Pope Francis hails women as book reveals teenage infatuation It was not clear if the young woman was the same girlfriend that he has alluded to previously - a teenager with whom he used to dance the tango. Separately, a 76-year-old Argentinean woman who grew up with the future pontiff has said the two were very close when they were 12. Amalia Damonte, from Buenos Aires, said he drew her a picture of a little white house with a red roof and wrote "this is what I'll buy when we marry." The book, which will be published on May 7, was written with an Argentinean rabbi, Abraham Skorka, and is based on hours of inter-faith dialogue on subjects such as celibacy, same-sex marriage, abortion, homosexuality and euthanasia. Francis has established a much more informal, man-of-the-people style in comparison with his predecessor, Benedict XVI, who is now in retirement in a castle outside Rome as Pope Emeritus. But the book shows that the 76-year-old South American Pope is as doctrinally conservative as Benedict. He staunchly rejects the idea that the Church should allow women to become priests. "Woman has another role, which is reflected in the figure of Mary," he writes in the book. He touched on the theme again on Wednesday, during his weekly audience in St Peter's Square, saying that women played "a primary, fundamental role in the Bible." Women were "the first witnesses of the Resurrection," he said, in a reference to Mary Magdalene and Mary, the mother of James, who discovered that Jesus's tomb was empty. They were more willing to believe that Christ had risen from the dead than his male disciples. "This is beautiful, and this is the mission of women, of mothers and women, to give witness to their children and grandchildren that Christ is risen," he said.