Church Times: Pope initiates a second study of women deacons
By Pat Ashworth
THE Pope has set up a new commission to study the possibility of ordaining women to the diaconate, after an initial study commissioned in 2016 reported last year inconclusively.
At the Synod of Bishops’ meeting in October 2019, which focused on the peoples of the Amazon, bishops acknowledged that many of the region’s RC communities were already led by women (News, 1 November 2019). One resolution stated: “It is urgent for the Amazon Church to promote and confer ministries of men and women in an equitable manner.”…
…A press statement from the Women’s Ordination Conference said that women had played a leading part in the history of the faith since the time of the Gospels.
“We have heard the cries of the people of the Amazon and around the world for this ministry to be restored. We pray that the overwhelming historical evidence of women deacons, and the urgent need for women’s ordained ministries, guides the work of this commission to formalise a path towards ordination for women by recognising the work that women already do.”