In a not surprising turn of events, Catholic News Agency reports that while Cardinal Jose Policarpo’s remarks were accurate about the possibility of women priests, that they were taken out of context and that the president of Portugal’s bishops confernce does not support female ordination.

From the article:

A source from the Bishop’s Conference of Portugal has explained to CNA that the Patriarch of Lisbon,  is not in favor of women’s ordination even though “he was not accurate in commenting on the priesthood during a recent interview.” The source clarified that the reports claiming that the Patriarch of Lisbon, Cardinal Jose Policarpo, is a supporter of women’s ordination are based on “deliberately selective excerpts from an interview that in itself was unclear.”
 
Cardinal Policarpo, who was elected president of the Bishops’ Conference of Portugal in 2011, “tried to explain Catholic teaching on the priesthood to a secular media outlet unfamiliar with Catholicism,” the source added. “The outcome of the interview wasn’t great, but to conclude that he was supporting the ordination of women is an exaggeration and even a distortion of what he said.”

Read the rest of the article and Cardinal Jose Policarpo’s answer here.

Michael J. O’Loughlin is national correspondent at America and author of Hidden Mercy: AIDS, Catholics, and the Untold Stories of Compassion in the Face of Fear.