The long, dramatic story of Study Group 5 has come to an end with the publication of the group’s final report on women’s ministries in the church. The most prominent call in this document, one of 15 being released by the Vatican’s General Secretariat of the Synod, is for “new forms of exercising authority” to be found for women, and affirming that women can and should hold non-ordained leadership roles in the church. It stops short, however, of articulating what those “new forms” should be.
The brief 13-page report is accompanied by more than 50 pages of appendices that examine the role of women in Scripture, church history and the modern-day Roman Curia (the Vatican’s central offices), as well as more theological examinations of how authority is exercised in the church.
The document defends Pope Francis’ decision to separate the power of holy orders (ordination) from the power to govern a church office, a choice that opened the door for women to be appointed to the top positions of Vatican offices for the first time but that faced vocal resistance in the pre-conclave meetings of cardinals in 2025. It denounces “machismo,” “male chauvinism” and “clericalism,” making the case that in his brief pontificate, Pope Leo XIV has continued down Francis’ path of appointing women to positions of leadership in the Curia.
It affirms the “discomfort” many women feel at the gap between the position of women in the church (what it calls “ecclesial realities”) and women’s roles in the societies of many countries; that gap, it says, has led to women of all ages no longer identifying as Catholic, disengaging from local church activities and no longer entering religious life. Another result, it says, is the “ever-stronger call, on the part of many women who are very actively engaged in pastoral activity or who are experts in theology and canon law, to review the currently existing forms of ecclesial leadership to make them more accessible to women,” including access to holy orders, preaching homilies and governing communities or diocesan offices.
As expected, the final report did not touch on the question of women deacons. In the group’s interim report released last November, it made clear that this topic would be exclusively addressed by the commission led by Cardinal Giuseppe Petrocchi, which released its own final report in December and has now been dissolved. That commission concluded that women could not be ordained to the diaconate “understood as a degree of Holy Orders” but stopped short of giving a definitive “no,” leaving continued discernment up to Pope Leo.
The final report from this study group, while calling for new roles for women (as the Petrocchi Commission did), concludes with a section on the “charismatic” ministries of women outside of sacramental or officially instituted ministries. The report warns: “An obsession with ensuring that everything becomes structure, rule, rite, or norm is not faithful to the free dynamism of the Spirit.”
It also stresses that what it calls “the question of women” is “a sign of the times” through which the Holy Spirit is challenging the church to “a change of mentality…even before speaking of ‘roles.’”
Language and history: Beyond motherhood
The document calls for a change in how women are described in church discourse, “moving beyond a view limited to certain characteristics—such as motherhood, tenderness, or care—that can leave little room for other equally important feminine qualities, such as leadership, counsel, the capacity for teaching, listening, and discernment,” suggesting that Mary and other women in Scripture be described in a way more accurate to their “concrete history.”
The document attempts to do this in its appendices on women in Scripture and church history, giving brief profiles of a selection of them. Regarding women in Scripture, it notes that their stories are all unique and should not be taken as a singular image of an “ideal woman,” only occasionally drawing out common themes—e.g., that the Old Testament matriarchs are described as beautiful, that barrenness is seen as a “starting point” and that God “seems to accommodate” and even use women’s cleverness to fulfil his promises.
Some of this commentary is awkwardly phrased (regarding Phoebe, it simply asks, “Was she a deaconess?” without elaborating), and although the appendix covers many important and minor figures, it leaves out Queen Esther, to whom an entire book of the Bible is devoted, and Junia, whom St. Paul describes as “prominent among the apostles” (Rom 16:7—though this verse is referenced elsewhere without naming Junia). These lacunae, along with some notable errors (such as calling journalist Elise Ann Allen “Eileen”) suggest the document was produced quickly.
An appendix on “Important Women in the History of the Church” covers a wide timespan of female leaders in the church. It includes Empress Helena in the third century, female abbesses with authority over men in the fifth through the ninth centuries and over priests in the 12th through the 18th centuries, major medieval saints and doctors of the church like Catherine of Siena and Teresa of Ávila, and even modern figures like Maria Montessori and Dorothy Day. Its geographic and ethnic span is concentrated in Europe and on those of European origin, reflective of a similar lack of diversity in the church’s canon of saints.
