:9), for full participation in Christ’s body — the church.[1]
- Mary of Bethany sat as a rabbinic student at the feet of the Holiest of Holies (Luke 10:39–42), and Jesus defended her right to this theological training (attending the best ‘seminary’ ever). She then anointed his living body (John 12:3) — an act no man performed — and was elevated by Christ for ministering to his living body, showing that women can administer His body and blood in the church today.
- Mary called the Magdalene, first to witness and touch the Holiest of Holies (John 20:17) and the first apostolic witness — sent by Christ to announce his resurrection. (The Greek haptou [touch] is present imperative, indicating actual physical contact had begun).[2]
Each Mary exemplifies a venerable biblical lineage of God-ordained women entrusted with leadership, proclamation, and service in covenant faithfulness. To recall but a few:
- Eve, in the Edenic creation design, was formed as ezer kenegdo (Gen. 2:18) — a strong aid and equal partner made in God’s image and commissioned as co-regent with Adam (Gen. 1:27–28). Even after the fall, God positioned her as a combatant of the serpent (Gen. 3:15) who had deceived her and opposed God’s love.
- Miriam, prophetess and worship leader in front of the Israelite people, was sent by God alongside Moses and Aaron to lead the Hebrews out of Egypt (Ex. 15:20–21; Mic. 6:4).
- Deborah, raised by God as Judge of Israel in a time when leadership was usually reserved for men (Jud. 2:16; Jud. 4–5).
- Huldah, prophetess whose word from God guided a king and nation to repentance (2 Kgs. 22:14–20, 23:1–25).
- Anna, prophetess who publicly praised God and declared the Christ child to all in the temple (Luke 2:36–38).
- The Samaritan Woman, the first to share Jesus’ self-revelation as Messiah and became an evangelist to her people (John 4:39).
- Martha, to whom Jesus first revealed that he is the resurrection and the life, and she, like Peter, gave the high Christological confession “… You are the Messiah, the Son of God” (John 11:25–27).
- Priscilla, together with Aquila, taught Apollos, taking him aside rather than publicly rebuking or correcting him, a mark of wise and discerning leadership. Often named before her husband Aquila, she taught a man outside the home; the Spirit would not then silence her when the church met in her own home (Acts 18:26; Rom 16:3–5).
- Phoebe, called diakonos (deacon) and prostatis (one who stands before[3], i.e., a leader; Rom. 16:1–2), entrusted to deliver Paul’s epistle and recognized as a church leader before the writing of the pastoral epistles.
- Junia, commended by Paul and early church fathers[4] as an apostle (Rom. 16:7).
The Spirit who empowered these biblical women fills the hearts of God’s daughters today, not merely for devotion, but for witness and service. Recognizing and receiving their full participation is an act of faithfulness to God and to Christ’s own tradition.
It is often argued that women cannot be ordained or lead in the church because Jesus chose only twelve men as apostles. Taken to its logical conclusion, this genetics argument would also disqualify non-Jewish clergy, since Jesus chose twelve Jewish men. Female genetics alone, then, cannot be the criterion for excluding women, especially when Jesus, the Father, and the Holy Spirit — eternal, omnipresent, and united in divine purpose – were present at Pentecost, where God’s daughters were empowered and commissioned to embody the church and proclaim God’s word (Acts 2:17) — not as exceptions, but as fulfillment (Joel 2:28).
Jesus chose twelve men:
- To correspond to the twelve tribes of Israel – a symbolic gesture of restoration within Israel’s covenant history and legally validating his identity as the promised Davidic Messiah sent to gather the lost sheep of Israel (Matt. 10:5–6, 15:24).
- As a closed[5] symbolic number — fulfilled by Matthias in the absence of Judas and never replicated in the history of the New Testament church — not even to include the Apostle Paul, who was called uniquely to the Gentiles.
- Not to establish a male priesthood or male-only church roles; the episkopoi (bishops/overseers), presbyteroi (elders), and diakonoi (deacons/ministers) of the early church did not emerge from the Twelve.[6]
- Not as a permanent blueprint, but as a strategic response to a patriarchal culture in which women’s testimony was not publicly recognized.[7]
- To extend the Gospel to all nations (Matt. 28:19) in a cross-border mission under threat of arrest, execution, and global hatred (Matt. 10:18; 24:9; Mark 13:12; Luke 21:12,16) — a task that, in that era, was culturally constrained and physically more perilous for women.
