Dr Luca Badini Confalonieri: The Synodal process has been hijacked…
You’ve been duped – exposing Vatican deceptions about the decision on women deacons
Dr Luca Badini Confalonieri – 17 December 2025
Link to article: published on The Wijngaards Institute for Catholic Research website
https://www.wijngaardsinstitute.com/petrocchi_commission_women_deacons/
The Synodal process has been hijacked. One of the main discussion points throughout the Synod was the urgent need to increase women’s access to church ministries, with indications that the prospect of restoring women deacons was a real possibility. Instead, a committee of 10 Vatican insiders — plus not one, but two Popes — decided against it.
This is evidence that Catholics everywhere — even Synodal participants themselves — have been kept in the dark. Below is a forensic examination of all the machinations to deceive and deny women’s role in the church and how the Vatican has lied about their decision-making process. Including the difficult question we have to ask:
Did this story of subterfuge come about because Pope Francis did not want the sexism behind the decision to ruin the ‘spirit of synodality’?
But first and foremost, the claim that women were not sacramentally ordained as deacons is false. The historical evidence should not be denied. So why is the Vatican allowing members of the latest papal study commission on women deacons to repeat that line?[1]
The Vatican has created their own version of history but here is the truth:
- historical documents (such as the 8thcentury codex Barberini Gr 336 [Barb.gr.336, held in the Vatican Library itself and fully digitalised]) confirm that rites for the ordination of women deacons exist which contained the ritual features exclusively used for ordinations to the so-called “major” orders of the diaconate, presbyterate, and episcopate (as distinct from the ordination rites to the minor orders such as porter, lector, etc.).
- Specifically, those ordinations of women as deacons took place in the sanctuary, in front of the altar and during the Eucharistic Liturgy immediately after the Anaphora, and included the imposition of the bishop’s hands – all elements unique and identical to the ordination of male deacons, presbyters, and bishops.
- Accordingly, those women received an ordination to the “major” orders equivalent to their male counterpart: a ‘sacramental’ ordination, in today’s theological language.
- If their ordination rite was ‘not sacramental’, neither was the analogous rite used for male deacons, and those – containing the very same features unique to ordinations to major orders – used for male priests and bishops.
- historical precedent alone is enough to justify the reinstatement of the sacramental ordination of women as deacons: if it was done in the past, it can be done again.
- And, in fact, it has been done: the Orthodox Church in Zimbabwe sacramentally ordained a woman deacon in 2024. It is a practice which is still alive and ongoing.
In December 2025, the Vatican announced its stance on women deacons, under the pretense that it was a recent development that they were eager to share with their constituents. Unfortunately, this was a charade – below is a timeline of this deception:
The Commission on the Female Diaconate, chaired by Cardinal Petrocchi, had already voted against the possibility of allowing the sacramental ordination of women as deacons in its second session in July 2022!
With that session, they answered the very question they had been set up to answer, thereby fulfilling their mandate. This is indicated by the fact that after that vote, the commission did not hold any additional sessions for more than two years, suggesting it regarded its task as completed.
That only changed in October 2024 when, under pressure from the participants of the second session of the Synod on Synodality, Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez, prefect of the Dicastery of the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF), publicly stated to the synod that Cardinal Petrocchi confirmed to him that his commission “will resume [work] in the coming months”.
However, Card. Fernandez then went on to admit that, based on the work of the Petrocchi commission (which took into account the work of the previous commission from 2016), “the dicastery judges that there is still no room for a positive decision by the Magisterium regarding the access of women to the diaconate”. This is an accidental public acknowledgement by the Vatican of the conclusion reached by the Petrocchi commission already in its second and hitherto final session of July 2022.
It is scandalous that Card. Fernandez did not explain that the dicastery’s judgment was in fact based on the conclusion the papal commission had reached more than two years earlier, and that such a conclusion had been kept secret for more than two years even from participants to the synod on synodality during 2023 and 2024, despite an explicit request from the synod to see the relevant findings and documentation of the Petrocchi commission.
The Vatican needs to be held accountable for pretending to examine a topic close to the hearts of the majority of Catholics.
