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Debate on women’s participation in the Catholic Church — including the idea of whether women could one day be deacons — is not on the agenda for this month’s assembly of the Synod on Synodality, but synodal conversations on the topic continue, some at the explicit invitation of Pope Francis.
Pope Francis has written the preface to the book “Women and Ministries in the Synodal Church,” authored by three theologians and two cardinals who participated in the meeting of the Council of Cardinals, C9, this past February at the Vatican.
Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost noted that the Catholic Church is not a mirror image of society and “needs to be different.”
In a message Wednesday, Pope Francis warned against letting ideology influence the Church’s ordained and lay ministries, and said he plans to initiate a dialogue with bishops on the topic.
It was September 1987, and Pope John Paul II had just arrived in Los Angeles after traveling around the United States. The Pope was greeted in the City of Angels by a closed-door meeting with a group of progressive bishops who had a bone to pick with several Church traditions.
Pope Francis Saturday appointed a Spanish priest and a French religious sister as under-secretaries of the Synod of Bishops.