Leo XIV is not a feminist; He will work with all the people of God, says one of the women who worked with him

María Lía Zervino is one of the three women who since July 2022 is part, by decision of Pope Francis, of the Dicasterio for the Bishops. A year and a half later, in January 2023, the Argentine pontiff placed then Cardinal Robert Prevost – today Pope Leo XIV – as the prefect of this the Vatican organism that is responsible for preparing the reports that will make the screen in the selection of the prelates of the future.

“He could have chosen another, he had at least 20 at his disposal, but he chose him. This means that he was a man of his entire confidence,” explains this Argentine member of the Servant Association, consecrated virgins.

Speaking to ACI Press, the sociologist also ensures that Leo XIV “directs but at the same time is accompanied and I think it is that modality that today the Church and the world need.” “I think it will be an absolutely synodal pope,” he said.

For Zervino, the inclusion of women at ecclesial decision levels such as the dicastery for bishops – which she is part of – is substantial, as is for the new Pope.

“The previous Premost said that the role of women who perform in Dicastery is not indifferent, which really adds and seems very significant,” he emphasizes. An approach, which, according to adduces, is fully inscribed “in the opening that Pope Francis made to women.”

It also affects that, although in the bishop’s selection processes, it is the Pope who has the last word, the Dicastery “collaborates in the study of the candidates to provide adequate information, a recommendation.” “The Pope is free to make the appointment he wants for the diocese that seems better. This seems important to me, although there are women at that level of governance of the Church is very inclusive,” Zervino said.

It is not a feminist, but will work with all the people of God

In any case, he wants to make it clear that his approach does not respond to an ideological agenda, but to an evangelical conviction of inclusion and listening: “It is not a feminist, but that it will work with all the people of God. And we, very grateful”

Zervino also participated in one of the ten working groups that Pope Francis launched to discuss some of the most conflicting themes raised in the Synod and that, precisely because of their complexity, were not discussed in the October 2024 appointment.

“We have been a lot of teamwork for months. Frequent meetings, which will continue until we give you the result of our ecclesial discernment in their hands, now that he is Pope Leo XIV. I could be by his side, dialogue and learn from him,” he says.

But beyond his capacities for teamwork, Zervino alludes, above all, to “his natural and usual smile.” “I don’t know if they realized, but he has it, which reflects his inner life a bit,” he said in an interview with ACI Press.

He presents his former direct boss as a “simple”, “transparent” man, “identified with Jesus Christ” and “who has always sought only the good of the Church.”

“Working with someone who had enormous respect for the opinions of others, listened very well, and knew how to make decisions. It was extremely pleasant,” he says.

A shepherd, not a bureaucrat

Far from the classic profile of a man made to the institutions, Zervino remarked that Pope Leo XIV “is not a man of the curia”, but someone who brings with him the living experience of contact with the people.

“He comes from working in Peru, in contact with the most needy, and for having been the general general of the Augustinians, he has been linked to people around the world, really inserted in the people of God. That I do not think I will lose it, on the contrary,” he said.

Zervino also puts in value that Leo XIV knows thoroughly the internal mechanisms of the Vatican, but assures that he has not lost pastoral sensitivity, nor the proximity to the people: “He has been in the cuisine of the church, so in that sense he has a huge plus. He knows all the recesses of the Roman curia and is a man of great prestige in the church, perhaps because of that balance he has always had.”

“I think that he, together with the help of the Holy Spirit, will have a wonderful pontificate, to which we will have to support with all our strength, all our heart and all our action. We are in the Jubileo de la Esperanza, and now it takes up Leon XIV. It is really prophetic,” he concludes.