Below is a timeline of what happened, piecing together the scant information made public so far by Catholic Church officials:
8 April 2020: Pope Francis established a second study commission on the diaconate of women, presided by Card. Petrocchi (the Petrocchi commission).[2]
13-18 September 2021: First “session” of the commission meets, during which it voted as follows in favour of the following affirmations:
– the diaconate of women found in church history “was not understood as the simple female equivalent of the male diaconate and does not appear to have had a sacramental character” (7-0 in favour);
– “there are question marks concerning the compatibility of women’s diaconal ordination with the Catholic doctrine about the ordained ministry” (10-0 in favour).[3]
11-16 July 2022: Second session of the commission meets, where it voted by a 7-1 majority to
– “exclude the possibility of […] admitting women to the diaconate understood as a degree of the sacrament of Holy Orders. In light of Sacred Scripture, Tradition, and the ecclesiastical Magisterium, this evaluation is robust, although as of today it does not allow to pass a definitive judgment, as in the case of priestly ordination”.
Therefore, the commission had already reached its final conclusion by 16 July 2022. That the commission members themselves regarded that to be the case is suggested by the fact that no additional “sessions” took place, until the third and final session in February 2025, after the commission was hastily “reactivated” around October 2024 (according to Card. Fernandez, see below), following pressure by the second session of the Synod on Synodality taking place that month.
That by the July 2022 session the commission had already given its final negative verdict on the substantive issue at stake is further demonstrated by the fact that the third and final February 2025 session — coming more than two and a half years after their decisive July 2022 session — no longer voted on whether women can be admitted to the diaconate, but only on one justification for their exclusion (the “masculinity” of Christ), and on the importance of examining the possibility of other “instituted ministries” which women could carry out.[4]
To reiterate: Pope Francis’ second study commission had already finalised its votes on the substantive issue by July 2022, voting to exclude women from the sacramental diaconate. Nothing of that was revealed to Catholics, and it would remain a secret for more than two years – including to all members of the synod on synodality – until 4 December 2025.
July 2022 – October 2024: the Petrocchi commission remained dormant, without publicly revealing it had already formally voted to exclude women from the sacramental diaconate.
Again, no mention of that was made to the participants of the forthcoming synod on synodality, who were going to debate the issue in October 2023 and October 2024.
28 October 2023: the official summary report of the first session of the Synod on Synodality (Oct. 2023) formally asked that “[i]f possible, the results of this research” by the earlier papal study commissions on that topic “should be presented to the next Session of the Assembly” in October 2024 (https://www.synod.va/content/dam/synod/assembly/synthesis/english/2023.10.28-ENG-Synthesis-Report.pdf, section 9, par. N).
16 February 2024: Pope Francis removes the discussion of women deacons from the synod, and gives it instead to one of ten “study groups” tasked to examine controversial issues which had emerged during the synod’s debate.[5]
This so-called Study Group 5 (SG5) was “entrusted the task to continue ‘Theological and pastoral research on the access of women to the diaconate […], benefiting from consideration of the results of the commissions specially established by the Holy Father’”, referring in turn to the October 2023 Synthesis Report of the synod, section 9n, mentioned above. Like all other study groups, SG5 was supposed to carry out its research “in a synodal way” – something they clearly did not do.
20 March 2024: Pope Francis states in an interview that women cannot be sacramentally ordained to the diaconate. A strange utterance if one believed that when he said it, the Petrocchi commission was still debating the issue; but not so strange if that commission had ruled the same almost two years earlier.
9 July 2024: the membership of all study groups was officially revealed by the Vatican, apart from the one of Study Group 5. The task of the latter is said instead to “have been entrusted to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith”.[6]
All Study Groups had been asked to provide the second session of the synod on Synodality, taking place during October 2024, with an interim report on their work so far.
1 October 2024: Card. Fernandez provided the interim report on behalf of the SG5 (which, when pressed publicly a few weeks later, he confirmed did not exist: instead, its remit had been taken over by the DDF – i.e. his own Vatican officials and not a specially selected group of experts -, see below). You can find the written text of his remarks as provided to journalists, and the slightly different transcript of the speech as delivered here: https://www.diffchecker.com/7tg2qIrB/. In that interim report, he made two points:
“On the horizon [of the work of SG5] is the issue of women’s access to the diaconate, which also takes into account the work done by the two commissions established, whose most useful conclusions will be made known in the document.”
