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Pope Leo XIV appointed Josef Grünwidl Archbishop of Vienna just over a year ago. His latest interview raises a deeply uncomfortable question: why are men who publicly entertain the reversal of definitive Catholic teaching being appointed to shepherd the Church? In an interview with Austrian broadcaster ORF, Archbishop Grünwidl expressed his desire for women to be ordained, although he acknowledged that such a development was not presently realistic. He suggested that the matter would require a decision by an ecumenical council. 🙄 But this is not simply a question awaiting the next council. In Ordinatio Sacerdotalis (1994), Pope St John Paul II declared that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination upon women, and that this judgement must be definitively held by all the faithful. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith subsequently confirmed that this teaching had been set forth infallibly by the ordinary and universal Magisterium. An ecumenical council cannot confer upon the Church an authority she does not possess. 🤷‍♂️ Grünwidl also favours reconsidering mandatory priestly celibacy, although that is an entirely different matter. Celibacy is an ancient and precious discipline of the Latin Church, with deep theological roots, but it is not an immutable doctrine. Catholics can legitimately debate its application without departing from the faith. The Archbishop's comments on assisted suicide are more troubling. He spoke movingly about accompanying those who are suffering and dying, offering appropriate care and helping people to die holding another person's hand rather than through another person's lethal intervention. All of that is entirely consonant with Catholic teaching. But he then suggested that, if someone nevertheless makes a conscientious decision to pursue assisted suicide, that decision must ultimately be respected. Now, there is an important distinction between respecting the dignity and freedom of a suffering person and suggesting that a decision to end one's life acquires moral legitimacy simply because it has been reached in conscience. The Church teaches that conscience must be formed in accordance with the truth. It does not possess the power to transform an intrinsically wrong act into a morally good one. One can accompany a person with compassion, respect their human dignity and refuse to abandon them without conceding that their decision is morally acceptable. Indeed, this distinction is essential to an authentically Catholic understanding of pastoral care. What makes these remarks particularly difficult to reconcile is Pope Leo's own teaching during his recent visit to France. At Lourdes, the Pope explicitly praised the French bishops for their courage in defending the Church's position on end-of-life issues, urging them to persevere even when Catholic teaching is rejected by society. He called for solid doctrinal formation, fidelity to the Magisterium and unity in the Church's profession of faith. His visit was characterised by a renewed confidence in the Church's mission to proclaim Christ, even when the Gospel challenges the prevailing assumptions of contemporary society. Yet here is the Archbishop of Vienna, appointed by Leo himself, expressing a desire for women's ordination and speaking about assisted suicide in terms that risk obscuring precisely the moral clarity the Pope has been encouraging. How are ordinary Catholics supposed to reconcile these conflicting signals? If Leo believes, as his words in France suggest, that the Church must recover her confidence in proclaiming the truth, should that conviction not also be reflected in the men he appoints to teach it? The wider context makes this question more pressing. Grünwidl was previously associated with Austria's controversial Priests' Initiative, a movement which advocated substantial departures from established Catholic discipline and teaching. He subsequently distanced himself from its call for disobedience, and that should be acknowledged. Nevertheless, his sympathy for women's ordination was hardly a secret when Pope Leo appointed him Archbishop of Vienna in October 2025. Indeed, Grünwidl had already publicly suggested that he could envisage women entering ordained ministry, while recognising that such a change would require action at the level of the universal Church. This was not an unexpected opinion suddenly revealed after his appointment. Which brings us to the fundamental question of what a bishop is actually for. A bishop is not simply the chief executive of a religious organisation, appointed to discover what its members would prefer to believe. He is a successor of the Apostles, entrusted with guarding, teaching and faithfully handing on the deposit of faith. The Second Vatican Council's Lumen Gentium describes bishops as authentic teachers of the faith. Their authority is not an invitation to revise divine Revelation according to contemporary expectations, but a responsibility to proclaim faithfully what the Church has received. There is, of course, room for theological investigation, legitimate disagreement over matters of discipline and genuine development in our understanding of doctrine. But there is a fundamental difference between developing our understanding of the faith and suggesting that the Church might reverse something she has definitively taught. So what are the faithful supposed to make of an archbishop who publicly expresses a desire for something the Church has declared herself unable to do? And what are we supposed to make of the judgement involved in appointing him? I am not suggesting that Pope Leo shares Grünwidl's views. There is no evidence for that. But episcopal appointments are among the most consequential decisions a pope makes. They shape the Church's teaching, worship and pastoral life for decades. Surely fidelity to the deposit of faith ought to be among the first considerations? There is also an increasingly difficult inconsistency to ignore. Catholics attached to the Church's liturgical tradition are frequently reminded that communion with the Pope requires obedience, fidelity and acceptance of the Church's teaching. Quite right too. The Church is not a federation of competing religious preferences, and no Catholic can simply appoint himself the final arbiter of ecclesial authority. But why does that same insistence upon ecclesial unity appear so much less urgent when a bishop publicly expresses the hope that the Church might reverse definitive teaching? Communion cannot mean rigorous scrutiny for those attached to tradition and generous latitude for those who wish to depart from it. The same standards of fidelity must apply to everyone, particularly those entrusted with episcopal office. There is a further irony here. Several Protestant denominations, including Anglican and Episcopal churches, have already adopted women's ordination and substantially revised their approaches to traditional Christian moral teaching. Yet these changes have hardly produced the great evangelical renewal their advocates once promised. Many of these communities continue to experience profound institutional and demographic decline. Their decline has multiple causes, of course, and it would be simplistic to attribute it solely to these reforms. Nevertheless, the suggestion that Catholicism must follow the same path to remain relevant deserves considerably more scepticism than it generally receives. Indeed, if someone sincerely believes that the Church should ordain women, revise settled moral teaching and accommodate herself to the prevailing assumptions of secular society, it is reasonable to ask why he regards these changes as necessary to the Catholic Church rather than recognising that other Christian communities have already adopted them. The Catholic Church is not simply one denomination among many, free to reinvent herself whenever the cultural climate changes. She claims to have received a divine Revelation that she is obliged to preserve and proclaim. This is not an argument against dialogue, theological scholarship or legitimate reform. Nor is it an argument that a bishop must be incapable of doubt or questioning. But the office of bishop carries responsibilities that go beyond personal theological preferences. A shepherd is entrusted with leading the flock in the faith of the Church, not with encouraging it to hope that the Church will eventually become something else. And this brings us back to Pope Leo. His words in France offered considerable encouragement to Catholics who believe that the Church's renewal depends upon recovering confidence in the truth of her own teaching. He reminded bishops that their prophetic voice remains necessary precisely when society refuses to listen. But those words must also find expression in the governance of the Church, particularly in the appointment of the men who will exercise the teaching office. Otherwise, we risk a situation in which the Pope calls for doctrinal fidelity while the faithful encounter bishops who appear to regard definitive teaching as an obstacle awaiting future revision. Pope Leo's appointment of Archbishop Grünwidl deserves serious scrutiny, not because we can presume to know the Pope's intentions, but because the faithful are entitled to expect that those appointed to teach the Catholic faith actually believe what the Church teaches. Surely that is not an unreasonable expectation?