The recent papal transition has prompted widespread reflection on Pope Francis’s legacy and the future of the Church—and popular media outlets have turned to Commonweal’s orbit of writes, commentators, and scholars to process this transformative moment for Catholics around the world.

One such example: board member and incoming theology professor at Fordham University Natalia Imperatori-Lee was featured in two recent articles for CNN about Francis’s efforts to open the Church’s doors for women’s leadership and for marginalized communities in Catholic settings, one published before his passing and one after. “For a long time, Catholics were only known for their don’ts — don’t be gay, don’t have an abortion, don’t get a divorce,” Imperatori-Lee said in an article dated April 22, the day after Francis’s death. “Francis unlocked a different kind of Catholicism in the public square. He was somebody who appealed to non-Catholics and Catholics. He was just a decent person.”

Nevertheless, Imperatori-Lee has frequently pointed out the long path forward for those imagining a more progressive Church—and in another article for CNN dated April 1, she criticized arguments against women’s ordination that Pope Francis frequently fell back upon to stall efforts at ordaining women deacons. “The people who are wed to this ‘iconic’ argument argue that…when people are looking at a woman at the altar, that woman doesn’t point to Jesus in the same easy way that a man would,” Imperatori-Lee explained. “But we don’t make priests retire when they are 33 (the age Jesus was believed to be when he died). Many priests are old and Jesus never looked old.’”