Thus, Card. Fernandez confirmed the SG5 was dealing with the issue of women deacons.
“Based on the analysis conducted so far, which also takes into account the work done by the two commissions established by Pope Francis on the female diaconate, the dicastery judges that there is still no room for a positive decision by the Magisterium regarding the access of women to the diaconate.”
In short: on 1 October 2024 Card. Fernandez still affirmed that SG5 was dealing with the topic of women deacons, and that it had been doing so also by taking into account the work done by the two earlier papal commissions. This confirms by far the most likely situation, namely that the Card. Fernandez himself and the DDF would have been aware of the 2021 and 2022 votes by the Petrocchi commission that excluded, for now, the possibility of a sacramental diaconate for women.
18 October 2024: Card. Fernandez, as the coordinator of SG5, fails to attend a special meeting formally requested by synod participants to be able to provide their feedback on the remit of SG5, including women deacons, one of the synod’s most closely watched issues for which SG5 and Card. Fernandez were responsible.
21 October 2024: Card. Fernandez formally apologises for missing that meeting, and states:
the Holy Father has expressed that in this moment, the matter of the female diaconate is not ripe and has asked that we do not dwell on this possibility at the moment. The study commission on the theme has reached partial conclusions, which we will publish at the right moment, but it will continue to work.[7]
Card. Fernandez thereby confirmed knowledge of the votes of the Petrocchi commission. He also implicitly defended the decision to keep them secret for more than two years, by stating they will only be published “when the time is right”. He then added:
Despite what has been said, for those who are convinced that the question of the female diaconate must be explored, the Holy Father has confirmed to me that the Commission presided over by Cardinal Giuseppe Petrocchi will continue to be active. The members of the Synod who wish – either individually or as groups – may send their considerations, proposals, articles or concerns on the matter to the Commission. Cardinal Petrocchi has confirmed that the work will resume in the coming months and that they will analyse the material that has arrived.[8]
The reference to the need to check the status of the Petrocchi commission with Pope Francis, and the detail that “Cardinal Petrocchi has confirmed that the work will resume in the coming months”, indicates that that dormant commission had only just been re-activated in order to receive the material from those who, “despite what has been said” (i.e. that the Pope did not want it discussed), were still “convinced that the question of the female diaconate must be explored”. It points to a hasty re-activation of a hitherto dormant commission which had already answered negatively the crucial question it had been set up for – can women be sacramentally ordained to the diaconate? – in July 2022.
In the same communiqué, Card. Fernandez also agreed to come back on 24 October 2024 to provide more clarity to the synod members as to the composition and work of SG5.
24 October 2024: Card. Fernandez was publicly asked by the Agbonkhianmeghe Orobator, S.J., dean of the Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University, whether his comments on October 2 meant that
“in making that judgment [that ‘there is still no room for a positive decision by the Magisterium regarding the access of women to the diaconate’], you must have seen evidence, heard testimonies. And so, I am asking myself, what evidence, what testimony, what material elements have been available to the dicastery? And do these include outcomes of the two study commissions, which maybe you are privy to?”.
Card. Fernandez did not reply to those specific questions (https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2024/11/20/transcript-study-group-5-cardinal-fernandez-249325/); however, at some point in his reply, he said:
He [Pope Francis] certainly has received some material from the [previous study] commissions [on women deacons], the commissions that have been there and that continue. And the conclusions we will then make public, perhaps by giving some votes, some details. But the conclusions are more or less these: That things are not absolutely clear, that they cannot now conclude, more or less that is the partial conclusion.
But we continue to work. And if a material arrives that presents some new things, that will help us to move forward on this topic.
But, even if I have not studied this material of the two commissions, I have seen something. With the little time I had, I have seen something of this material. There are, on the one hand, the historical studies. And there is a discussion. There are those who affirm that, in certain cases, they [women] have been ordained. There is another opinion of historians, equally respectable, that says that it was not really an ordination, that it was a ceremony of blessing, etc. And among the historians, there are these different opinions.
