The Vatican group studying the question of women's ministry, including the ordination of women to the diaconate, will expand its consultative phase to include women who do not serve as consultors to the dicastery in charge of the study group, synod officials announced.
The agenda for the Second Assembly of Australia's Plenary Council was disrupted July 6 after more than 60 of the 277 members staged a protest over issues regarding women in the church, including the defeat of a motion to formalize support for the ordination of women as deacons.
Pope Francis has established a new "Study Commission on the Female Diaconate" as a follow-up to a previous group that studied the history of women deacons in the New Testament and the early Christian communities.
Members of the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon asked that women be given leadership roles in the Catholic Church, although they stopped short of calling for women deacons.
Whether or not the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon helps open the door to ordaining women deacons, women will continue to play a fundamental role in ministry in the Church in the region, religious sisters said.
The commission Pope Francis appointed to study the history and identity of women deacons did not reach a unanimous conclusion about whether deaconesses in the early Church were "ordained" or formally "blessed," the pope said.
A new study by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University surveyed men and women religious superiors in the United States about the possibility of ordaining women to the diaconate and found that the majority were in favor of the idea.
The pope's agreement on the idea -- raised by members of the International Union of Superiors General, the leadership group for superiors of women's orders -- was interpreted by some as a thumbs-up to women deacons and eventually women priests, which the Vatican spokesman was quick to rebut the next day.
Pope Francis told the heads of women's religious orders from around the world that he would set up a commission to study the New Testament deaconesses and he also insisted more can and should be done to involve lay and consecrated women in church decision-making at every level.
