Those taking part in the Synod of Bishops have emphasised that despite women’s ordination being removed from this year’s discussion there are plenty of important roles that women can fulfil in the Church. But they have also cautioned that there is an important need to discern potential ways to improve involving all the laity and not to overly focus on the role of women.
Participants were asked on 7 October what other possibilities they saw for women assuming leadership and governance roles that did not involve Holy Orders. It followed Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández, prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF), taking the women’s diaconate off the table and saying “there is still no room for a positive decision by the Magisterium regarding the access of women to the diaconate”.