In other words, Card. Fernandez stated 1. that the SG5 might make public some “votes” of the study commissions (thus implying that SG5 had had vision of those votes, and so they would have known that the Petrocchi commission had already excluded women deacons), 2. that the conclusions of the previous study commissions were that “That things are not absolutely clear, that they cannot now conclude”, and that 3. “we continue to work”.
Given the various statements by Card. Fernandez himself during October 2024, is it remotely possible that at the time he made those statements he had not been aware of the 2021 and 2022 votes of the Petrocchi commission against women deacons? Given his position as head of the DDF, there is no possibility that he could have been unaware of this result.
And if he was indeed aware of them – as it is most likely based on his own words – then he was misleading the synod members: The final July 2022 vote by the Petrocchi commission was unambiguously in favour of excluding women from the diaconate; its mitigating statement that “In light of Sacred Scripture, Tradition, and the ecclesiastical Magisterium, this assessment is robust, although as of today it does not allow to pass a definitive judgment, as in the case of priestly ordination” cannot be described as meaning that whether women can be admitted to the diaconate is “not absolutely clear” and so could not be “concluded” (i.e. affirmed).
In fact, the core affirmation or finding of the “synthesis” of the final report of the Petrocchi commission (a final report which itself is to this day still unpublished) is precisely the crucial vote during the July 2022 session, which
“exclude[s] the possibility of […] admitting women to the diaconate understood as a degree of the sacrament of Holy Orders. In light of Sacred Scripture, Tradition, and the ecclesiastical Magisterium, this evaluation is robust, although as of today it does not allow to pass a definitive judgment, as in the case of priestly ordination”.
As noted earlier, Card. Fernandez himself had summarised it on 2 October 2024 as follows:
“Based on the analysis conducted so far, which also takes into account the work done by the two commissions established by Pope Francis on the female diaconate, the dicastery judges that there is still no room for a positive decision by the Magisterium regarding the access of women to the diaconate.”
Card. Fernandez’s affirmation mere days later, on 24 Oct 2024, that the commission had concluded “That things are not absolutely clear, that they cannot now conclude” on that topic, was therefore misleading.
Card. Fernandez then suggested again that the issue had been given back to a newly reactivated Petrocchi commission: “As I said, on the diaconate there is still in force the commission of Cardinal [Giuseppe] Petrocchi, who has already summoned the members for the next few months, with the idea of receiving materials and opinions and suggestions to resume the work of the commission with more force, with more energy and decision, listening to what can come from the synod and from the world.”
As we will see, the “reactivated” Petrocchi commission will treat dismissively those new submissions, coming as they were two and a half years after its conclusion that women should not be admitted to the sacramental diaconate (see https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/it/bollettino/pubblico/2025/12/04/0950/01725.html).
During the same Q&A Card. Fernandez also made the following statements:
– He admitted that the Study Group 5 did not exist: its task had been secretly taken up by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, without telling anybody, until he was publicly asked by the participants to the synod on synodality (as he put it, it was decided that instead of establishing Study Group 5, the topic of women in the church “remained up to the dicastery” (https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2024/11/20/transcript-study-group-5-cardinal-fernandez-249325/).
– Contrary to what he had suggested just a few weeks before, during his brief interim report to the synod on October 2 (see the text here: https://www.diffchecker.com/7tg2qIrB/), he now insisted “the fundamental purpose of this ‘group,’ [Study Group 5, i.e. the DDF] […] is the theme of the role of women in the church. It’s not the diaconate.”
– “on the diaconate there is still in force the commission of Cardinal [Giuseppe] Petrocchi”
– “If we [i.e. Study Group 5/the DDF] get something on the diaconate, we can read it […] And then we’ll send it to the commission”.
Early February 2025: The Petrocchi study commission secretly voted in favour of justifying the exclusion of women from the diaconate (which they had already approved in 2022) by reference to the “masculinity” of Christ, and Card Fernandez and the DDF (under the direct supervision of direct and knowledge of Pope Francis) were surely informed of it. Nothing was said in public, the show had to go on.
