“In 2013, the Catholic Church launched a huge movement, very conservative movement, against marriage for everyone,” she recalled. “They were at the forefront. You had bishops on TV. The thing was, marriage for everyone was only about civil ceremonies. It had nothing to do with religion. But they loaded buses from the churches to go protest in Paris.”

Struck by the progressive nature of the Swedish church, she and Ms. Bauer, a colleague in the Youpress freelance collective, began seeking out subjects. Among them were some of the first women to be ordained, who Ms. Robert said had longed for a greater role than the traditional one of pastor’s wife.

“They really wanted other responsibilities,” she said. “They wanted to be fully recognized as priests. They said the first thing they had to do was to study theology and be equal to men in those studies. And then they found the theological foundation to say women should be allowed to be ordained. That was their first fight.”

From a handful of pioneers, the role of female clergy has grown, including the appointment of an openly lesbian bishop and a woman named the church’s first woman archbishop. The church, she added, continued to pursue a more liberal approach, even if it has faced some pushback from other faith leaders abroad for its stance on female ordination and causes like immigration. The church’s evolution, she said, reflected bigger shifts that occurred in Swedish society after World War II.