laywomen

“The women in the church are doing what they have to do,” she said, adding that the nuns could be helped by laywomen like herself “in the places they cannot be. Like in a pub. You can be evangelized in a pub.”

He was cared for by four laywomen who had taken vows in the Catholic movement known as Communion and Liberation, as well as by Archbishop Georg Gänswein, the German monsignor who was his private secretary throughout his pontificate.

In the Corriere della Sera newspaper, Massimo Franco, a journalist who has interviewed Benedict and written a book about his post-pontificate, said Benedict is at a monastery within the Vatican with his longtime aide and several consecrated laywomen.

He has also named women — laywomen and religious sisters — as consultors to Vatican offices dominated by male clergy, including the one that chooses bishops.

It explicitly states in its preamble that “the pope, bishops and other ordained ministers are not the only evangelizers in the church,” creating space for Catholic “laymen and laywomen” to have “roles of government and responsibility.”