7 February 2025: The Petrocchi commission finalises the “Documento finale della Commissione sul Diaconato alle donne”, presumably the full report of the commission, of which the “Synthesis” (or summary) was publicly revealed on 4 December 2025. Again, nothing was said publicly by anyone.
In particular, the press reported extensively on the shifting deadline by which “Study Group 5”— in reality, the DDF — was supposed to provide the Pope with its opinion on women deacons: first by end of June 2025, and then by end of December 2025.
Never did Card. Fernandez take the opportunity to clarify that the DDF had volleyed that hot potato back to the Petrocchi commission, which in turn had already concluded its voting in February 2025.
17 November 2025: Msgr. Armando Matteo (secretary for the DDF) restated that the final report of SG5 (aka DDF) will NOT address the issue of women deacons, and will leave it instead entirely to the Petrocchi commission, to which it had sent all material they have received pertaining to it, without having done anything with it.[9]
Again, Msgr. Matteo did not mention that the Petrocchi commission had already decided negatively in July 2022, and had written up that (by then two and a half year-old) decision on a final report dated 7 February 2025.
4 December 2025: the big reveal about the No from the Petrocchi commission.
In summary: the first session of the Synod on Synodality formally asked to be given the results of the papal commission on the diaconate by October 2024 at the latest.
It did not know that the Petrocchi commission had already voted to exclude the ordination of women to the sacramental diaconate in July 2022 and had been dormant since.
In February 2024 the SG5/DDF was tasked by Pope Francis to look at that issue again, and it was explicitly told to make use of the reports of previous papal study commissions.
In October 2024 Card. Fernandez told the synod that SG5 did not exist, as its work was carried out by the DDF, but that at the same time the DDF had decided to give the topic of women deacons back to the Petrocchi commission, which had now been “reactivated”.
He did not reveal, although he certainly knew, that the commission had overwhelmingly and definitely voted against women deacons more than two years before (no more votes on that subject were to be taken in its final session in February 2025); and instead he encouraged people to send to the commission pertinent material. That omission misled the synod participants in thinking the issue was still being discussed.
In early February 2025, the Petrocchi commission gathered for a final session that would have entailed going through 22 submissions from synod participants; by 7 February 2025 they had passed the Final Report incorporating the crucial July 2022 vote.
The entire process — particularly the selection of all members of the study commission and study group — was conducted without transparency. This lack of openness appears intended to ensure the appointment of compliant yes-men (and, it must be said, yes-women), contrary to the synod’s request that all source material (including two earlier commission reports) be made public. The approach seemed designed to guarantee that the final outcome would align with predetermined expectations.
Notes
[1] See the interview at https://www.osvnews.com/a-vatican-commission-recently-said-no-to-women-deacons-two-members-of-the-commission-explain-why/.
[2] https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/44137/pope-francis-establishes-new-commission-to-study-women-deacons
[3] As revealed in the “Sintesi della Commissione di Studio sul Diaconato Femminile”, sent to Pope Leo on 18 September 2025, and published by the Vatican on 4 December 2025, see https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/it/bollettino/pubblico/2025/12/04/0950/01725.html.
[4] “Sintesi della Commissione di Studio sul Diaconato Femminile”, https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/it/bollettino/pubblico/2025/12/04/0950/01725.html.
[5] https://www.vaticannews.va/it/papa/news/2024-02/papa-chirografo-gruppi-studio-temi-sinodo-date-sinodalita.html.
[6] https://press.vatican.va/content/dam/salastampa/it/fuori-bollettino/pdf/ELENCO_10_GRUPPI.pdf
[7] https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/info/2024/10/21/241021c.html; in the Italian original here: https://www.vaticannews.va/it/vaticano/news/2024-10/cardinale-fernandez-comunicazione-sinodo-diaconato-femminile.html.
[8] https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/info/2024/10/21/241021c.html
[9] https://www.ncronline.org/vatican/vatican-study-groups-cite-womens-diaconate-among-priorities-new-synod-reports.