Theological Bankruptcy of Female Governance in the Church’s Hierarchy
[Vatican News portal] reports that the antipope styling himself “Pope Leo XIV” has appointed Sister Simona Brambilla, a woman, as a Member of the Dicastery for Bishops. This dicastery holds supreme authority over the appointment of all diocesan bishops worldwide. The article presents this appointment as a routine administrative update, listing the names of other cardinals and bishops who compose the body, treating the inclusion of women as a normal, unremarkable fact of ecclesial governance. This action, however, is not a mere administrative change; it is a public, formal, and doctrinal repudiation of the Catholic Church’s divinely instituted hierarchical constitution, a clear sign of the apostasy foretold by St. Pius X and the Syllabus of Errors.
1. Factual Deconstruction: A Violation of Divine Law and Canon Law
The article states that Sister Brambilla, along with two other women, is “called to offer their contribution to the work of the Dicastery that deals with all matters concerning the appointment of diocesan and titular Bishops.” This means women now share in the supreme governing authority over the episcopate. This is a direct and frontal assault on the Church’s constitution.
The Catholic Church, by divine law, is a perfect society with a hierarchical structure founded by Christ. The episcopacy is a sacramental office, reserved to men alone. As the Council of Trent definitively taught, the sacraments confer grace ex opere operato through the valid ministry of an ordained priest. The authority to govern, teach, and sanctify—the threefold office of bishops—flows from sacramental ordination. A woman, by divine law and constant canonical tradition, cannot receive the sacrament of Holy Orders. Therefore, she cannot possess the sacra potestas (sacred power) that pertains to bishops.
The 1917 Code of Canon Law, which embodies this unchanging tradition, states in Canon 967: “Only a baptized man validly receives sacred ordination.” Canon 1382 explicitly forbids a bishop from attempting to ordain a woman, declaring such an ordination invalid and incurring a latae sententiae excommunication. The participation of a woman in a dicastery that exercises the supreme and ordinary power of the Roman Pontiff in selecting bishops is a canonical monstrosity. It places a person without sacramental jurisdiction in a position of governing those who possess it by divine institution. This is the logical endpoint of the conciliar sect’s “collegiality” and “co-responsibility” rhetoric, which erodes the sacramental character of authority in favor of a naturalistic, bureaucratic, and ultimately feminist governance model.
2. Linguistic Analysis: The Tone of Naturalistic Bureaucracy
The article’s language is sterile, administrative, and devoid of any supernatural perspective. It speaks of “appointments,” “members,” “contribution,” and “work of the Dicastery.” The sacred duty of choosing successors to the Apostles—a task that should be preceded by prayer, fasting, and profound theological discernment—is presented as a committee assignment. The names of the cardinals and bishops are listed with their curial titles, creating the impression of a corporate board of directors. The silence on the supernatural end of the episcopacy—the salvation of souls—is deafening.
This bureaucratic tone is the linguistic symptom of the modernist “immanentism” condemned by St. Pius X in Pascendi Dominici gregis. The focus is entirely on the human, organizational, and functional aspect of Church governance. The article never mentions the munus (office) of a bishop as a participation in the apostolic mission, the requirement of episcopal consecration for the fullness of the priesthood, or the ultimate goal: the sanctification of the faithful and the glory of God. The spiritual has been evacuated, leaving only a human, managerial structure. This is the precise error of Modernism: reducing the supernatural to the natural, the hierarchical to the democratic, the sacramental to the functional.
3. Theological Confrontation: Against the Kingship of Christ and the Church’s Constitution
The appointment of women to govern bishops is a quintessential expression of the errors condemned by Pope Pius IX in the Syllabus of Errors. Error 19 states: “The Church is not a true and perfect society, entirely free… but it appertains to the civil power to define what are the rights of the Church.” Here, the “civil power” is replaced by the spirit of the age—feminism and egalitarianism—which the conciliar sect has submitted to. The Church’s right to govern herself according to her own divine constitution is denied in practice.
Pius XI’s encyclical Quas Primas, on the Feast of Christ the King, provides the necessary antidote. The Pope writes that Christ’s kingdom “encompasses all men” and that “all power in heaven and on earth is given to Christ the Lord.” He insists that Christ reigns “in the minds of men,” “in the wills of men,” and “in the hearts of men.” The article’s action implicitly rejects this. By placing women in a governing role over bishops, it asserts a human, democratic principle—”contribution” based on gender equality—over the explicit, hierarchical will of Christ the King. It subjects the divine constitution of the Church to the “progress” of the world, which Pius XI identified as the plague of secularism.
Furthermore, the very concept of a “Dicastery for Bishops” with members who are not bishops is an absurdity. The 1983 Code of Canon Law (canon 377 §3) states that the Dicastery for Bishops “assists the Roman Pontiff in the affairs of the particular Churches,” but its members are, by tradition and law, cardinals and bishops. The appointment of non-bishops—especially women—is a canonical innovation that severs the link between governing authority and sacramental ordination. It creates a parallel, purely administrative power structure that operates alongside, and increasingly over, the sacramental hierarchy. This is the “democratization of the Church” condemned by the Syllabus (Error 54: “Kings and princes are… superior to the Church in deciding questions of jurisdiction”) now applied internally.
