Influential Catholic women have included theologians, abbesses, monarchs, missionaries, mystics, martyrs, scientists, nurses, hospital administrators, educationalists, religious sisters, Doctors of the Church, and canonised saints.

Through its support for institutionalised learning, the Catholic Church produced many of the world's first notable women scientists and scholars – including the physicians Trotula of Salerno (11th century) and Dorotea Bucca (d. 1436), the philosopher Elena Piscopia (d. 1684) and the mathematician Maria Gaetana Agnesi (d. 1799).

Other Catholic women have risen to international prominence through charitable mission works and social justice campaigns – as with hospitals pioneer St Marianne Cope and Mother Teresa who began by serving the dying destitute in India.

"[11] Similarly, Suzanne Wemple notes that, although Christianity did not eliminate sexual discrimination in the late Roman Empire, it did offer women "the opportunity to regard themselves as independent personalities rather than as someone else's daughter, wife, or mother.

[18] Although historians have argued that church teachings emboldened secular authorities to give women fewer rights than men, they also helped form the concept of chivalry.

Munro notes that, although the number of female mystics was "significant", we tend to be more familiar with male figures such as Bernard of Clairvaux, Francis of Assisi, Thomas Aquinas or Meister Eckhart than with Hildegard of Bingen, Julian of Norwich, Mechthild of Magdeburg, or Hadewijch of Antwerp.

But, unlike typical heroines of the period, she donned male attire and, claiming divine guidance, sought out King Charles VII of France to offer help in a military campaign against the English.

Canonised as the first Native American saint in 2012, Takakwitha lived at a time of conflict between the Mohawks and French colonists, lost her family and was scarred by smallpox before converting to Catholicism, leading to persecution from her tribesmen.

[44] The Little Sisters of the Poor was founded in the mid-19th century by Saint Jeanne Jugan near Rennes, France, to care for the many impoverished elderly who lined the streets of French towns and cities.

[45][46] In Britain's Australian colonies, Australia's first canonised Saint, Mary MacKillop, co-founded the Sisters of St. Joseph of the Sacred Heart as an educative religious institute for the poor in 1866.

Pope Pius IX's personal approval permitted her to continue her work and by the time of her death her institute had established a 117 schools and had opened orphanages and refuges for the needy.

1869–1947) was a Sudanese slave girl who became a Canossian nun; St. Katharine Drexel (1858–1955) worked for Native and African Americans; Polish mystic St Maria Faustina Kowalska (1905–1938) wrote her influential spiritual diary.

[65] She and two British women, Mother Riccarda Beauchamp Hambrough and Sister Katherine Flanagan, were beatified for reviving the Swedish Bridgettine Order of nuns and hiding scores of Jewish families in their convent during Rome's period of occupation under the Nazis.

The most important reasons stated were first, the Church's determination to remain faithful to its constant tradition, second, its fidelity to Christ's will, and third, the idea of male representation due to the "sacramental nature" of the priesthood.

Among the most famous women missionaries of the period was Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 for her work in "bringing help to suffering humanity".

[98] In 2004 Genevieve Benay (from France), Michele Birch-Conery (from Canada), Astride Indrican (from Latvia), Victoria Rue (from the US), Jane Via (from the US), and Monika Wyss (from Switzerland) were ordained as deacons on a ship in the Danube.

[110][111] In January 2021, Pope Francis issued the motu proprio “Spiritus Domini,” which changed canon 230 § 1 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law from "Lay men who possess the age and qualifications established by decree of the conference of bishops can be admitted on a stable basis through the prescribed liturgical rite to the ministries of lector and acolyte" to "Lay persons of suitable age and with the gifts determined by decree of the Episcopal Conference may be permanently assigned, by means of the established liturgical rite, to the ministries of lectors and acolytes."

The church holds that she was immaculately conceived and, while betrothed to the carpenter Joseph, Mary was visited by the angel Gabriel who announced that, though a virgin, she would give birth to a son, Jesus.

[156] Other liberal Christians argue that the modern concepts of equal opportunity for men and women does not resonate well with a humble image of Mary, obediently and subserviently kneeling before Christ.

Catholic marriage is a "covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life and which is ordered by its nature to the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring, [which] has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament between the baptized.

The sexual revolution of the 1960s precipitated Pope Paul VI's 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae (On Human Life) which rejected the use of contraception, including sterilization, claiming these work against the intimate relationship and moral order of husband and wife by directly opposing God's will.

[184][185][186] Women members of religious institutes that are called congregations are not required by canon law to be cloistered are referred to, strictly speaking, as sisters rather than nuns, although in common use the two terms are often used interchangeably.

Religious institutes for women may be dedicated to contemplative or monastic life or to apostolic work such as education or the provision of health care and spiritual support to the community.

[190] In keeping with the emphasis of Catholic social teaching, many religious institutes for women have devoted themselves to service of the sick, homeless, disabled, orphaned, aged or mentally ill, as well as refugees, prisoners and others facing misfortune.

[192] In Britain's Australian colonies in 1866, Saint Mary MacKillop co-founded the Sisters of St. Joseph of the Sacred Heart who began educating the rural poor and grew to establish schools and hospices throughout Oceania.

Initially founding a school, she then gathered other sisters who "rescued new-born babies abandoned on rubbish heaps; they sought out the sick; they took in lepers, the unemployed, and the mentally ill".

"[206] According to Macy In the tenth century, Bishop Atto of Vercelli wrote that due to the "shortage of workers, devout women were ordained to help men in leading the worship.

Women already serve in diaconal positions in the parish; visiting the homebound and hospitalized, catechizing the youth, aiding the poor with programs that provide food and clothing, caring for the church building and arranging for liturgies.

The most important reasons stated were first, the Church's determination to remain faithful to its constant tradition, second, its fidelity to Christ's will, and third, the idea of male representation due to the "sacramental nature" of the priesthood.

"Various forms of lay ministry in Catholicism have developed in the last quarter-century without any formal blueprint, but rather in response to the practical reality that parishes and dioceses could not catechize their new converts, run small faith groups, plan liturgies, and administer facilities if they had to rely exclusively upon priests to do so.