Yes, women who stayed close to home also faced danger; none who bore Christ’s name were safe. But the vital distinction is this: a Genesis 3:16 world chasing down new Christian women wherever they lived or voluntarily chose to travel to is one thing. Jesus knowingly, deliberately dispatching them into harm’s way is another. Sending women even farther – out of the country and into unreached, honor-bound cultures — would have risked a fate far worse than death for daughters, exposing them to dangers beyond what sons could likely face and threatening to silence the Gospel at its start. In divine wisdom, Jesus met human hardness not by endorsing injustice, but by protecting his mission. Just as Moses permitted divorce — not as God’s ideal but as a concession to hardened hearts (Matt 19:8) — so too did Jesus act with deliberate love and prudence, shielding his daughters from dishonor and danger while advancing the Gospel with unstoppable power.
As the gospel spread and Christ transformed hearts within his church, his ekklesia — his gathered, called-out people Scripture records (Matt. 28:10; John 4:28–30, 39–42; 20:17–18; Acts 1:14, 18:26; Rom. 16:1–7), and history confirms that Jesus equipped his daughters to testify, evangelize, teach, and lead openly. Their fuller participation was never a detour; it was always the intended destination.
The priesthood of the church rests on Christ’s own priesthood, which is in the order of Melchizedek. Melchizedek, King of Salem, King of peace and righteousness, and priest of God Most High, predates Abraham, who tithed to him. He also predates Israel’s later exclusive Jewish Aaronic priesthood. Scripture describes him as “without father or mother, without genealogy, without beginning of days or end of life, resembling the Son of God,” and declares that “he remains a priest forever” (Gen. 14:18–20; Heb. 7:3; Ps. 110:4). Jesus Christ, king of peace and righteousness and the perfect High Priest, is a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek (Heb. 7:1–10, 26–27). The church is the Body of Christ — the Body in which he lives and through which he is present in the world (Eph. 1:23; 5:30; Col. 1:17, 24; 1 Cor. 12). As Christ is the ultimate Servant King, Prophet, and High Priest, his Body, comprising both men and women, also participates in his ministry. In the Church, both men and women are priests (1 Pet. 2:5, 9–10). As the Body of Christ, the laos (people of God) includes the ordained and non-ordained alike, who together participate in Christ’s priestly ministry. Within this universal priesthood, the Spirit is given to both sons and daughters (Acts 2:17–18) and gives particular ministries -apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teachers — to equip all God’s people for works of service and build the Body toward Christ’s maturity (Eph. 4:11–15), alongside the ministries described elsewhere as episkopoi, presbyteroi, and diakonoi (1 Tim. 3:1–13; Tit. 1:5–9). This is the inclusive priesthood of the New Testament, in which Christ joins women and men to his royal priesthood and entrusts them with the building up of his Body (1 Pet. 2:5, 9–10; Eph. 4:11–15).
Bible translations shaped by a patriarchal mindset remain one of the great challenges in the life of the church, and urgent correction is needed. The Catholic church, with its vast influence and scholarly heritage, bears a sacred responsibility to lead this renewal through the dissemination of sound theological education — confronting Scripture’s historical realities through the living lens of Jesus Christ rather than deferring indefinitely to inherited tradition alone. Renewal must move from scholarship to practice. Sound scholarship must produce reformed thought; without reformed thought, there can be no reformed practice, and the church’s unity would be at risk. True unity means brothers and sisters serving to the best of their abilities, side by side in Christ’s mission, with the church remaining whole and undivided. History shows that resistance, not reform, fractures the church. Unity can be preserved when sound theological scholarship is faithfully received and lived out in love, grounded in Christ. For example, in Genesis 3:16,[8] God did not arur (curse) or limit the woman in any way[9]. She would experience ‘itsabon (sorrowful toil), just as the man would. This is not physical pain in childbirth. God would multiply her heron (conception/pregnancies), with the fruitful creation mandate of Genesis 1:28 remaining fully intact. Only the serpent and the ground were cursed. 1 Timothy 3:1–7[10] and Titus 1:6–9[11] contain no male personal pronouns in Greek that exclude women from ecclesiastical roles, only an idiom for monogamy (1 Tim. 3:2, Tit. 1:6) as in Exodus 20:17. Mistranslations, cultural fears, and practices have sometimes obscured God’s witness. But the Spirit’s pattern is clear: daughters were never sidelined in Christ’s mission, only in human tradition. The call for women’s ordination is not a modern innovation — it is rooted in Christ himself. Christ entrusted women then. The church is called to entrust them now.