4. Symptomatic Analysis: The Fruit of the Conciliar Revolution
This appointment is not an anomaly; it is the logical culmination of the post-conciliar revolution. The Second Vatican Council’s document Lumen Gentium, with its ambiguous language on the “common priesthood” and the “People of God,” created the theological space for such innovations. The subsequent magisterial documents of the antipopes, from Paul VI to “Leo XIV,” have systematically dismantled the Catholic doctrine of the hierarchical priesthood.
The “ordination” of women to the diaconate (a sacrilegious experiment being pursued) and now their governance over bishops are two steps in the same process: the feminization and secularization of the Church’s structure. The goal is a “synodal church” where authority flows from consensus, not from sacramental ordination. Sister Brambilla’s appointment is a milestone in the establishment of the “abomination of desolation” in the holy place—the replacement of Christ’s hierarchical, sacramental, and masculine institution with a humanistic, bureaucratic, and androgynous structure. It fulfills the prophecy of the “two Lucia sisters” theory from the Fatima file: just as the identity of the visionary was allegedly replaced to change the message, so the identity of the Church’s governing body is being replaced to change its nature. The continuity is a facade; the rupture is total.
5. The Omission: Silence on the Supernatural and the Sacramental
The gravest accusation against the article and the action it reports is the total silence on the supernatural. There is no mention of:
- The sacramental character of Holy Orders and its indelible mark.
- The bishop’s role as a successor of the Apostles, a teacher sanctifier, and pastor.
- The necessity of episcopal consecration for the fullness of the priesthood.
- The ultimate end of the Church: the salvation of souls and the glory of God.
- The duty of the Church to be governed by those who have received the sacrament of orders, in obedience to Christ’s institution.
All is reduced to “contribution,” “work,” and “appointment.” This is the modernist hermeneutic of discontinuity in practice: the old sacramental, hierarchical reality is silently set aside and replaced with a new, naturalistic, functional reality. The article’s omission is not accidental; it is doctrinally necessary for the new paradigm. To speak of sacramental authority would expose the inherent contradiction and nullity of a woman’s role in governing bishops. Therefore, the language of management and “contribution” must prevail.
6. Condemnation by Pre-Conciliar Magisterium
St. Pius X, in his encyclical Pascendi Dominici gregis, condemned the Modernist error that “the ecclesiastical hierarchy is not of divine institution.” He further condemned the proposition that “the Church has not the power of using force, nor has she any temporal power, direct or indirect” (Syllabus, Error 24), which, while speaking of temporal power, implies a denial of the Church’s inherent spiritual sovereignty in governing her own internal life. The appointment of women to a dicastery that exercises the supreme pastoral power of the Roman Pontiff is a stark manifestation of this error: the Church’s internal governance is now subject to the “force” of worldly egalitarian ideology.
Pius IX’s Syllabus, Error 21, states: “The Church has not the power of defining dogmatically that the religion of the Catholic Church is the only true religion.” While this speaks of doctrinal definition, the principle extends to disciplinary and constitutional matters. The conciliar sect, by its actions, defines a new ecclesial constitution where women can govern bishops. This is not a disciplinary development; it is a doctrinal repudiation of the sacramental and hierarchical nature of the Church, which is a revealed truth. The 1917 Code’s Canon 188.4 on automatic loss of office for public defection from the faith applies here: those who institute and accept such governance publicly defect from the Catholic faith regarding the nature of the Church and the sacrament of Orders.
Conclusion: An Act of Apostasy, Not Administration
The appointment of Sister Simona Brambilla to the Dicastery for Bishops is not a “contribution” but a coup. It is the final stage of the modernist infiltration: having captured the structures, they now use them to formally deconstruct the sacramental, hierarchical, and masculine character of the Church founded by Christ. This act publicly confirms that the entity occupying the Vatican since the death of Pope Pius XII is the “conciliar sect,” a paramasonic structure dedicated to the destruction of the Catholic religion.
From the perspective of integral Catholic faith, this appointment is null and void. It possesses no authority in the true Church, which subsists in those who hold the faith of Pius IX, Pius X, and the pre-conciliar popes. The true bishops of the Catholic Church—those validly ordained and in communion with the unchanging faith—will never accept such governance. They will, with St. Pius X, “keep the faith which has been handed down” and reject this “abomination of desolation” standing in the holy place. The only appropriate response is total rejection, public condemnation, and a return to the immutable Tradition, which knows no female rulers over the episcopacy and no “synodal” path but the narrow way of Christ the King.
Source:
Pope appoints Sr. Simona Brambilla a Member of Dicastery for Bishops (vaticannews.va)
Date: 14.02.2026