In a historic move, Pope Francis approved changes on April 26, that will for the first time allow women to vote at an upcoming global meeting of bishops. The move could lead to more inclusiveness in decision-making in the Roman Catholic Church.
The new rules were announced on April 26, to the norms governing the Synod of Bishops, a Vatican body that gathers the world’s bishops together for periodic meetings, following years of demands by women to have the right to vote.
In the past, women were allowed to attend the synods, a papal advisory body, as auditors but with no right to vote. The revolutionary rules allow for five religious sisters with voting rights, reported news agency Reuters. The change is touted to be remarkable for an institution that has been male-dominated for centuries.
Catholic women’s groups that have long criticised the Vatican for treating women as second-class citizens immediately praised the move as historic in the 2,000-year life of the church.
“This is a significant crack in the stained glass ceiling, and the result of sustained advocacy, activism and the witness” of a campaign of Catholic women’s groups demanding the right to vote, said Kate McElwee of the Women’s Ordination Conference, which advocates for women priests, Associated Press (AP) reported.
The US-based Women’s Ordination Conference which had long advocated for women priests has called the reform “a significant crack in the stained glass ceiling,” the BBC reported.
Although Pope Francis has upheld the Catholic Church’s ban on ordaining women as priests, but, he has done more than any pope in recent time to give women greater say in decision-making roles in the church, as per AP.
The new rules follow two major steps Francis took last year to place women in decision-making positions in the Vatican. In one, he introduced a landmark reform that will allow any baptised lay Catholic, including women, to head most Vatican departments under a new constitution for the Holy See’s central administration.
In another last year, the Pope named three women to a previously all-male committee that advises him in selecting the world’s bishops.
Meanwhile, the meeting of bishops will focus on better engaging the faithful as the church moves forward and is expected to take on major issues such as the role of women in the church and LGBTQ relationships. It will now include an additional 70 non-bishop voting members, half of whom the pope wants to be women.
The pope also increased the number of laypeople who will participate in October at the meeting, the Synod of Bishops, which periodically meets at the Vatican to discuss issues such as how to deal with divorced couples. The coming synod is centered on fostering a greater involvement of the faithful as the church moves forward.
The Synod advises the pope and is influential, although only he makes church policy. In 2021, Francis amended the church’s laws so that women could be Bible readers at Mass, serve at the altar and distribute communion — practices already common in many countries. But it does not go as far as some women ‘s advocates had hoped.
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