Papal commission votes against ordaining women deacons

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — A commission set up by Pope Francis to study women deacons has voted against the possibility of ordaining women deacons while also supporting more study on the issue.

It also expressed hope that women’s access to other ministries would be expanded.

Pope Francis established the “Study Commission on the Female Diaconate” in 2020 as a follow-up to a previous group that studied the history of women deacons in the New Testament and the early Christian communities.

Cardinal Giuseppe Petrocchi of Aquila, Italy, was chosen as president of the commission and Msgr. Denis Dupont-Fauville served as secretary. Pope Francis had named 10 other members of the commission — five women and five men, including two permanent deacons from the United States and three priests.

The seven-page report published Dec. 4 was a synthesis of the commission’s work, which concluded in February, and was addressed to Pope Leo XIV. According to Vatican News, the pope requested the synthesis — which was dated Sept 18 — be made public.

The Vatican published the synthesis, including the results of votes the commission members took on eight different statements or “theses.”

One proposition that showed members split exactly down the middle was: “The masculinity of Christ, and therefore the masculinity of those who receive Holy Orders, is not accidental but is an integral part of sacramental identity, preserving the divine order of salvation in Christ. To alter this reality would not be a simple adjustment of ministry but a rupture of the nuptial meaning of salvation.”

When this statement was put to a vote among 10 members in February, it received five votes in favor, confirming its current form, while the other five members voted to remove it.

A statement that received six votes against, two for and two abstaining was: “The undersigned is in favor of the institution in the church of the female diaconate as understood as the third degree of holy orders.”

In fact, during the commission’s second session in July 2022, members agreed seven to one on the following statement: “The ‘status quaestionis’ of historical research and theological investigation, as well as their mutual implications, rules out the possibility of moving in the direction of admitting women to the diaconate understood as a degree of the sacrament of Holy Orders. In light of sacred Scripture, tradition and the church’s magisterium, this assessment is strongly maintained, although it does not at present allow for a definitive judgment to be formulated, as is the case with priestly ordination.”

The commission unanimously expressed support in 2021 for the establishment of new ministries that “could contribute to synergy between men and women. Their implementation would require the development of appropriate means of formation — theological, practical, mystagogical — and support.” Pope Francis had announced several months before, in January 2021, that the ministries of lector and acolyte would be open to women.

During its last working session in February, the commission also reviewed materials it received after the Synod of Bishops had allowed anyone to contribute to the commission’s deliberations.

“Although many interventions were submitted, the persons or groups who sent their writings numbered only 22 and represented few countries,” the report said. “Consequently, although the material is abundant and in some cases skillfully argued, it cannot be considered the voice of the Synod, much less of the People of God as a whole.”

The report noted the subject of a female diaconate is of “significant complexity” and lacks “sufficient consensus,” as could also be seen in the discussion reports compiled during the October 2024 Synod on Synodality.

However, the report noted some of the arguments being made in favor of women’s ordination to the diaconate, citing how proponents have said excluding women from this ministry seems to contradict the biblical foundation of the equal status and dignity of “male” and “female” as images of God.

Because of that, some believe women should not only be allowed access to ordination as deacons, but also to the other degrees of Holy Orders: the priesthood and episcopate, the report said.

“The argument based on the masculinity of Jesus Christ is seen as a sexist and narrow view, leading to discrimination against women,” it noted. “According to these views, the ‘repraesentatio Christi’ should no longer be linked to gender categories but should focus on the ministerial mediation of salvation through men and women.”

Given the different arguments, the commission developed during its third and final session the thesis which saw the members split down the middle about the masculinity of Christ and those who receive Holy Orders as not being accidental but is “an integral part of sacramental identity” and “the nuptial meaning of salvation.”

The commission then voted nine in favor and one against on a “preamble” that encouraged broadening “women’s access to ministries established for the service of the community.”

“It is now up to the discernment of pastors to evaluate what further ministries can be introduced for the concrete needs of the church of our time, thus ensuring adequate ecclesial recognition of the diakonia (service) of the baptized, particularly of women. Such recognition will be a prophetic sign, especially where women still suffer situations of gender discrimination,” the preamble said.

Cardinal Petrocchi then added his own personal comment in the report’s conclusion, noting the “intense theoretical and existential dialectic” between two theological standpoints.

The first maintains that the ordination of a deacon is for ministry and not for priesthood, which “would open the way toward the ordination of women deacons,” he wrote.

The opposing stance, he wrote, insists “on the unity of the sacrament of Holy Orders, together with the nuptial meaning of the three degrees that constitute it, and rejects the hypothesis of a female diaconate; it also notes that if the admission of women to the first degree of Holy Orders were approved, exclusion from the others would become inexplicable.”

For this reason, the cardinal wrote, continued study should focus on critically examining “the diaconate in itself — that is, on its sacramental identity and its ecclesial mission — clarifying certain structural and pastoral aspects that are currently not fully defined.”

“The commission insisted on the urgency of valuing ‘baptismal diakonia’ as the foundation of any ecclesial ministry,” he wrote.

In fact, he wrote, there are whole regions where the diaconal ministry is “almost nonexistent” and others where it is active with functions often “coinciding with roles proper to lay ministries or to altar servers in the liturgy.”

“It should also be emphasized that the various commissions were unanimous in pointing out the need to expand “‘communal spaces’ so that women can participate adequately and share responsibility in the church’s decision-making bodies, including through the creation of new lay ministries,” the cardinal wrote.

While the report did not name the commission members taking part in the deliberations in 2021, 2022 and 2025, Pope Francis had named the following in 2020: U.S. Deacon Dominic Cerrato, director of deacon formation for the Diocese of Joliet, Illinois; U.S. Deacon James Keating, a former director of theological formation at the Institute for Priestly Formation at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. The other three men were priests: Father Santiago del Cura Elena, a priest of the Archdiocese of Burgos, Spain, and a professor and theologian who has studied and written extensively about priestly ordination; Father Manfred Hauke, a German-born professor at the Theological Faculty of Lugano, Switzerland, and author of a book examining the church’s teaching on ordaining only men as priests; and Msgr. Angelo Lameri, a professor of liturgy and the sacraments at Rome’s Pontifical Lateran University.

The five women chosen had been: Catherine Brown Tkacz, a U.S.-born professor at the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv, who focuses on women in the Bible and in Christian tradition; Caroline Farey, a theologian and catechist educator who serves as “Diocesan Mission Catechist” for the Diocese of Shrewsbury, England; Barbara Hallensleben, a professor of theology at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, and former member of the International Theological Commission; Rosalba Manes, a consecrated virgin and biblical scholar, who teaches at Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University; and Anne-Marie Pelletier, a French biblical scholar.

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