Today’s online edition of L’Osservatore Romano (July 19, 2025) brings tidings of comfort and joy to radical feminists posing as Catholic theologians.
Announced therein is an event of “great significance for today’s Catholic Church”:
Serena Noceti became the first officially instituted catechist to serve as a theologian for the diocese [of Florence, archdiocese, actually]. The event, which symbolically occurred on her birthday, represents not only personal recognition but, above all, a meaningful step toward greater inclusion of women in the Church’s teaching authority.
The article goes on to underscore the significance of the rite of institution conferred upon Noceti by Archbishop Gherardo Gambelli, who was made Archbishop of Florence in April when Cardinal Prevost was head of the Dicastery for Bishops:
This is not simply the institution of a catechist, but the formal acknowledgment of a theologian’s charism exercised, “in the name of the Church”. This distinction is fundamental: as stated in the Rite, the instituted catechist exercises a ministry as “teacher (magistra) and mystagogue”, with the specific task of serving the Church of Florence as a theologian. Noceti’s appointment represents the meeting point between a professional who has devoted decades to theological service and a Church that formally recognizes this contribution.
Among Noceti’s “contributions” to newchurch are endless pleas for the ordination of women.
Writing in her 2017 book, Diacone – Quale ministero per quale chiesa? (Deacons – Which ministry for which Church?), Noceti states:
It is considered necessary and possible to think of the diaconate as an ordained ministry, assumed and exercised by women…
The female diaconate is a possible and necessary ministry for a church in reform.
It is not possible to develop this question simply by trying to replicate the past, but it is necessary to leave space for the emergence of a new figure that responds to the needs and demands of the contemporary church.
In a 2021 article, Donne e ministeri – Passi per una riforma missionaria (Women and Ministries – Steps Toward Missionary Reform) she argued:
There were, in fact, no theological reasons to deny such a conferment [ordained ministry] to women, who, moreover, exercise the related ministries of readers and extraordinary ministers of communion in practice. Almost 50 years after the document Ministeria quaedam by Paul VI, this exclusion of women appeared incomprehensible and fundamentally discriminatory.”
So, according to Noceti (pictured in the image above speaking at a conference on the “Synodal Church”) the Church’s longstanding and infallible teaching on the ordination of males only is based, not in sacramental theology and Christology, but rather in discrimination.
It gets worse.
Serena Noceti is a founding member (1984) of Coordinamento Teologhe Italiane (CTI), (Italian Women Theologians Coordination), which is a haven for female theologians known for being supportive of same-sex unions.
Speaking with L’Osservatore Romano, Simona Segoloni, current President of the Coordination of Italian Women Theologians, said of Noceti’s formal institution as a catechist for the Diocese of Florence:
It is the recognition not only of her service, but perhaps even more, the recognition of the Church’s need to be taught and, importantly, to be taught by a woman.
The more one looks into Noceti’s background, the more it appears obvious that her unorthodox (and even heretical) theological opinions have been well known in Rome for decades.
The simple fact that this story is featured in L’Osservatore Romano indicates that we’re not discussing some local diocesan event that somehow flew under the Vatican’s radar. Given the widespread air of giddiness surrounding Leo XIV (what I like to call Leophoria), it is extremely unlikely that publication of this story celebrating Noceti’s institution was not pre-approved by those close to Leo (if not Leo himself).
As such, it seems reasonable to view this as a sign of “synodal” things to come under the guidance of new conciliar church CEO, Robert Prevost (stage name: Leo).
