Petrocchi Commission rules out women deacons as part of Holy Orders but says judgment is not definitive, unlike priestly ordination. Report urges deeper study.
Newsroom (04/12/2025 Gaudium Press )A theological commission established by Pope Francis has concluded that the Catholic Church cannot currently admit women to the diaconate when understood as a degree of the sacrament of Holy Orders, citing Scripture, Tradition, and the Magisterium. However, the panel stopped short of issuing a definitive prohibition comparable to that on women’s priestly ordination.
The seven-page report, drafted by the commission chaired by Cardinal Giuseppe Petrocchi, Archbishop Emeritus of L’Aquila, Italy, was delivered to Pope Leo XIV on 18 September and released publicly at the Pope’s request. Its central conclusion states: “The status quaestionis of historical research and theological investigation… rules out the possibility of moving in the direction of admitting women to the diaconate understood as a degree of the sacrament of Holy Orders,” while acknowledging that “it does not at present allow for a definitive judgment to be formulated, as is the case with priestly ordination.”
The commission, which completed its work in February 2025, is the second body convened by the Holy See in recent years to examine the question of women deacons. A prior commission had been instituted in 2020.
Historical findings from the group’s 2021 session noted that the early Church “at different times, in different places, and in various forms, recognized the title of deacon/deaconess with reference to women,” but without a single, uniform meaning. That same year, members unanimously agreed that a systematic theological study of the diaconate raised “questions about the compatibility of the diaconal ordination of women with Catholic doctrine on ordained ministry.”
In July 2022, the commission approved by a 7–1 vote the cautiously negative formulation that now forms the core of the published report.
Following the 2024–2025 Synod on Synodality, the panel reviewed additional submissions, though it observed that contributions came from only twenty-two individuals or groups representing a limited number of countries. The report therefore judged these interventions as neither representative of the Synod as a whole nor of the wider People of God.
The document candidly summarizes arguments on both sides. Proponents of women’s diaconal ordination cited the equal dignity of men and women as images of God, St. Paul’s declaration in Galatians 3:28 that in Christ there is “no longer male or female,” and contemporary demands for gender equality in ecclesial roles.
Opponents countered that the masculinity of Christ and, by extension, of those who receive Holy Orders is integral to sacramental identity and preserves the “nuptial meaning of salvation.” When members voted on whether to retain this strongly worded paragraph in the final text, the result was a 5–5 tie; it was ultimately excluded.
By a decisive 9–1 margin, the commission endorsed expanding women’s access to instituted (non-ordained) ministries, describing such recognition as a “prophetic sign” in regions where gender discrimination persists.
In his synthesis, Cardinal Petrocchi identified an ongoing “intense dialectic” between two theological orientations: one that views the diaconate primarily as service rather than priesthood and therefore potentially open to women; the other that insists on the intrinsic unity of the three degrees of Holy Orders and the nuptial symbolism linking Christ the Bridegroom to a male ministerial priesthood.
Given these unresolved tensions and the uneven development of the diaconate worldwide—virtually absent in some continents and often indistinguishable from lay ministries in others—the cardinal called for continued “rigorous and wide-ranging critical examination” of the diaconate’s sacramental identity and ecclesial mission before any further steps are considered.
The publication of the Petrocchi report marks the latest chapter in a decades-long discernment process that has seen both cautious exploration and firm reaffirmation of existing doctrine on ordained ministry. While closing—for now—the path to sacramental ordination of women as deacons, the commission has simultaneously highlighted the need for clearer theological definition of the diaconate itself and greater recognition of women’s chartered service within the Church.
- Raju Hasmukh with files from Vatican News
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