A high-level Vatican commission voted against allowing Catholic women to serve as deacons, maintaining the global Church’s practice of all-male clergy, according to a report given to Pope Leo and released on Thursday.

The commission, in a 7-1 vote, said historical research and theological investigation “excludes the possibility” of allowing women to serve as deacons at this time but recommended further study of the issue.

Discussions about the possibility of women deacons, who are ordained and can assist with Church services but cannot celebrate Mass, have convulsed the 1.4 billion-member Church for the past decade.

Deacons Can Fulfill Many Duties but Not Celebrate Mass

Catholic deacons can baptize people, witness marriages and preside at funerals, among other duties. In some areas of the world they can also lead parishes in the absence of a priest, but a priest must still celebrate the Mass.

The role, for centuries considered only a stepping stone to the priesthood, was reenvisioned as a permanent post for married Catholic men after a series of reforms by the Church in the 1960s.

Some women have said they believe God is asking them to take on the post, which is understood by the Church as a role of service.

Pope Francis Opened the Discussion on Women Deacons

The panel, led by a cardinal and a priest from the Vatican’s top doctrinal office, included men and women church scholars. They said in the report that their assessment against women deacons was strong, but “does not as of today allow a definitive judgment to be formulated”.

The late Pope Francis opened the conversation, after a request in 2016 from the Rome-based umbrella group representing the world’s Catholic sisters and nuns.

Francis instituted two commissions to study the matter, which deliberated in secrecy. Thursday’s report is the first time that the results of the discussions have been made public.

One of the members of Francis’ first commission, who had argued for women deacons, criticized the new report.

Phyllis Zagano, a scholar at Hofstra University in New York, said the text “does its best to present the topic in a negative light, selectively choosing comments from previous reports without providing complete context”.

Several groups advocating for reforms in the Catholic Church also criticized the report. German group We are Church branded the decision against women deacons as questionable “theologically, anthropologically and pastorally”.

The Women’s Ordination Conference, a U.S.-based group, criticized the commission for not soliciting input from more women in its discussions and called the decision a “deep, and theologically unsound, insult”.

Desire To ‘Broaden Women’s Access’ to Ministry

The new report comes in a letter sent to Pope Leo by Italian Cardinal Giuseppe Petrocchi, who led the second commission created by Francis. The letter is dated September 18 but was released by the Vatican on Thursday.

The second commission voted in a July 2022 meeting against the possibility of women serving as deacons, it said.

The report also said the commission voted 9-1 in a meeting this February that the Church should “broaden women’s access” to ministry opportunities, without giving specifics.

“It now falls to the discernment of pastors to evaluate which further ministries may be introduced for the concrete needs of the Church of our time,” said the report.

Leo, a relative unknown on the global stage before his election in May, is not known to have commented on the issue of women deacons.

Pope John Paul II reaffirmed the ban on women serving as priests in 1994, but did not specifically address the issue of women deacons.

Advocates point to evidence that women served as deacons in the early centuries of the Church. One woman, Phoebe, is mentioned as a deacon in one of the letters of the apostle St. Paul.

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(Reporting by Joshua McElwee, editing by Alvise Armellini, Alexandra Hudson)