Synod stresses global approach to role of women, doctrinal development

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Controversy over women's ordination, even at the synod, detracts attention from the plight of women in the Catholic Church and society, said an Australian bishop, who is a member of the Synod of Bishops.

When Catholics in the global North are "obsessed" with the issue of women's ordination, "women who in many parts of the church and world are treated as second-class citizens are totally ignored," Bishop Anthony Randazzo of Broken Bay, Australia, said during a press briefing Oct. 4, the third day of the synod on synodality.

In a written report delivered to synod members Oct. 2, Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, wrote that his dicastery, assigned to study the question of women's roles in the church, "judges that there is still no room for a positive decision by the magisterium regarding the access of women to the diaconate, understood as a degree of the sacrament of holy orders."

While Bishop Randazzo said he sees no problem with the topic of women's ordination being discussed and studied at the synod, he said such attention should "absolutely not" come at the cost of the dignity of women in the church and in the world.

"Can we stop talking about women and listen to, and speak with, women?" he asked. "This is how the church is called to act."

According to a 2024 Pew Research Center poll, a majority of Catholics surveyed in several Latin American countries, including Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru and Colombia, believe the Catholic Church should allow women to become priests. In the United States, 64% of Catholics surveyed agreed and a majority of Catholics in Italy, France and Spain support women's ordination. Data is not readily available on the sentiment of Catholics in Asia, Africa and Oceania.

Sister Xiskya Lucia Valladares, a member of the Religious of the Purity of Mary, said that although synod members received the report from Cardinal Fernández, the topic of women's ordination continues to be raised in both in small groups and assembly-wide discussions since there is an environment of "complete freedom of expression" encouraged by the synod organizers.

Sheila Leocádia Pires, secretary of the synod's information committee, said that the role of women and the relationship between individual charisms and ordained ministries were themes throughout the day's conversations among synod members.

Asked about reconciling differing views within the church, particularly in regard to the reception of "Fiducia Supplicans" ("Supplicating Trust"), Cardinal Cristóbal López Romero of Rabat, Morocco, said that it would have been preferable if such a document had gone through a synodal process.

The Vatican declaration stated it is permissible to give an informal blessing to a gay or other unmarried couple, though the union itself cannot be blessed, and drew criticism from several bishops in Africa.

Cardinal López, president of the North African regional bishops' conference, said bishops were not consulted about its publication, "so it should not surprise us that there were reactions against some of its points, not all of them."

After the document's publication, Congolese Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo of Kinshasa, president of Symposium of the Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar, released a letter saying most bishops' conferences in Africa would not offer blessings to same-sex couples, though each bishop remained free to do so in his diocese.

Yet Cardinal López said his region was not consulted in Africa's response to the document, despite being part of the continent.

"Learning synodality is not a simple thing," he said. "We are going to have to overcome many setbacks and many moments in which we will have to ask for forgiveness, just as the president of the African bishops asked forgiveness for making a statement without waiting for us make to one."