Sixty-four percent of American Catholics say the Church should allow women to be ordained as priests, according to Pew Research. In several Latin American countries, women’s ordination is even more popular (in Brazil, a staggering 83 percent of Catholics are in favor). The survey was released just a few months after the late Pope Francis rejected the possibility of female deacons during an interview with 60 Minutes, a rejection all the more relevant after the question was raised in the Synod on Synodality. Kennedy writes: “I am genuinely baffled by the question of female ordination. Journalists are eager to highlight fringe groups like the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests and the Women’s Ordination Conference when they’re on the march, and surely there exist some women who want to be priests. But I have never met one in the wild. And by now I should have.”
