ROME
The Tablet
02 February 2015 by Liz Dodd, Hannah Roberts in Rome
A new Vatican report has warned that the Church’s image of women does not correspond to reality, and called for them to be given decision-making roles.
However, days ahead of the Pontifical Council for Culture’s 4-7 February conference, which will focus on women’s issues, the organisers removed from their site a video promoting the event because of “a very negative reaction from both conservative and progressives in Anglo-Saxon countries.”
Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, head of the dicastery, said that bishops had also written to him privately to express their concerns about the English-language version of a video featuring a blonde Italian actress Nancy Brilli (pictured above).
The authors of a discussion document for the conference warn the Church against using “rhetoric and clichés” to portray women as an “army” of teachers, catechists, mothers and grandmothers – a depiction it says that “seems to belong to a small ancient world that is disappearing”.
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