How an accidental email captured what some call Pope Francis's mixed legacy on women

As the Catholic Church mourns the death of Pope Francis and its all-male College of Cardinals prepares to elect his successor, some say an accidental email sent last month captured the contradictions at the core of Francis's legacy on women.

In January, Francis made his highest-ranking female appointment, naming Sister Simona Brambilla prefect of the Vatican's Dicastery for Religious, which oversees nuns, monks and religious orders. The role had always gone to a cardinal, so Brambilla was mistakenly invited to pre-conclave meetings — exclusive to cardinals and, by definition, men.

The bureaucratic slip-up, reported by the Catholic online news site Crux, underscored what some view as a central contradiction of Francis's papacy: While he opened a few new doors for women, he left the most important ones firmly shut.

Catholic observers, activists and feminists say they had hoped to see, at the very least, women like Brambilla included in these pre-conclave meetings.

"They could have easily invited top nuns to the cardinal gatherings before the conclave," said Lucetta Scaraffia, an Italian author of several books on women and the Vatican.

"Nuns make up more than half of all religious in the world. Their work literally keeps the church standing. The cardinals could have listened to what they had to say about the church's future. The fact that they didn't proves Francis changed nothing."

Scaraffia cites, in her view, just two positive changes Pope Francis made for women: the promotion of Mary Magdalene to an apostle and the cancelling of a norm that considered abortion a "reserved sin" that could only be forgiven by a bishop or appointee of bishop, and not a parish priest.

"A woman who walked into a church and wanted to confess to an abortion couldn't, while a murderer could," she said.

Even Francis's much-praised hiring of women into Vatican leadership roles, she says, was mostly symbolic.

Along with Brambilla, the pontiff also appointed Sister Raffaella Petrini as president of the Governorate of Vatican City State, which oversees the day-to-day operations of the Vatican, and economist Sister Alessandra Smerilli as secretary of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, responsible for issues like justice, migration and care for the environment.

"The few women who landed high-up roles didn't really have any power — they were surrounded by male priests who refused to recognize their authority, and their positions were fragile," she said.

Even when Brambilla was appointed head of the Dicastery for Religious, a new "pro-prefect" role was created alongside hers and given to a cardinal, since canon law — which Francis didn't change — requires certain documents to be signed by a cardinal. Observers say it effectively installs a shadow leader to maintain the status quo.

"It was clear she'd have to defer to him," Scaraffia said.

Kate McElwee, executive director of the Women's Ordination Conference, a group founded in 1975 that advocates for women's ordination as deacons, priests, bishops and pope within the Roman Catholic Church, calls Francis "a gift," though one wrapped in a lot of unfulfilled promise.