By Aili Winstanley Channer
The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) is drafting a final report on the participation of women in the life and leadership of the Church, according to the interim reports of the Synod study groups published on Nov 17. Its findings have been forwarded to the Second Study Commission on the Female Diaconate.
The study groups were formed at Pope Francis’ request in Feb 2024 on themes discussed in Oct 2023 during the first Rome session of the Synod on Synodality, moving the discussion of some of the Synod’s most controversial topics from the 200-plus Synod participants to small expert panels. In his letter requesting the study groups, the late Pope said these issues “require in-depth study” for which there would not be time during the second session of the Synod in 2024.
They were due to submit reports to the Pope in June 2025, but following the death of Pope Francis the deadline was moved to the end of the year.
The final report of Study Group Five, which focuses on ministerial forms and women’s participation, will contain three parts: an overview of the history, methodology, and insights gained by the group, a synthesis of the principal findings, and an appendix cataloguing the extensive material collected by the dicastery throughout the study process.
This material will cover significant female figures in the history of the Church, personal accounts from women currently engaged in Church leadership or serving within the Roman Curia, the “relevance and limitations” of the Marian and Petrine principles of the feminine and ministerial aspects of the Church, the nature and exercise of the Church’s authority (ecclesial potestas), “critical tensions” regarding “clericalism and male chauvinism”, and the contributions of Pope Francis and Pope Leo XIV concerning the role of women in the Church.
The interim study report says the dicastery is relying especially on the contribution of female consultors to produce the synthesis of findings in the final report and “has actively invited the contributions of numerous women who are already significantly involved in the mission and leadership of the Church”.
It also mentions that all synodal contributions related to the possibility of women deacons have been forwarded to the Second Study Commission on the Female Diaconate “for its consideration”, and that the dicastery plans to deliver the final outcome of its work in the coming months.
It was announced in Oct 2024 that the Second Commission, appointed by Pope Francis in 2020 to study the female diaconate, would resume its work. Cardinal Victor Fernández, prefect of the DDF, said at the time that the discernment of women’s access to the diaconate “remains open”.
Study Group Four, on revising Ratio Fundamentalis Institutionis Sacerdotalis, a document issued in 2016 outlining the fundamental principles for the formation of priests, from a synodal missionary perspective, also expressed the need for a more open understanding of ministry in its interim report.
It called for the Church “to deepen the identity of ordained ministry in relational terms, in dialogue with other ministries” through “formation that is more rooted in the lived experience of the People of God with its various charisms and ministries; joint formation moments involving laypeople, consecrated persons, ordained ministers, and seminarians; greater participation of all components of the People of God – especially women and families – in the formation of ordained ministers”.
The interim report announced that Study Group Four has entered the final phase of drafting a document providing guidelines on how to implement Ratio Fundamentalis from a missionary and synodal perspective, to be submitted to Pope Leo.
Study Group Three, on the mission of the Church in the digital environment, has also promised to release its final report by the end of the year. – The Tablet
