Pope Francis on Wednesday announced a new commission to study the possibility of female deacons in the Catholic Church.
The commission, composed of five men and five women from Europe and the United States, is the second of its sort to take up the issue.
Deacons are ordained ministers who have the ability to assist in some of the church’s sacraments. Along with priests, they are the only people who are allowed to read the gospel and preach at Mass. Deacons, however, cannot consecrate the Eucharist.
Francis established the first committee to study female deacons in 2016, after some Catholics argued that in the early Christian church, female members were able to perform many of the functions of deacons. The committee disbanded after it was unable to come to an agreement on the question.
“For the female diaconate, there is a way to imagine it with a different view from the male diaconate,” Francis said in May 2019. “Fundamentally, there is no certainty that it was an ordination with the same form, in the same purpose as male ordination.”
The Vatican indicated after the 2019 Amazon Synod, which, among other things, studied the possibility of married priests, that it would open another commission on female deacons. The new commission will study whether or not it is permissible to ordain female deacons in areas of the world where there is a shortage of Catholic ministers.
Advocates of female deacons argue that they would lead to greater female participation in the church. Opponents argue that move could set a precedent for female priests, an office Catholic teaching reserves for men.
