VATICAN CITY — The Vatican said Tuesday that its doctrine office will prepare a document on women in leadership roles in the Catholic Church, a new initiative to respond to Longstanding demands by women to have more say. in the life of the church.
The document will be written by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith as its contribution to Pope Francis’ great process of church reform, which now enters its second major phase with a meeting of bishops in October, known as a synod.
The Vatican announced the details of the doctrinal document shortly after its press conference – led by four men – on the preparatory work for the October meeting, without giving journalists the opportunity to ask for more details about it.
A group pushing for women’s ordination quickly dismissed their meaning as “crumbs,” noting that ordained men would once again make decisions about women’s roles in the church.
The upcoming document was announced in a list of members of 10 “study groups” that are investigating some of the thorniest and legally complicated issues that have arisen in the reform process to date, including the role of women and men. LGBTQ+ Catholics in life. of the church.
Pope Francis called the synod more than three years ago as part of his overall efforts to make the church a more welcoming place for marginalized groups, and where ordinary people would have a greater voice. The process, and the two-year survey of rank-and-file Catholics that preceded it, raised hopes and fears that real change was occurring.
Catholic women do most of the church’s work in schools and hospitals, and tend to take the lead in passing on the faith to future generations. But they have long complained about second-class status in an institution that reserves the priesthood for men.
Francisco has reaffirmed the ban on female priesthood, but has appointed several women to high-ranking positions in the Vatican and encouraged debate about other ways women’s voices can be heard. That has included the synod process in which women have had the right to vote on specific proposals – a right that was previously only granted to men.
Additionally, during his 11-year pontificate, he responded to demands for ministerial positions for women by appointing two commissions to study whether women could be ordained deacons. Deacons are ordained ministers but are not priests, although they can perform many of the same functions as priests: presiding at weddings, baptisms and funerals, and preaching. However, they cannot celebrate Mass.
The results of the two commissions have never been released and in a recent interview with CBS’ “60 Minutes,” Francis said “no” when asked if women could one day be ordained deacons.
The Women’s Ordination Conference, which advocates for the ordination of women priests, said the relegation of the issue of women deacons to the doctrinal office was not the sign of a church seeking to involve women more.
“The urgency of affirming the full and equal place of women in the Church cannot be ignored, relegated to an obscure commission or entrusted to ordained men in the Vatican,” the group said in a statement.
The doctrine office, headed by Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, Francis’ close theological advisor, will prepare an “appropriate document” on “theological and canonistic questions surrounding specific ministerial forms” that were raised during the first phase of the synod process on last year, the ad said.
“The in-depth examination of the issues at hand, in particular the question of the necessary participation of women in the life and leadership of the Church, has been entrusted to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith,” in dialogue with the synod organizers said.
Another “study group” is looking at particularly controversial issues, including welcome of LGBTQ+ people in the church.
These study groups are working with Vatican offices and will continue their analyzes beyond the October meeting, suggesting that this year’s results will not necessarily be complete.
After the 2023 session, synod delegates made no mention of homosexuality in their final summary text, although the working document Addressing it had specifically noted calls for a greater welcome for “LGBTQ+ Catholics” and others who have long felt excluded by the church.
The final text limits itself to saying that people who feel marginalized by the church, due to their marital situation, “identity and sexuality, ask to be heard and accompanied, and to defend their dignity.”
A few weeks after the synod ended, Francis unilaterally approved allowing priests to offer blessings to same-sex couplesessentially responding to one of the key demands of LBGTQ+ Catholics in starting the process.
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