(12 May 2016) Pope Francis said on Thursday he was willing to create a commission to study whether women could be deacons in the Catholic Church, signaling openness to letting women serve in ordained ministry currently reserved to men.
Francis agreed to a proposal to create an official study commission during a closed-door meeting with some 900 superiors of women's religious orders in Rome for their triennial assembly.
Deacons are ordained ministers but are not priests, though they can perform many of the same functions as priests: preside at weddings, baptisms and funerals, and preach.
They cannot, however, celebrate Mass.
Currently, married men - who are also mostly excluded from the Roman Catholic priesthood - can serve as deacons.
Women cannot, though historians say women served as deacons in the early Church.
The pope in no way signalled during a 75-minute conversation with the sisters that the church's longstanding prohibition on women priests would change.
But asked if he would be willing to create a commission to study whether women could serve as deacons, Francis said he was open to the idea, according to the National Catholic Reporter and Catholic News Service, which had reporters in the audience hall.
From the start of his pontificate, Francis has insisted that women must have a greater decision-making role in the life of the church, while reaffirming that they cannot be priests.
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