(7 May 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Rome – 7 May 2025
1. Women holding up pink smoke flares
2. Close of pink smoke flares
3. Women singing “This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine.”
4. Women singing and holding smoke flares with the Cupola of St. Peter’s Basilica in the distance behind them
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Kate McElwee, Executive Director, Women’s Ordination Conference:
"Later today ordained men will be meeting behind closed doors to make a consequential decision about the future of the church with no women present. So this is a sin and a scandal and so the women’s ordination movement is here releasing pink smoke. While the world may be waiting for white or black smoke, our pink smoke is a signal that women should be included in every aspect of the life of the Church, especially as ordained priests and deacons. A woman’s place is in the conclave. So our smoke is also a sign of hope that the Church will work quickly to make that a reality, but also it’s a distress signal to say that the church is in crisis. The discrimination and exclusion of women is a sin, and we’re here to say the next Pope will inherit this question and needs to work quickly to correct it."
6. Woman in pink outfit holding two pink smoke flares
7. Button with “Ordain Women” written on it
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Miriam Duignan, Wijnaards Institute for Catholic Research:
"We are not a part of the conclave, we are not allowed in. The Women’s Ordination campaigners, whenever we go down to St. Peter’s Square, we are detained by the police, we’re arrested by the police, and we are certainly not invited to go into the conclave. The only women that those 133 men will see in the next few days will be nuns who are cleaning their rooms and serving them food and tidying up after them. They don’t even have to speak to these women. They certainly don’t have to listen to them. And so we are sending pink smoke over the Vatican just before the Cardinals go in because we want to send a very clear message to them that they cannot keep ignoring women. You cannot lock yourself away in the Sistine Chapel, which belongs to all of us, and exclude half of the church that you are tasked with deciding the future of."
9. Women singing and holding smoke flares
10. Writing on woman’s dress saying (English) “Ordain Women”
11. Women singing and holding smoke flares
STORYLINE:
A group of women lit pink smoke flares on a hill behind the Vatican on Wednesday in protest against the male-dominated Catholic church just hours before 133 men gather in the Sistine Chapel to choose the next Pope.
“While the world may be waiting for white or black smoke, our pink smoke is a signal that women should be included in every aspect of the life of the Church,” said Kate McElwee, Executive Director of Women’s Ordination Conference, adding, “A woman’s place is in the conclave.”
The women said they have been arrested in the past when they have brought their protests closer to St. Peter’s Square so they were holding their pink smoke event on the Ganicolo Hill behind the Vatican with the cupola on St. Peter’s Basilica visible in the distance.
“The only women that those 133 men will see in the next few days will be nuns who are cleaning their rooms and serving them food and tidying up after them. They don’t even have to speak to these women. They certainly don’t have to listen to them," said Miriam Duignan, Wijnaards of the Institute for Catholic Research.
AP Video shot by Silvia Stellaci
Production by Trisha Thomas
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