WHAT THE SYNOD STUDY GROUP 5 REPORT SAYS AND DOESN'T SAY

Calls for expanded roles in governance and leadership, but did not look at a possible female diaconate

Bishop Mark O’Connell will hold an invite-only synod session at Siena University on Sept. 19 looking at the roles of women in the Church. The session will use as its guide “The Final Report of Synod Study Group 5 on ;Women’s Participation in the Life and Leadership of the Church’” which the Vatican released this past March. (OSV News photo) (Courtesy photo of Lola Gomez)

The Vatican published the final report of the synod study group examining women’s participation in the Church in March. The 75-page document, published in English and Italian, calls for expanded roles for women in Church governance and leadership in roles not including ordained ministry. While discussing women’s leadership roles, it did not look into the specific question of a possible female diaconate.

Let’s take a deeper look at what the report said, according to OSV News:

A ‘charismatic path’ for women

In the document, the study group calls for “new spaces” for women to exercise leadership in evangelization and administration in collaboration with ordained ministers.

“Alongside the sacramental path and distinct from it, there is also a charismatic path that can be fruitfully pursued to open new spaces of participation for the lay faithful, particularly for women,” it states. “It follows that even in the exercise of governance within a Diocese, opportunities of this kind may arise and should be employed.”

The report argues that laywomen possess distinct charisms from the Holy Spirit that demand recognition.

“Today laywomen have the right to affirm their participation in the mission of the Church not only on the basis of their equal human and Christian dignity but also on the basis of the charisms given by God,” it says.

“A new evangelization has become urgent,” it adds, “One that depends less exclusively on priestly resources and is enriched by the presence and contributions of women.”

‘New forms of exercising authority’

The synod study group calls for theology and canon law to “explore new forms of exercising authority grounded in the Sacrament of Baptism and distinct from those deriving from Holy Orders, so that adequate canonical forms may be found to make effective the participation of women in roles of leadership within the Church.”

“There is no reason or impediment that should prevent women from carrying out leadership roles in the Church,” the report states.

The document also recommends a “reformulation of the areas of competence of the ordained ministry,” suggesting that redefining those boundaries “could open the way to recognize new spaces of responsibility for women in the Church.”

Female diaconate not addressed

Notably, the report does not address the specific question of a possible female diaconate, a controversial topic of debate within the Synod on Synodality. During the second session of the synod, Pope Francis reactivated a commission studying women’s access to the diaconate under Cardinal Giuseppe Petrocchi. That commission’s conclusions, published in December 2025, stopped short of recommending the female diaconate but approved by a wide margin a proposal to broaden women’s access to instituted ministries, like that of catechist.

The Virgin Mary as a model

Drawing on Scripture and Church tradition, the report invokes both the Virgin Mary and St. Mary Magdalene as paradigms for female authority in the Church.

“Mary is the supreme model of the charismatic dimension. Though she does not belong to the hierarchical structure, she possesses within the Church a unique authority and spiritual fruitfulness,” it states.

The document also notes that Christ chose a woman, Mary Magdalene, to first announce the Resurrection: “The Apostles themselves received this proclamation from her.”

Pope Leo’s appointments of women to Roman Curia

The report outlines appointments made by both Pope Francis and Pope Leo XIV as evidence that women can and already do lead at the highest levels of the Church.

It cites the Apostolic Constitution “Praedicate Evangelium,” which allows the possibility for a laywomen to head a Vatican dicastery, “depending on the power of governance and the specific competence and function of the Dicastery or Office in question.”

At the same time, the report states that women working in the Roman Curia have indicated “that certain attitudes marked by clericalism persist” in which “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.”

The study group highlighted Pope Leo XIV’s appointments of Trappistine Mother Martha Elizabeth Driscoll, and Sister Iuliana Sarosi, a member of the Congregation of the Mother of God, as consultors to the Dicastery for the Clergy and of Cristiana Perrella as president of the Pontifical Insigne Academy of Fine Arts and Letters of the Virtuosi al Pantheon. Also, in May 2025, in his first appointment of a top-level official of the Roman Curia, Pope Leo XIV named Sister Tiziana Merletti, a canon lawyer, to be secretary of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life. 

The report also cited Pope Leo’s comments in an interview in July 2025 in which he said that “the role of women in the Church has to continue to develop” and expressed his intention to continue “in the footsteps of Francis, including in appointing women to some leadership roles at different levels in the Church’s life.” And that is exactly what he has done.

Since the publication of the document, Pope Leo XIV appointed Maria Montserrat “Montse” Alvarado, president and chief operating officer of EWTN News, as prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication in June. She is the first laywoman who is not a religious sister to lead a dicastery, and, at age 39, will be by far the youngest prefect in the Roman Curia. Later in June, he named Sister Alessandra Smerilli as prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development.

Women in the Bible and Church history

The synod final report is organized in three parts. The first recounts the history of the study group and the second offers a “synthesis of the themes” emerging from the synodal process.

The third part is an extensive appendix containing six sections: female figures in the Old and New Testaments; significant women in Church history; contemporary testimonies of women in Church leadership; the Marian and Petrine principles; ecclesial authority; and the contributions of Pope Francis and Pope Leo XIV.

Among the examples of women highlighted by the document are St. Catherine of Siena, St. Joan of Arc, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, Maria Montessori, and Servant of God Dorothy Day.