Is This a Priestess at the Youth Synod? Here's the Truth

There’s been a lot of talk about a photo of a young woman dressed in clerics at the Youth Syond.

The image shows a young woman dressed as a priestess, “wearing a black robe with an imprinted red chalice and white stole.”

According to this article, her name is Martina Viktorie Kopecká.

Some wondered if her presence implied that the Catholic Church has opened the door to the possibility of female priests.

What is she doing at the Synod?

Kopecká does not belong to the Catholic Church, but to the Czechoslovak Hussite Church, a Christian denomination that separated from the Catholic Church in 1920.

The 32-year-old attended the Synod as a guest on the list of fraternal delegates from other Christian faiths.

These delegates share their perspective on the theme of the Synod. According to the organizers, their purpose offers a broad and objective view of the reality of young people in the world.

Why are women not allowed to be Catholic priests?

As early as 1976, the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith responded to this question in Inter Insigniores.

The document argues that the masculinity of the priesthood comes from the people of Israel, when only men were priests and in charge of the faith.

Respecting this tradition, Christ elected twelve men to lead his Church. So his successors were, and still are, men.

The priesthood in the Catholic Church does not depend on any action or social work. Each member of the Body of Christ has a function based on his essence and not his capabilities.

No member of the Church is superior to another.

Each person has a mission in evangelization.

Women are just as valuable in the Church as men, even though they cannot be priests.

In this letter, St. John Paul II wrote:

“Yes, it is time to examine the past with courage, to assign responsibility where it is due in a review of the long history of humanity.

“Women have contributed to that history as much as men and, more often than not, they did so in much more difficult conditions…

“Woman complements man, just as man complements woman: men and women are complementary. Womanhood expresses the “human” as much as manhood does, but in a different and complementary way.”