The new year offers the church and the world a new opportunity to explore a nuanced version of its preferential option for the poor, one that emphasizes a more tender and grateful appreciation of women. Women are disproportionately among the poor, not only materially but also according to a gamut of other social measures. Especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, women have been asked to bear the greatest burdens in poverty, neglect, and violence.
On that last point Pope…