Pope Francis: “We must continue to fight for the equality of women.”

Pope Francis: “We must continue to fight for the equality of women.”

During a press conference on board the papal flight to Rome on Sunday, Pope Francis discussed the struggle for women’s equality.

The pope added, “Women are a gift to society, but the battle for their fundamental rights is condemned to continue as long as there are areas in the world where women are not respected as equals.” He was speaking during a flight from Bahrain to Italy on November 6.

When Pope Francis returned from Bahrain, a nation with a significant Muslim population, he was questioned about whether he agreed with the women’s and young people’s rights movements in Iran.

“We have to tell the truth,” the pope said, “the fight for women’s rights is an ongoing fight because in some places women have equality with men but in other places they do not.”

He condemned as “criminal” the practice of female genital mutilation, asking, “how come, in the world today, we cannot stop the tragedy of infibulation to young girls?”

“According to two comments I heard, women are disposable material (that’s bad, huh) or a protected species,” the pope said. “But equality between men and women is still not universally found and there are these incidents where women are second class or less.”

He said: “We have to keep fighting for that, because women are a gift.”

Anti-government protests have taken place across Iran since the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman who was detained Sept. 13 by morality police for allegedly violating the regime’s strict dress code that requires women to cover their hair with a hijab or headscarf. According to Iran Human Rights, based in Norway, at least 304 people have been killed in police crackdowns on the demonstrations, including 41 children.

Pope Francis said when God created man and woman, he did not create woman to be the man’s pet “dog.” He pointed out that while St. Paul’s words about the relationship between men and women can seem today to be “old-fashioned,” at the time it was revolutionary.

“Man is to take care of women as his own flesh, and all women’s rights come from this equality,” he said.

“A society that is unable to put women in her [rightful] place does not move forward.”

He praised the unique way women approach problem-solving and said it is “not inferior, it is complementary.” He also encouraged men and women to work together for the common good.

“I have seen that in the Vatican; every time a woman comes in to do work in the Vatican things get better,” he said.

He cited the election of a woman to the Council for the Economy and the appointment of a woman as vice governor of the Vatican City State as examples of “a revolution, because women know how to find the correct way, they know how to move forward.”

Mariana Mazzuccato, an Italian-American economist whom Pope Francis recently nominated as a member of the Pontifical Academy for Life, was also addressed by name.

Because Mazzuccato has been a vocal supporter of abortion rights on Twitter, the selection has drawn criticism.

To add a bit more humanity to this, he said, “I now put on the family council Mazzuccato, who is a famous economist from the United States.”

During his trip back from a four-day visit to the Kingdom of Bahrain in the Persian Gulf, Pope Francis spoke about women, church abuse, the Lebanon problem, Muslim-Christian ties, and the Ukraine war.

Pope Francis was the first pope to visit Bahrain, a predominantly Muslim country.

His visit from November 3 to 6 featured meetings with government officials, Muslim leaders, and the small Catholic population, as well as a Mass attended by over 30,000 people in Bahrain’s major soccer stadium.

Bahrain’s small Christian minority is predominantly made up of immigrants, primarily from India and the Philippines.

According to 2020 Vatican figures, more over 70% of the whole population — 1.5 million — is Muslim, while the country has just approximately 161,000 Catholics.