A new Vatican outreach initiative program aimed at listening to women has been met with hostility.

In the promotional video, Nancy Brilli, an Italian actress and sex symbol, asks the viewers how often they ask themselves existential questions: "Who are you? What do you do? What do you think about yourself as a woman?"

The criticism came quickly. The English version of Brilli's promo was immediately pulled, though the Italian version remains on the ministry's website, according to the Associated Press. Many believed that the people the program is intending to watch, such as the poor, may not have a device to watch or submit a video. Others were not happy about Brilli being chosen as the person to promote the initiative.

The program is still going ahead. The first meeting for the initiative is set for this week with the purpose of studying women's issues in ways brand new to the Holy See.

The latest initiative to listen to women is the brain child of Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, an academic known for has no problems inviting controversy.

Ravasi has in the past raised the Vatican’s profile in sports, art and even among atheists.

According to the AP, the working paper for the Pontifical Council of Culture's plenary assembly on "Women's Cultures: Equality and Difference" will speak about opening up the doors traditionally closed to females, in an effort to help women offer their skills "in full collaboration and integration" with men involved in the church.

The paper denounced plastic surgery as a form of "aggression" against the female body, likening cosmetic procedures to "a burqa made of flesh," while acknowledging, for centuries, the catholic church has offered women their "ideological and ancestral leftovers."

The Vatican has indeed made some progress in recent years by appointing laywomen to some Vatican offices and providing women's issues with more coverage in their monthly newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano.

Pope Francis pledged to appoint women to key Vatican decision-making positions once his bureaucratic reform is done.

He said, "Women can ask questions that we men just don't get."

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