The Magdalene was among the first to proclaim the risen Christ, news so unbelievable, yet she risked ridicule (Luke 24:11) and obeyed. To follow in her footsteps is to live with bold faith and obedience to Christ. May the church courageously advance the Kingdom of God’s justice, peace, and joy (Rom. 14:17) by fostering true equality in Christ (Gen. 1:28, Gal. 3:28) and interdependence within the church (1 Cor. 11:11,12:12–27) and lead her to welcome the daughters of God- not as exceptions, but as CO-HEIRS with Christ (Rom. 8:17) and full, faithful partners to minister and steward his church as he first entrusted them to do.
This is not a plea for power but a call to Gospel-rooted justice. Like the early church, may the present church embrace what Christ affirmed: that his Spirit calls daughters and sons to proclaim the Gospel, minister, shepherd, and lead. May the church become kainos.
In faith and hope,
On behalf of our sisters in Christ — now, and still to come,
Leno Thomas
In gratitude: The Very Rev. Cherian Thomas, PhD, New Testament, for theological insights and guidance.
Notes
[1] See John Paul II, Redemptoris Mater, Encyclical Letter on the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Life of the Pilgrim Church, March 25, 1987, §42, Vatican website, vatican.va, for the theological treatment of Mary as an icon of the obedience of faith; cf. William G. Witt, Icons of Christ: A Biblical and Systematic Theology for Women’s Ordination (Baylor University Press, 2021), 240–242, for the discussion of sacramental representation and clerical eligibility regarding women’s ordination.
[2] John Robert Kysar, Augsburg Commentary on the New Testament: John (Augsburg Publishing House, 1986), 300–301.
[3] Philip B. Payne, Man and Woman, One in Christ: An Exegetical and Theological Study of Paul’s Letters (Zondervan, 2009), [specific page]; Darius Jankiewicz, “Phoebe: Was She an Early Church Leader?” Ministry: International Journal for Pastors 85, no. 4 (April 2013): 11.
[4] John Chrysostom, “Homily 31 on Romans,” in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, vol. 11, ed. Philip Schaff (Hendrickson, 1994), 555; Theodoret of Cyrrhus, Commentary on Romans 16:7, Patrologia Graeca 82:220.
[5] D. A. Carson, Showing the Spirit: A Theological and Expositional Commentary on 1 Corinthians 12–14 (Baker Academic, 1987), 88; see also Hans Conzelmann, The Theology of St. Luke, trans. Geoffrey Buswell (Fortress Press, 1982), 217.
[6] Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, “The Twelve,” in Women Priests: A Catholic Commentary on the Vatican Declaration, ed. Arlene Swidler and Leonard Swidler (Paulist Press, 1977), 114–121, citing Raymond E. Brown, Priest and Bishop: Biblical Reflections (Paulist Press, 1970), 51–59.
[7] Israel W. Slotki, trans., The Babylonian Talmud: Tractate Shevuot (Soncino Press, 1935), 30a.
[8] Joy Fleming, A Rhetorical Analysis of Genesis 2–3 with Implications for a Theology of Man and Woman (PhD diss., Université de Strasbourg, 1987); Tamara Cohn Eskenazi and Andrea L. Weiss, eds., The Torah: A Women’s Commentary (URJ Press, 2008), 16–17.
[9] Bruce C. Fleming, The Book of Eden: Genesis 2–3 (Think 7 Press, 2020), front cover; see also The Book of Eden: Genesis 2–3, passim.
[10] Phillip B. Payne, The Bible vs. Biblical Womanhood: How God’s Word Consistently Affirms Gender Equality (Zondervan, 2023), 151–154.
[11] Phillip B. Payne, The Bible vs. Biblical Womanhood: How God’s Word Consistently Affirms Gender Equality (Zondervan, 2023), 161.
Photo by Happy and Spice on Unsplash.
Related Resources
The Pope Has Ruled: Women are Not Subordinated in Creation
Icons of Christ: A Biblical and Systematic Theology for Women’s Ordination