(RNS) — The Vatican released a document Thursday (Dec. 4) stating that current church teaching does not permit women to be ordained as deacons, while emphasizing that the opinion is not a final ruling.
The document, however, a summary of the work of a Vatican-appointed Study Commission on the Women’s Diaconate, is the most extensive official review to date on the issue. It was submitted to Pope Leo XIV, who will decide whether and how to act on its conclusions.
“This assessment is strong, although it does not allow, at present, for a definitive judgment,” wrote the study commission’s chair, Cardinal Giuseppe Petrocchi.
The seven-page summary presents a series of internal votes taken by the commission between 2021 and 2025 and draws on historical research, biblical scholarship, sacramental theology and a review of written submissions received from the Synod on Synodality’s consultations. The commission said that, while “many contributions flowed in,” only 22 individuals or groups ultimately provided written material and that their views “could not be considered as the voice of the Synod let alone the People of God as a whole.”
In 2020, Pope Francis created an earlier Vatican commission to study questions surrounding women deacons. That initial group never released its findings publicly.
The new report argues that women who were referred to as “deaconesses” in the early church were not understood as the sacramental equivalent of male deacons. It goes on to say, in one of its most debated sections, that the commission weighed whether Christ’s “masculinity” should be considered essential to sacramental ordination. When members voted on whether to include such language, the commission split evenly, 5-5.
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Casey Stanton. (Courtesy photo)
Casey Stanton, co-director of the Catholic advocacy group Discerning Deacons, said she spent much of the day fielding calls from women expressing confusion and discouragement.
Stanton said Discerning Deacons submitted written material to the Vatican “on very short notice” during the consultation process, drawing on testimonies from 29 intergenerational women from across North America. Many of the submissions, she said, included letters of endorsement from clergy and described women’s long-standing service in parish, chaplaincy and social ministries. She said that some of those same women are now reaching out with concern after the report’s release.
“These are women with gifts for preaching, for leadership and for social ministry — they are trying to live out what they sense Jesus and their communities are calling them into, in fidelity to the church,” Stanton said. “Why is this a scandal? No one here is trying to have a power grab. It’s a way to sacramentalize their service and acknowledge that women can also bear the face of Jesus.”
The report’s authors describe many women’s submissions as based on personal experience, writing that some wrote about a strong “feeling” of being called “as if it were the proof needed to assure the church of the validity of their vocation and demand that this conviction be accepted.”
“No one is making a demand,” Stanton said. “Our request of the church is simply that it would come alongside us and discern with us.”
She said one of the most troubling aspects of the report was a double standard it applied to women’s testimony. “It reduces women’s witness to feelings,” Stanton said, “as if that means they lack theological sophistication.” She added that the same language used, in her view, to discount women’s claims would be considered legitimate signs of vocation if voiced by men.
“Our sacramentality isn’t up for debate,” said Kate McElwee, executive director of the Women’s Ordination Conference, a grassroots organization that advocates for the ordination of women. “Either women are equal in the eyes of God or they’re not. Over and over again, we’re getting statements that the Vatican is trying to equivocate, you’re equal in this way, but not this way. It’s extremely frustrating.”
FILE – Women’s Ordination Conference Executive Director Kate McElwee, left, addresses WOC members during the “Let Her Voice Carry” vigil in the Basilica of Saint Praxedis in Rome, Tuesday, Oct. 3, 2023. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)
Thursday’s Vatican report, said McElwee, “reaffirms the importance of our witness. The Vatican is going to continue to keep the door closed until we push it open.”
But McElwee warned that the report will damage the church’s ability to retain women who feel called to serve. “I think many women will walk away,” McElwee said. “It feels like, in the end, eight or nine people get to say no. That’s incredibly discouraging, and I worry that the enthusiasm or even the interest in pursuing this in the Catholic Church will be lost.”
Tricia C. Bruce, a senior research fellow with the Institute for Advanced Catholic studies at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles who has conducted studies on women and the diaconate, said the report’s release could be read as a step toward greater transparency, even if its conclusions echo earlier Vatican positions opposing women deacons.
“One of my initial reactions was actually just gratitude at the visibility for the public release of this report,” said Bruce, who was appointed by Francis as a consultant to the Synod on Synodality. “I think this is (Leo’s) attempt to bring this issue into a broader public conversation, which is very welcome. But in many ways, it’s the same thing which has been said before on this issue, which is that we don’t have enough information. The topic is not mature yet.”
But drawing on interviews with hundreds of Catholic women about their role in the church, Bruce said many Catholic women already describe their current service as marked by “tears and frustration and deeply painful experiences,” and warn younger generations to “run away” or “guard yourself.”
“For the church,” Bruce said, “that’s an enormously dismaying reality, that half of the church is possibly not able to fully live into their call.”
Many who have worked on the issue are looking to the pope, who will decide whether to accept the commission’s conclusions, request further study or chart a new process for discernment. Leo has not spoken extensively on the issue but has said he didn’t intend to change church teaching on the topic. In the same interview, however, he implied there are issues the church needs to consider on the issue of the diaconate generally before deciding about women deacons.
“My wildest dream is not that women deacons would be ordained tomorrow,” Stanton said. “My wildest dream is that we would really have a global discernment on the question — to take it out of the hands of experts and say, how do we together discern … and let the Holy Spirit speak through all of us.”
