The Pope and the Vatican: Divine Right or Male Monopoly? Elderly Men Excluding Women and Youth in the Name of Heaven

Although I am not religious, I extend my heartfelt condolences to all Catholic believers on the passing of Pope Francis – Jorge Mario Bergoglio – and congratulations on the agreement among the cardinals in selecting a new Pope, Leo XIV – Robert Francis Prevost. This spiritual moment holds its significance and deserves respect, as it represents the Catholic individual s relationship with their God, a personal bond that must not be interfered with or imposed upon others.
However, at a historic moment that calls for a reevaluation of all forms of authoritarian power, the scene of electing the Pope of the Vatican emerges as a stark example of how women and youth are excluded from spiritual decision-making positions within religious institutions. The process remains restricted to elderly male cardinals, within a traditional religious structure that does not allow women to run for or vote in the election. It also practically excludes the youth, even if there are no explicit texts stating this. This takes place while women and young people constitute the majority of Catholic believers worldwide. Limiting the choice of the person who is supposed to represent Christ and the Catholics on Earth to elderly men alone not only reflects the persistence of a patriarchal system but also signals a significant detachment from the spirit of the times regarding the values of equality and human emancipation.
The Left and the Position on Religion
Before delving into the main issue, it is important to address how the Electronic left views religion. In the current context, it calls for religion to be neutralized in the state, without demanding a complete separation, while guaranteeing freedom of religion and belief as a non-negotiable personal right. Respecting the religious beliefs of the general public is part of the state’s commitment to ensuring space for intellectual and religious pluralism. The relationship between an individual and their religion should remain personal and not be imposed on others. According to this vision, the state becomes responsible for managing this balance by maintaining neutrality toward all religions, abolishing official state religions, and providing support to religious institutions as mass organizations, provided that this support is equal and reflects the level of religiosity in society without favoring one faith over another.
Neutralization represents a realistic and balanced option today. It recognizes that religion has not been fully separated from the state in any part of the world, including the advanced secular Western countries. Religion continues to play a cultural and social role in shaping national identity and remains part of public life, where religious institutions are funded, religious holidays are included in official calendars, and most religious rituals are respected as part of cultural diversity. Neutralization means establishing a framework that prevents religion from being used as a tool of governance, legislation, oppression, or discrimination, while preserving its cultural and social role. Full separation may be impractical today depending on the level of religiosity in societies and could provoke unnecessary social tensions. Therefore, leftist and progressive forces should avoid proposing this option in countries or contexts where religion holds a strong presence and is a core element of cultural and public identity, in order to avoid potentially negative impacts on their mass role.
Neutralizing religion does not mean marginalizing or excluding it. Rather, it means ensuring that the state maintains an equal distance from all religions. This oversight ensures that religious institutions do not become tools for promoting religious or sectarian extremism or for enforcing ideological dominance. Those working within religious institutions should be educated in state institutions that focus on promoting religious and intellectual pluralism, rejecting violence and extremism, and respecting the right to believe or not believe as part of individual freedom of belief. They should also offer contemporary interpretations of religious texts that take into account intellectual, scientific, and human rights developments. This approach enhances social cohesion by treating religion as a cultural and social element rather than a political or ideological tool. Neutralizing religion can help protect the state from sectarian divisions and religious discrimination and contribute to the creation of a public space where religious diversity is respected.
It is essential to affirm that religion is not inherently a contradiction. Its emergence, continuation, or decline is the result of political, economic, social, and cultural conditions that have evolved throughout history. Therefore, the left should avoid direct confrontation with the religious beliefs of the masses and instead advocate for a rational and scientific dialogue that highlights the progressive and positive aspects of religions that can contribute to building a more just and equal system. At the same time, it must adopt a scientific critique of the negative aspects of religions that conflict with scientific development, human rights, equality, and progressive thought, while taking into account the historical context in which these aspects were formed. This balanced scientific approach aims to influence believing masses positively and draw them closer to leftist ideas, within a framework that respects the diversity of cultural and religious contexts and historical experiences.
In many developed countries, such as the Scandinavian nations, the need for religion and religious institutions has significantly declined due to economic, social, and political development, in addition to achieving high levels of security and various forms of welfare. In these societies, religion has become more of a historical legacy than a daily practice. Many places of worship have closed or been abandoned, and some have even been converted into hotels, restaurants, or cultural centers. These transformations reflect a deep change in general attitudes toward more secular patterns of life, where the role of religion in public life has been greatly reduced while remaining a personal or symbolic choice for some individuals.
As for fundamentalist religious forces that seek to establish authoritarian religious regimes, they are reactionary forces working against democratic and leftist thought. They promote agendas that contradict human rights and must be exposed and confronted by all possible means, given their exploitation of religion to justify discrimination and oppression. On the other hand, enlightened and reformist religious currents and figures who seek to offer scientific and modern interpretations of religious texts and traditions, aligning them with values of human rights, equality, and scientific progress, should be supported.

