Hope fades for more change under Francis as Vatican meeting ends

VATICAN CITY – The Vatican’s most highly anticipated gathering since the 1960s ended Saturday with the thorniest issues facing the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics largely unanswered.

The Synod of Bishops, which met in October 2023 and again this month pledged administrative changes that could give more power to local dioceses. But it referred questions on the ordination of female deacons, further outreach to the LGBTQ+ community and married priests for further study.

The outcome calmed the fears of church conservatives that Pope Francis’ “Synod on Synodality” would serve as a smokescreen for radical change while leaving liberals, who had seen it as their best opportunity since Vatican II to promote reform, empty-handed for now.

“It’s hard to say whether this synod has actually taken any decision,” said Massimo Faggioli, a Catholic theologian at Villanova University.

The document that it produced amounts to a set of guidelines on a range of challenges. On the abuse crisis, for example, the synod concluded that “it is necessary to [offer] training for those working with minors and vulnerable adults.” On hostility toward migrants: “All … are called to build intercultural communities.” On transparency and accountability in the church, “it is necessary to have structures and methods for regularly evaluating the exercise of ministry.”

Other issues were taken off the table and sent to study groups before the second and final session of the multiyear event opened this month. The 10 groups are supposed to report back with their findings in June.

It remains unclear whether and how Francis will respond. The most unconventional pope in modern history has in the past year taken polemic steps – most notably backing brief blessings by priests of same-sex couples. There are proposals he has publicly opposed and on which he appears unlikely to change his mind, including the ordination of women deacons or married priests.

But unlike his predecessors, Francis, 87, has not shut those conversations down.

“He is the pope of surprises,” said the Rev. Thomas Reese, an American priest who has written several books about the inner workings of the Catholic Church. “I don’t think he’s done, but I don’t know what he’s going do. I don’t think that anyone does.”

In an unusual move, Francis wrapped up the synod by announcing that he wouldn’t follow up its final document with an apostolic exhortation: “What we have approved is enough.”

Roberto de Mattei, president of the conservative Catholic Lepanto Foundation, said the synod had “managed to make everyone unhappy.”

“That’s perhaps especially true for liberals, some of whom were expecting a Vatican III,” he said. “Well, this wasn’t it.”

Vatican II was the council convened in 1962 to modernize the church for an increasingly secular world. It ordered epochal revisions – changing the language of the Mass, turning the priest around to face the people and promoting interfaith dialogue, among others.

Before Francis’ synod, the Vatican worked to temper expectations, calling it a listening exercise more than anything else and a chance for the global church to dialogue. Its makeup was historic: The church’s leading consultative body was previously reserved for senior clerics; now, for the first time, lay people, including women, were given votes.

In announcing the synod in 2021, Francis asked regional churches to name topics they wanted discussed. They included the elevation of the role of women and whether and how to minister to divorced Catholics, the LBGTQ+ community and polygamists. Regional churches asked for more concrete steps to prevent clerical sexual abuse and offer justice to victims. But from the beginning, victims’ rights groups denounced the synod, saying it wasn’t taking the issue seriously enough.

An initial session a year ago revealed deep divisions, particularly over LGBTQ+ Catholics and female deacons. With those issues off the agenda before the start of this month’s session, the atmosphere, delegates said, appeared more amicable.

“Of course, because everything important was taken off the table,” one delegate said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the closed-door synod.

In a final document released Saturday, the synod wrote that “the question of women’s access to diaconal ministry remains open. This discernment needs to continue.” The body also called for “giving more space to the contributions of female saints, theologians and mystics.”

The role of women in the church, specifically the question of ordaining women as deacons, became one of the gathering’s most divisive topics.

On Oct. 18, during what synod delegates thought would be an informational meeting on the study group on the role of women, the Vatican put forward two nonmember “ambassadors” who were unable to answer most questions. Some delegates were angered by what they saw as a dismissal of the topic.

To address their frustration, Cardinal Victor Fernandez, the head of the Dicastery of the Doctrine of the Faith, met with those delegates Thursday.

Francis is on the record opposing the ordination of women as deacons. On Thursday, however, Fernandez said the pope was open to more study on the issue and a preexisting church commission would continue to examine the topic.

But the new study group, he said, would only look at how to expand women’s “power” within the church as part of the laity. He said women want to be heard and valued, but most were not asking to be ordained.

Serving as deacons, Fernandez said, would be “cumbersome for the lay work they do.”