Catholic reform debate launched by Pope Francis leans away from ordained roles for women

ROME — Debate was leaning away from allowing women to take on ordained roles in the Catholic Church as the second phase of Pope Francis' reform project opened Wednesday with an agenda topped by calls for women to take up more positions of responsibility

Francis presided over an opening Mass in St. Peter's Square with the 368 bishops and laypeople who will meet behind closed doors for the next three weeks to discuss the future of the church and how to make it more responsive to the needs of Catholics today. Nearby, advocates for women's ordination staged a flash mob under the motto: ''Don't Kick the Can, Women Can Be Priests.''

Several of the most contentious issues are officially off the table, after they encountered resistance and objections during the first session of the synod, or meeting, last year. They include ministering to LGBTQ+ Catholics and ordaining women to serve as deacons.

Francis entrusted these topics to 10 study groups that are working in parallel to the synod and offered updates on their work in the opening session Wednesday night.

In the most eagerly awaited status report, the Vatican doctrine chief, Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, said the debate on women's role in governance was moving away from a fixation on an ordained ministry such as the diaconate.

Instead, he said, the debate was moving to actual experiences of women leading Catholic communities and exercising power without the benefit of authority that is derived automatically from ordination.

''We know the public position of the pontiff, who does not consider the issue (of the female diaconate) mature,'' Fernandez told the synod hall. ''The opportunity for further study remains open, but in the Holy Father's mind there are other issues yet to be investigated and resolved before rushing to talk about a possible diaconate for some women. Otherwise, the diaconate becomes a kind of consolation for some women and the most decisive issue of women's participation in the church remains neglected.''

He said that by studying influential Catholic figures including Joan of Arc, Dorothy Day and St. Teresa of Avila "the issues of access to the diaconate appear resized and we try to widen the spaces for a more decisive female presence."

Francis launched the reform process in 2021 to put in practice his goal of creating a church that is more inclusive, humble and welcoming, where ordinary Catholics have a greater say in decision making than the all-male priestly hierarchy.

The process, and the two-year canvassing of rank-and-file Catholics that informed it, sparked both hopes and fears that real change was afoot.

In his marching orders Wednesday, Francis urged delegates to leave aside their self-interested positions and truly listen to one another.

''Otherwise, we will end up locking ourselves into dialogues among the deaf, where participants seek to advance their own causes or agendas without listening to others and, above all, without listening to the voice of the Lord,'' he said.

The first phase of the synod process ended last year by concluding it was ''urgent'' to guarantee fuller participation by women in church governance positions, and calling for theological and pastoral research to continue about allowing women to be deacons.

Deacons perform many of the same functions as priests, such as presiding over baptisms, weddings and funerals, but they cannot celebrate Mass.

Advocates say allowing women to be deacons would help offset the Catholic priest shortage and address longstanding complaints that women have a second-class status in the church: barred from the priesthood yet responsible for the lion's share of the work educating the young, caring for the sick and passing the faith onto next generations.

Opponents say ordaining women to the deaconate would signal the start of a slippery slope toward ordaining women to the priesthood. The Catholic Church reserves the priesthood for men.

Francis has repeatedly reaffirmed the all-male priesthood and as recently as this weekend sharply criticized ''obtuse'' agitators pressing for a female diaconate.

His arguments have outraged proponents of women's ordination, who have organized a series of events outside the synod this month in Rome to press their case.

''It's so insulting to keep on saying that the only valid role that will get the approval of this pope is to be nurturing, is to be a mother, while you can be nurturing and mothering and be a priest,'' said Miriam Duignan, a trustee at the Wijngaards Institute for Catholic Research.

''He is putting a spiritual stamp of approval on sexism,'' she said at a prayer event this week co-organized by the Women's Ordination Conference. ''It is so irresponsible and dangerous for him to constantly criticize, belittle, dismiss and demonize women who are just saying ‘Stop lying. Stop hiding and stop trying to relegate us to second-class citizenship.'''

While ordained ministry for women is currently off the table, a host of other proposals are being discussed in the synod hall, including calls for women to have greater positions of responsibility in seminaries and sit as judges on canonical courts that decide everything from marriage annulments to priest discipline cases.

There are 368 members of the synod, including 272 bishops and 96 non-bishops. In all, 85 women are participating, including 54 with the right to vote on proposals that will be put to a vote at the end of the synod Oct. 26 and forwarded to Francis.

In addition to delegates who were selected by their respective bishops conferences, Francis named a few members himself to participate, including two bishops from mainland China, many of his closest cardinal advisers and the exiled Nicaraguan Bishop Rolando Jose Alvarez.

Also on the list of pontifically nominated members is the retired prefect of the Vatican's doctrine office, Cardinal Gerhard Mueller, who has been critical of the synod process and Francis' pontificate as a whole.

In an essay this week on German Catholic site kath.net, Mueller took particular aim at the penitential liturgy that Francis celebrated Tuesday during which he begged forgiveness for a host of sins — against women, the poor, the planet and migrants — as a way to atone for the church's transgressions before the start of the meeting.

Mueller said such a laundry list of invented sins ''reads like a checklist of woke and gender ideology, somewhat laboriously disguised as Christianity.''

Non-bishop members named by the pope include the Rev. James Martin, an American Jesuit who runs an LGBTQ+ outreach ministry. Martin has lamented that LGBTQ+ issues are officially off the table but he has a sympathetic ear in Francis, who approved same-sex blessings unilaterally after the first session of the synod ended.

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AP visual journalist Silvia Stellacci contributed to this report.