Pope Leo XIV Turns a Blind Eye to First ‘Mass’ Revolt from Female Preachers
Catholic theologians affirm the apostleship of St. Junia to promote the pulpit ministry of women
Pope Leo XIV has chosen to stay silent in response to the first insurrection of his papacy: Scores of female preachers have defied church law by preaching at Mass in the first week of his tenure.
“We are simply unstoppable!” the Catholic Women’s Association of Germany (KfD) declared in a statement, trumpeting the success of the sixth annual Women Preachers’ Day(s) event organized to coincide with the feasts of St. Catherine of Siena and St. Junia from April 29 to May 17.
“Every year, more women participate in the Women Preachers’ Day,” said KfD’s spiritual director Ulrike Göken-Huismann. “Many women in the Catholic Church know they are called to interpret and proclaim the Word of God; they are ready to follow their calling.”
Despite Rome’s laws strictly forbidding laymen and women from preaching during Mass, last year, 180 Catholic women nationwide preached more than 200 sermons during services.
Canon Law Bans Women from Preaching
The Catholic Church’s Code of Canon Law (767 §1) states that “the homily, which is part of the liturgy itself and is reserved [only] to a priest or deacon.”
The General Instruction of the Roman Missal expressly bans lay preachers, stating:
The homily should ordinarily be given by the priest celebrant himself. He may entrust it to a concelebrating priest or occasionally, according to circumstances, to the deacon, but never to a layperson.
The Congregation for Divine Worship, in its instructional document Redemptionis Sacramentum, specifically prohibits “laypersons from preaching within the Mass.” It applies the rule “also to seminarians, students of theological disciplines” and “pastoral assistants,” adding: “nor is there to be any exception for any other kind of layperson, or group, or community, or association.”
“For official church representatives, man-made canon law still takes precedence over charisms with which women and men are equally endowed,” Göken-Huismann said. “Hence, the KfD never tires of pointing this out, for example, with the Women Preachers’ Day.”
The KfD is demanding full equality between women and men and women’s access to all services and offices in the Catholic Church. It laments that the Church’s magisterium continues to deny women the sacramental ministry of deacon and priest, even declaring it impossible.
Germany’s Hierarchy Welcomes Female Preachers
Despite the Vatican’s prohibitions, most bishops, priests, and theologians in Germany have backed laypeople of both genders as preachers for over three decades, with most German dioceses welcoming laywomen preaching the homily during Mass.
In 1988, Georg Moser, bishop of Rottenburg-Stuttgart, issued regulations on “The Extraordinary Preaching Service of Laity in the Eucharistic celebration.” Ten years later, Cardinal Walter Kasper approved the practice, advising dioceses “to stick to the existing practice of lay preaching in the Eucharistic celebration through full-time services [of lay preachers] commissioned by the bishop.”
The bishops also recommended a liturgical formula for priests to pronounce over lay preachers before they go to the pulpit.
Immediately before the sermon, the preacher approaches the priest standing at the sedilia and asks for the blessing: “I ask for the blessing.” Then the priest speaks the words of blessing in a low voice: “The Lord be in your heart and on your lips, so that you proclaim his gospel worthily, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.”
Vatican Opposes Germany’s Inclusion of Lay Preachers
In March 2023, the German Synodal Way approved the document titled “Proclamation of the Gospel by Lay People in Word and Sacrament,” asking bishops to “obtain permission for this from the Holy See to allow the homily in Eucharistic celebrations to be preached by theologically and spiritually qualified faithful commissioned by the bishop.”
Cardinal Arthur Roche, prefect for the Vatican’s Dicastery for Divine Worship, objected to the proposals, warning that “misunderstandings about the figure and identity of the priest” could “arise in the consciousness of the Christian community” if lay people preached at Mass.
“Word and sacrament are inseparable realities, and inasmuch as they are not merely formal expressions of the exercise of sacra potestas [sacred power], they are neither separable nor can they be separable,” Roche maintained.
