FutureChurch: Commission’s Assessment on Women Deacons a Failure of Courage, Synodality, and Leadership

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Russ Petrus, Executive Director
russ@futurechurch.org | 216-228-0869 x2

Today the Vatican released the findings of the latest commission to study women deacons. While the commission states it cannot issue a “definitive judgment,” its assessment at this time is that women cannot be admitted to the diaconate “understood as a degree of the sacrament of Holy Orders.” This conclusion is a disappointing failure of courage, synodality, and pastoral leadership. 

At a moment when the global Church is in urgent need of reform and renewal, particularly on the role of women in the Church, the commission’s report reflects an institutional reluctance to engage fully with both the historical evidence and the current pastoral needs of the People of God as well as an unwillingness to listen to the Holy Spirit speaking through the experiences of women and the Synod process. 

The commission side-stepped decades of scholarship and abundant evidence showing that women were ordained as deacons in the early Church and beyond in favor of reinforcing patriarchal barriers to actualizing women’s full baptismal equality and participation in the life and ministry of the Roman Catholic Church.

Equally troubling is the commission’s claim that the 22 written submissions “[representing] few countries” it received after the Synod invited input “cannot be considered the voice of the Synod, much less of the People of God as a whole.” This statement fits a pattern of secrecy and obfuscation of this particular topic, ignoring more than a decade of calls from around the world to restore women deacons and the consistent raising of women’s ordination in global listening sessions as a part of the Synod on Synodality. 

After the question of women deacons was moved to Study Group Five, FutureChurch – joined by Women’s Ordination Conference and the Association of US Catholic Priests – sent a letter to Pope Francis, the Synod office, and the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith requesting that they consider the full body of scholarship on women deacons while reevaluating past biases on the subject rooted in clericalism. 

FutureChurch notes the commission’s admission that the question remains unresolved. This lack of closure only underscores what the faithful already know: the Holy Spirit is not finished with this issue, even if the commission is. And so, FutureChurch once again calls on Church leaders to engage the global Church honestly, to reckon with historical truth, and to finally open pathways for women’s sacramental ministry. 

As long as the Church refuses to affirm women’s gifts and recognize their vocations to ordained ministry, it will continue to undermine its credibility and mission. Catholics around the world — especially women who serve, preach, and lead — deserve more.