On International Women's Day, Pope Francis thanked women, "who in thousands of ways, witness to the Gospel and work in the church."
The pope's comments yesterday preceded a five-hour celebration in the Vatican of the ways Christian women minister to their sisters who are poor, sick, excluded from education, victims of human trafficking and exploitation.
The celebration, Voices of Faith, also included a session in which participants - a theologian, a physician, a journalist and an ambassador - expressed their hopes and dreams for fuller involvement of women in church decision-making.
After reciting the Angelus prayer at noon with tens of thousands of people in St Peter's Square, Pope Francis offered special greetings to the world's women, particularly, "all those women who everyday seek to build a society that is more human and welcoming."
International Women's Day, a popular celebration in Italy, is an occasion "to reaffirm the importance and necessity of women's presence," the pope said. "A world where women are marginalised is a sterile world because women are not only bearers of life, but they help us see beyond, they see beyond. They give us the ability to see with different eyes, to understand things with hearts that are more creative, patient and tender."
Before the pope spoke, about 100 women and a handful of men gathered in the church of the Vatican's governor's office, in the heart of the Vatican gardens, for a Mass concelebrated by Archbishop Anil Couto of Delhi, India, and Bishop Brian Farrell, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.
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