“This is not an exclusion of the laity,” he wrote, “nor is it, of course, a denial of the right and duty of every baptized person, male or female, to proclaim the Gospel, but rather a confirmation of the specificity of this form of proclamation, which is the homily.”
Pope Leo Could Relax Canon Law on Female Preachers
One Vatican insider told The Stream that it is “highly unlikely that Pope Leo would act to quell the rebellion since it isn’t clear where he stands on laymen or women preaching during Mass.”
During the first session of the Synod on Synodality in October 2023, Leo, then-Cardinal Robert Prevost, told journalists that ordaining women would mean “clericalizing women” and that it “doesn’t necessarily solve a problem, it might make a new problem.”
But he said he was willing “to look at a new understanding or different understanding of both leadership, power, authority, and service — above all service — in the Church from the different perspectives that can be, if you will, brought to the life of the Church by women and men.”
According to an editorial in the National Catholic Reporter,
In interviews … [Leo] connects synodality’s efforts to make the church’s structures more inclusive and participatory as key to addressing polarization gripping the church.
For now we can only state, but state with certainty, that the cardinals have chosen someone committed to the reforms Pope Francis began. The new pope will chart his own path, to be sure, but we know the direction in which he is headed.
Biblical Endorsement of Female Apostles
The KfD has used Junia from the New Testament — a leader in the first-century Roman church whose feast is traditionally celebrated on May 17 — to promote its campaign for female lay preachers.
Paul tells us that Andronicus and his wife, Junia, were both imprisoned for the sake of Jesus: “Greet Andronicus and Junia, my fellow Jews who have been in prison with me. They are outstanding among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was” (Romans 16:7).
Scholars have debated whether Junia was a woman and if she could be termed an “apostle.” While most English translations from the 1940s to the early 1970s translate Iounian as the masculine name Junias, older translations and more recent revisions render Iounian as the feminine “Junia.”
The English Standard Version, an evangelical translation recently approved by multiple Catholic Bishops’ Conferences for liturgical use, uses the feminine “Junia” in the text, but concedes in a footnote that the name could be rendered as the masculine “Junias.”
Scholars argue that while the masculine Junias does not occur in any inscription, epitaph, letterhead, or literary work of the New Testament period, the feminine Junia occurs widely and frequently.
Bible translators who attempt to downplay Paul’s acknowledgement of Junia as an apostle render the phrase “outstanding among the apostles” with expressions like “well known to the apostles” or “held in high esteem in the estimation of the apostles.”
However, the Latin Vulgate — the official translation of the Roman Catholic Church — renders the phrase as “Junia … notable among the apostles” (nobiles in apostolis), clarifying that Junia was indeed regarded as a female apostle.
Patristic scholars cite St. John Chrysostom, who regarded Junia as a female apostle and wrote:
To be an apostle is something great. But to be outstanding among the apostles — just think what a wonderful song of praise that is! … Indeed, how great the wisdom of this woman must have been that she was even deemed worthy of the title of apostle.
After a detailed linguistic study of the verse, the New Testament scholar Prof Linda L. Beleville concludes:
Thus the clearest reading of this reference to Junia yields an example of a woman not only functioning as an “apostle” in the New Testament church but being highly esteemed as such by Paul and his apostolic colleagues. This flies in the face of arguments that Jesus excluded women from the Twelve because their gender precluded their functioning as apostles.
The Stream contacted the Holy See Press Office to ask if Pope Leo will act to quell the rebellion or will relax canon law to permit women to preach during Mass.
The women in Germany have no plans to stop.
“The KfD will continue its campaign in 2026,” Göken-Huismann said. “It hopes, on the one hand, that many women will preach around the feast of the Apostle Junia on May 17, and, on the other, that women will receive official canonical permission to preach during the Eucharist.”
Dr. Jules Gomes (BA, BD, MTh, PhD) has a doctorate in biblical studies from the University of Cambridge. Currently a Vatican-accredited journalist based in Rome, he is the author of five books and several academic articles. Gomes lectured at Catholic and Protestant seminaries and universities and was canon theologian and artistic director at Liverpool Cathedral.