Although the appendix highlights the intelligence, creativity and courage of many of these women, at the same time it glosses over many of their clashes with the church hierarchy. Regarding Catherine of Siena’s famous demand that Pope Gregory XI end the Avignon papacy and reform the clergy, the appendix simply states that she “traveled to Avignon in 1376 to speak with” him. On Joan of Arc, it acknowledges “the trial marked by significant injustices and traps set in a tendentious manner on the theological front” but never mentions that it was church authorities who presided over her trial and ordered that she be executed. Likewise, there is no mention of Teresa of Ávila’s investigation by the Spanish Inquisition.
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz is the only woman in the appendix explicitly described as having “conflicts” with church authorities, and the tension is quickly dispensed with by a very brief story about obedience, followed immediately by her death:
Her life was not without conflict and trials, even with ecclesiastical authorities. When she was ordered to sell the library and distribute the proceeds to the poor, she obeyed. While caring for a sister in her convent, she became infected and died in 1695.
The appendix makes one final reference to such conflicts in its conclusion, saying, “Although at times their temperament marks a distance from the hierarchy’s way of thinking, while remaining obediently faithful, the strength of these women has been expressed in favor of and for the love of the Church.”
A third appendix, on women currently in leadership in the church, summarizes the material submitted to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (which took on the work assigned to Study Group 5) to present some current cases of women in leadership positions already allowed by canon law, including the role of a female “general delegate” who assists the bishop in certain French dioceses. It says that reports by women working in the Roman Curia “indicate that certain attitudes marked by clericalism persist: women, even in positions of responsibility, sometimes struggle to be involved and listened to on equal footing with male colleagues, particularly in interactions with ordained ministers,” but that the culture is slowly changing.
Theology: Marian and Petrine
The document’s three theological appendices begin with an examination of the “Marian and Petrine Principles” developed by Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar, which Pope Francis often invoked to explain why women could not be ordained in the Catholic Church. The appendix examines how Popes John Paul II, Benedict XVI, Francis and Leo XIV have engaged with the idea, emphasizing that among them, only Francis equated “Marian and Petrine” with “male and female.” It makes the case that the other popes, and von Balthasar himself, saw the “Marian” principle as describing the entire laity and the “Petrine” model being one for ordained ministers.
The next appendix examines the evolution of the idea of authority in the Catholic Church, outlining how a bishop’s authority came to be understood as two distinct powers: the power of ordination (potestas ordinis) and the power to govern (potestas iurisdictionis, also sometimes referred to as potestas regiminis). The Second Vatican Council, it argues, pushed back against this distinction, preferring to refer to all Christians being baptized as “priest, prophet and king” (that is, possessing the charisms of sanctifying, teaching and governing), but it added the distinction that lay people’s innate authority to govern had to be specifically delegated by a church authority. This, it explains, is the model used in Pope Francis’ changes in the Roman Curia: A woman can lead a Curia office because the pope delegates that authority to her.
However, the appendix explains that there are diverging ideas on whether baptism gives a person an authority that is distinct from the one that can be delegated to them by a bishop. This question, it says, remains open.
The final appendix outlines Pope Francis’ and Pope Leo’s teachings on women, including a list of the women each appointed to curial positions, making the case that Pope Leo intends to continue Francis’ push to include more women in leadership positions in the Roman Curia.
What comes next
Now that the final documents of the synod study groups have been submitted to the pope, Leo has decided to gradually publish them. Three have been released so far. Cardinal Mario Grech, the secretary general of the Synod of Bishops, has described these as “working documents” and said that they will be used to create proposals for Pope Leo to review and possibly approve. It is unclear who will be formulating the proposals, but it seems likely that a call to consider possibilities for additional ministries for women will flow from this document. What that consideration might look like—and what other proposals might be made—remains to be seen.
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