The Election of the Pope in 2025
Regardless of one s intellectual position on religions in general or Catholicism in particular, I address this issue from a progressive and human rights perspective. I view the Catholic Church as a massive popular organization encompassing a large number of believers, most of whom come from working-class backgrounds, and it has a deep spiritual and daily impact on their lives. Given the Church’s undeniable presence in the lives of hundreds of millions around the world, we must call for making it more democratic, especially in a world witnessing continuous social revolutions and transformations against all forms of authoritarianism, especially gender, ethnic, religious, and age-based discrimination. Despite these transformations, the election of the Pope still takes place within a closed circle of male elders, with an average age approaching seventy, in a ritual that reminds us of medieval structures that monopolized power in the name of divine right and consecrated the exclusion of women, youth, and the broader Catholic faithful as sacred and untouchable.
This patriarchal arrangement stands in sharp contrast with the values of justice and equality as outlined in human rights charters and modern developments. It opens the door to a broader discussion about the urgent need to reform many aspects of the Church’s institutional structure.
In light of this reality, it is helpful to look at the experiences of other churches that have succeeded in implementing genuine reforms, particularly in Scandinavian countries, where the potential for significant modernization and openness within religious institutions is clearly demonstrated. In Sweden, for example, Antje Jackelén was elected head of the Church in 2013 and became Archbishop in 2014—the highest religious position there. Today, women make up more than half of the priests in the Swedish Church. In Iceland, Agnes Sigurðardóttir was elected in 2012 as the first woman to lead the Church and hold the title of national bishop. Finland has seen similar steps toward equality, having allowed the ordination of women since 1988. These examples prove that women attaining the highest spiritual offices is no longer an exception but a genuine reformist path that can inspire broader discussions in other religious institutions around the world.
The continued monopoly of elderly men over this highest spiritual office for Catholics, and the exclusion of women and youth from the priesthood and the right to run or vote in papal elections, not only exposes a patriarchal Church structure. It also reveals a stark contradiction between the Catholic Church’s proclaimed discourse of love and equality and its actual practices that are grounded in exclusion based on gender and age. This severely impedes any progressive or rights-based reforms within the Church. The same contradiction applies to the rhetoric of Western capitalist states that claim to support women s and youth’s roles while remaining conspicuously silent about such extreme exclusion within a major global religious institution like the Vatican. This form of authority is not unlike feudal systems of the past, which viewed women and youth as inferior beings unfit for leadership or representation. It must be openly and fundamentally criticized by all human rights, feminist, and progressive organizations around the world.
If the Catholic Church and all religious institutions across all faiths are sincere in their proclaimed ethical messages, then they must break with their closed, authoritarian structures inherited from past eras and open their doors to women and youth with all the responsibilities and leadership roles that come with it, including the right to run and vote. If religion does not free itself from this male-dominated framework, it will remain a tool to justify gender and age-based discrimination under a traditional religious guise. Unless the sacredness is stripped from this closed authority, all talk of love and equality will remain subject to loss of credibility, especially if women and youth continue to be excluded under traditional interpretations claimed to be divinely mandated.
In my view, progressive and leftist forces must engage with religious beliefs in an open and critical spirit, advocating for new scientific readings that reevaluate the negative uses of religion, including authoritarian, patriarchal, and exclusionary practices. The exclusion of women and youth from the clergy in most religions, and the denial of their right to run or vote for the heads of religious institutions, not only violates their rights but also constitutes a blatant rejection of human rights and equality. It is necessary to expose this collusion between religious authority and extreme gender and age-based discrimination and to confront the fundamentalist religious forces that fuel exclusionary rhetoric under the guise of sacred texts. These forces promote agendas that hinder rights-based development and threaten any emancipatory project, including full gender equality and youth empowerment, in addition to ensuring the democratic and transparent election of religious leaders by the people they claim to represent.
In conclusion, these words are a clear call to all women and men, particularly within the Catholic Christian faith and more broadly across all religions, to demand and work toward radical democratic and progressive reforms in the structure and intellectual direction of religious institutions. These reforms must guarantee full equality between men and women, strengthen the role of youth, and ensure the right to directly elect spiritual leaders—whether male or female—by all believers without discrimination based on age or rank. Broader reforms are also needed, aligned with human development and committed to international human rights standards.

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