Hillary Clinton may become President, but no woman can ever become priest in a Catholic church

Pope Francis has the last word on this.

Women can become astronauts in outer space, and presidents on Earth, but never a priest in a Catholic church, according to Pope Francis, on Tuesday.

The Catholic Church’s ban on female priests will stand forever, Pope Francis said, reported USA Today. The pontiff made the declaration in response to a female reporter asking whether he thought women would one day serve as Catholic priests and bishops, noting the head of Sweden’s Lutheran Church whom Francis met on his trip there is a woman.

“St. Pope John Paul II had the last clear word on this and it stands,” Francis said during a news conference aboard the papal plane on the flight back to Rome, according to Reuters.

The reporter then asked “Forever, forever? Never, never?”

“If we read carefully the declaration by St. John Paul II, it is going in that direction,” the pope responded.

Pope John Paul II, in an Apostolic letter written in 1994, wrote that despite the church’s long history of male-only priests, “in some places it is nonetheless considered open to debate.” Not so, wrote the pope who died in 2005 and was canonized a saint in 2014, reported USA Today.

“Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church’s divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren, I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful,” John Paul II wrote.

The Guardian reported the pope went on to say women did “many other things better than men”, emphasizing what has been called the “feminine dimension of the church”.

“People ask me: ‘Who is more important in the theology or in the spirituality of the church, the apostles or Mary, on the day of Pentecost?’ It is Mary,” he said. He then added: “More.”

But Francis’s praise of women will do little to comfort feminist Catholics who want women to have a broader role in the church, including ordination.

The church has always responded to criticism of the ban on women by pointing out that Jesus only chose men as his apostles. Proponents of a change argue, among other points, that the church is facing a shortage of priests.

Francis seemed to open the possibility that women might become ordained deacons earlier this year, when he commissioned a study of the role female deacons played in the early church.

Women have been barred from the priesthood for centuries. Under current rules, deacons are ordained similarly to ministers, and are men. While they cannot celebrate mass, they are allowed to preach and conduct some ceremonies, including baptisms, wakes and funerals.

At a recent gathering, representatives of Catholic priest movements and international lay organizations called for reform on issues including equality for women and LGBT rights.

Kate McElwee, the co-executive director of the Women’s Ordination Conference, said: “In this space, we wrestled with the damaging effects of oppressive structures, knowing that patriarchy and hierarchy hurt us all. We discovered, time and again, that by sharing as equals and asking hard questions, we can transform ourselves, our church and our world.”