Pope Francis says female genital mutilation is a “crime” that must stop.
Pope Francis attends a prayer meeting and Angelus with bishops, priests, consecrated people, seminarians and pastoral workers, at the Sacred Heart Church in Manama, Bahrain, Sunday, Nov. 6, 2022. Pope Francis is making the November 3-6 visit to participate in a government-sponsored conference on East-West dialogue and to minister to Bahrain's tiny Catholic community, part of his effort to pursue dialogue with the Muslim world.
“How is it that today in the world we cannot stop the tragedy of infibulation of young girls?” he asked, referring to the ritual cutting of a girls' external genitalia. “This is terrible that today there is a practice that humanity isn’t able to stop. It’s a crime. It’s a criminal act!” Francis didn’t directly respond, but gave a lengthy denunciation of how women in many cultures around the world are treated as second-class citizens or worse and said: “We have to continue to fight this because women are a gift.”Francis has done more than any pope to give more decision-making roles to women in the church. He has appointed several women to key governing positions, including the No. 2 in the Vatican City State administration as well as several other high-ranking management roles.
“It’s a process we’re doing with courage, and not all of us have courage,” he said. “Sometimes there’s the temptation of making compromises -- we are enslaved by our sins.”
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