America Magazine: What the synod interim reports said about women
by Colleen Dulle November 21, 2025
Women were and continue to be a major subject of and major players in the Synod on Synodality, Pope Francis’ signature reform process aimed at making the Catholic Church more participatory. This week’s interim reports from the synod’s study groups, tasked with examining controversial issues that arose at the synod and required deeper study, provide some new details about what the role of women in a synodal church may look like.
While all of the study groups’ work will affect women, who make up more than half of the world’s Catholics, this summary will focus on areas that primarily concern women and their involvement in the church and the synod process.
Only one of the 11 study groups and two study commissions is made up of a majority of women: Study Group 2, “To Hear the Cry of the Poor and the Earth,” includes four women and three men. The group solicited feedback from the International Union of Superiors General—the heads of the world’s women’s religious orders—through study group member Maria Cimperman, R.S.C.J., and received more than 200 submissions on the question of “formation and the cries of the poor and the earth.” The study group has also focused in particular on people with disabilities, with member Sandie Cornish, a senior lecturer in the School of Theology at Australian Catholic University, participating in a conference on disability in the church.
Study Group 4, which was examining the possibility of revising the document that governs seminary formation, echoed suggestions made at the synod that seminary formation should include a “significant presence of women.” The synod’s final document in 2024 also called for “greater access of laymen and laywomen to positions of responsibility in dioceses and ecclesiastical institutions, including seminaries, theological institutes and faculties.” In its interim report, Study Group 4 balanced these recommendations with the current “Ratio Fundamentalis Institutionis Sacerdotalis” (“The Gift of the Priestly Vocation”)—the document it considered revising—which was published in 2016. The group decided that, with the current document still in the process of being implemented, it was too soon for a revision. Instead, the synod’s recommendations, including those on women, would be included in a note that would accompany the current “Ratio Fundamentalis.”
The work assigned to Study Group 5, “Some theological and canonical matters regarding specific ministerial forms,” has been incorporated into an existing process in the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith to draft a document on “the participation of women in the life and leadership of the Church.” The group’s interim report provides some hints as to what will be included in that document. Among its listed appendices are: significant women in the history of the church; personal accounts from women in church leadership, including in the Roman Curia; an exploration of power and authority in the church; and the contributions of Pope Francis and Pope Leo on the role of women.
The appendices also include a review of the “Marian and Petrine principles”—that is, the idea from Hans Urs von Balthasar that Pope Francis often cited to refute arguments for women’s ordination, that Mary’s non-ordained ministry is a model for women, while Peter’s ordained ministry is a model for men. The interim document says this appendix will address the “relevance and limitations” of the principle. Another appendix will discuss “critical tensions regarding clericalism and male chauvinism.”
Study Group 5 was originally expected to include a discussion on the question of ordaining women deacons; however, in the initial report given to the synod body in 2024, D.D.F. prefect Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández said that the issue was closed. Following outcry from synod participants over a lack of transparency in the decision-making process, Cardinal Fernández announced that a previous study commission on women deacons that had been established by Pope Francis in 2020 would be reopened. The recently released interim report stated that “all synodal contributions” on women deacons had been forwarded to the revived commission, which has met at least once since the synod closed.
Study Group 9 concerns “Theological criteria and synodal methodologies for shared discernment of controversial doctrinal, pastoral, and ethical issues.” The members of this study group have not been disclosed. The group’s interim report revealed that among the “emerging” issues (a term they stated they prefer to “controversial”) that have come to their attention is the issue of “violence against women in situations of armed conflict.” The group plans to present the church’s position on this issue and raise questions for further discernment that will include contributions from various fields of study.
The newly created 11th study group concerns the revision of the liturgy in light of synodality. Its interim report includes perhaps the most concrete statement of any of the study groups on the importance of including women, asking: “How can we promote in particular the recognition of the role of women, especially where they continue to suffer forms of discrimination, including through the highlighting in liturgical lectionaries of scriptural testimonies about the role of women in the history of salvation?” The group’s discernment on this question could well lead to a revision of liturgical texts to highlight women’s stories.
The interim reports also included those from two special commissions: one looking at canon law and the other on pastoral care of people in polygamous relationships.
The commission on canon law plans to review and propose changes to certain church laws on, among other subjects, women and the laity. The canons listed for review concern church offices, the equality of the baptized, lay ministries like lector and acolyte, episcopal vicars (who can only be priests under current law) and other judicial positions in the church.
It is not clear whether any women are members of the commission on polygamy, which, the interim report says, is made up of 12 experts from the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar.
Colleen Dulle
Colleen Dulle is the Vatican Correspondent at America and co-hosts the “Inside the Vatican” podcast. She is the author of Struck Down, Not Destroyed: Keeping the Faith as a Vatican Reporter (Image, 2025).