The Catholic Church’s culture problem is closer to home than Pope Leo thinks

(RNS) — Nearly a year after Pope Leo XIV told a Rome meeting of synod team leaders that the problem of including women in Catholic Church management and ministry was essentially a cultural issue , there has been little movement on the issue in dioceses around the world. To complicate matters, women are treated as second-rate in many secular societies, and the church, while counter-cultural in so many ways, supports such stumbling blocks for women.

Significantly, as the Curia has added women to significant managerial positions, the altar rail remains a barrier to women in liturgical ministry.

As for management, this month at the Vatican, Sister Alessandra Smerilli became the new prefect of a major curial office, the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development. For five years, she was the dicastery’s secretary, or No. 2 official, under Canadian Cardinal Michael Czerny. Now she leads some 80 dicastery members in an office dedicated to the church’s central mission: acting on the precepts of the gospel throughout the world.

Two other women now have been announced to lead Curia offices: Sister Simona Brambilla leads the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and the…