Women’s role in Catholic Church tops agenda as Pope Francis opens second phase of big reform project

ROME (AP) — Pope Francis opened the second phase of his big Catholic reform project Wednesday, with widespread calls for women to take up more positions of responsibility in the church topping the agenda but ordained ministry still ruled out.

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.

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 allowing women to serve as deacons.

Francis has entrusted these topics to 10 study groups that are working in parallel to the synod, raising questions about what exactly will come out of the gathering when it concludes Oct. 26 with a final set of proposals for Francis to consider.

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 long-held and self-interested positions and truly listen to one another to “give life to something new.”

“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 in his homily.

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, saying Christ chose only men as his 12 apostles.

Francis has repeatedly reaffirmed the all-male priesthood and as recently as this weekend sharply criticized “obtuse” agitators pressing for a female diaconate. After a contentious visit to Belgium where he was challenged by female students, Francis said such calls were an attempt to “make women masculine.”

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 out of the question, a host of other proposals are being discussed, 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.

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 as a way to atone for the church’s transgressions before the start of the meeting.

Mueller blasted what he called “newly invented sins” -– including sins against the synod itself and the sin “of using doctrine as stones to be hurled,” a reference to how conservatives have criticized Francis’ reform efforts as undermining traditional church doctrine.

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 a sympathetic ear in both Francis, who approved same-sex blessings unilaterally after the first session of the synod ended, and the Rev. Timothy Radcliffe, who is one of the “spiritual assistants” for the synod.

In an essay this week in the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, Radcliffe argued strongly for even doubters in the church to recognize the good in LGBTQ+ Catholics and their relationships, and why the church ought to welcome them.

“The acceptance of gay people is seen in some parts of the church as evidence of Western decadence,” he wrote. “But the church must fight for the lives and dignity of gay people, still liable to capital punishment in 10 countries and criminal prosecution in 70. They have the right to live,” he said.

At the same time, those opposed to a pastoral approach to gays have gifts the Western church should appreciate, including a deep sense of the divine life in all of creation, he said.

“The Body of Christ needs all our gifts,” he concluded.

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AP visual journalist Silvia Stellacci contributed to this report.

Nicole Winfield, The Associated Press