
Claim: Pope Francis once said "Women are naturally unfit for political office."
FALSE
Example: [Collected via e-mail, March 2013]
Did Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, now Pope Francis, really once say this?
"Women are naturally unfit for political office. Both the natural order and facts show us that the political being par excellence is male; the Scripture shows us that woman has always been the helper of man who thinks and does, but nothing more."
Origins: This quote about Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio's stating that "Women are naturally unfit for political office" was circulated in the immediate aftermath of his selection as pope in March 2013 and was supposedly voiced by him in 2007 in reference to Cristina Fernández de Kirchner's successful candidacy for the presidency of Argentina that year. However, no documentation or reference for this quote antedating March 2013 has been found other than a single source of dubious veracity, as noted in an article denouncing the statement as an "urban legend" on Foros Perú:
So I searched for a reliable source for the quote attributed to the new Pope But apparently it is just a malicious invention. Jorge Mario Bergoglio has not yet served his first These false statements about Monsignor Bergoglio saying that "women are naturally unfit for political office" were posted on Yahoo Answers by an Argentinean using the handle "Bumper Crop." This user posted what seemed to be an official report from the Argentinean news agency Telam but included no source link. A thorough Google search shows that before Despite the lack of evidence, a Mexican atheist organization spread these false statements on Facebook last night, reaching 18,000 followers in
I'm an acid critic of the Catholic Church, but I alway try to maintain objectivity.
Last updated: 30 September 2015