One of the biggest religion-beat stories of the year is currently playing out and most people are probably unaware of it, due to lack of mainstream-news updates. Maybe this story is too Catholic?

I say this because the three-year process that began in 2021 known as the Synod of Synodality is reaching its most contentious and potentially dramatic stage. I wrote back in March 2022 that the mainstream press had largely ignored the story.

This is what I wrote at the time:

A phrase like Synod on Synodality certainly won’t ever make it into a punchy headline, not even at The New York Post.

The secular press isn’t all that interested in doctrinal issues that don’t appeal to a larger audience or lack a political connection. It’s the reason why the pope going after the Latin Mass got little mainstream news attention while bishops batting President Joe Biden about receiving Holy Communion got tons of coverage. Then again, the synod will almost certainly contain strong LGBTQ news hooks.

Here we are 16 months later and the mainstream press is still largely ignoring the story. Our own tmatt had a very detailed podcast and post regarding one hook with the Synod of Synodality (#Vatican3) and the issues swirling around Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich’s past comments and current role, in which he will help shape synod debates about some of its most controversial issues.

Now, it’s quite interesting that the mainstream press — in the United States, at least — has largely been silent regarding a very important new synod document.

In fact, the Vatican’s release of the Instrumentum Laboris (Latin for “working document”) head of October’s Synod of Bishops makes clear that it’s “not a document of the church’s Magisterium.” The 50-page document, however, has plenty to say about the issues Pope Francis has openly discussed over the past decade regarding female deacons and gay unions.  

In Italy, mainstream-news coverage of the pope and Vatican affairs are a staple of daily coverage — akin to White House reporting in the United States. It was just last month that I was in Italy and observed that the press there aims to inform, but does love tabloid-style Vatican scandals.

The Synod of Synodality and Instrumentum Laboris received much overage in Italy’s press last week. While there are large sections in the document devoted to LGBTQ+ issues and how the church could handle those doctrinal questions in the future, the Italian press was much more concerned with what the document had to say about discussions of a larger role for women in the church, including ministry at altars.

More specifically, the document mentions female deacons and asked the question, “What new ministries could be created to provide the means and opportunities for women’s effective participation in discernment and decision-making bodies?”

This was what the Italian press wrote about the most in its coverage. Il Giornale, a newspaper on the political right owned by the Berlusconi family, noted the following:

The role of women, first of all. “The women who participated in the first phase of the Synod clearly expressed a desire: that society and the Church constitute a place of growth, active participation and healthy belonging for all women. They ask the Church to be by their side to accompany and promote the realization of this desire. Women play a leading role in the transmission of the faith, in families, in parishes, in consecrated life, in lay associations and movements and institutions, and as teachers and catechists. How can we recognize, support and accompany their already considerable contribution?”

Then comes the request to consider the question of deaconesses. The question of having married priests is also referred to the assembly of bishops: “Is it possible, as some continents are proposing, to open a reflection on the possibility of revising, at least in some areas, the discipline on access to the presbyterate for married men?” is one of the questions that will be submitted to the work in October.

There is also the burning issue of pedophilia and abuse in the Church. “In many regions, the Churches are deeply affected by the crisis of abuse: sexual, of power and of conscience, economic and institutional. These are open wounds – it is underlined – the consequences of which have not yet been fully addressed.” 

Cardinal Mario Grech, general secretary of the Synod of Bishops, puts his hands forward.

“It is not certain that all the answers will arrive next October,” he admitted, considering that there is really a lot of meat in the fire in the document.

As background for American journalists, some in the Italian media noted that it was in 2016 that Pope Francis endorsed Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, Pope St. John Paul II’s 1994 statement that the church is permanently precluded from ordaining women as priests.

That same year — under the now-Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith — Francis appointed a commission to examine the historical role of female deacons. In 2020, a second Commission on Women and the Diaconate focused on the theological aspects of this teaching. No formal guidance from the two commissions was ever made public.

The question of whether to allow women to play a greater role in church leadership — either as deacons or even priests — isn’t new. In Italy it has been a long-debated and much-discussed issue. As the National Catholic Reporter noted in 2018, two books were released in Italian that year dealing with female deacons.

This is what NCR reported at the time:

Both “Donne Diacono?” and “Diacone” are in response to Pope Francis' May 2016 announcement and August 2016 appointment of the Papal Commission for the Study of the Diaconate of Women. The books' titles belie their views. Women Deacons? and Deacons seem innocuous enough in English, but their matching linguistic subtexts present the view that women deacons are just that. Some argue that women ordained as deacons belonged to a separate order of "diaconesse," but each title employs a feminine form of deacon.

Modern discussion about female deacons has met with predictable ends ever since French Oratorian Fr. Jean Morin (1591-1659) argued in the 17th century that liturgies for women deacons met Council of Trent criteria for sacramental ordination. Since then, some writers agree, some do not.

A renewed interest in discussing women deacons followed the close of the Second Vatican Council and Pope Paul VI's restoration of the diaconate as a permanent grade of order. Paul VI asked a liturgical scholar and member of the International Theological Commission, Camaldolese Benedictine Fr. Cipriano Vagaggini, about women ordained as deacons. In a detailed essay, Vagaggini said yes, women were sacramentally ordained. His essay (in Italian) never saw the light of day as an official Vatican document, but it appeared in a small academic journal.

The church may be global, but the hierarchy lives in Rome and is very much influenced by what they see and hear around them. It is therefore important what the Italian press reports and what the Vatican does plays in the nation’s media.

A shortage of vocations — especially in the West — has made the possibility of female deacons and even priests very much a position favored by progressive Catholic prelates, even more so than extending recognition to same-sex unions. The priest sex-scandal of the last few decades that has engulfed the church has also helped make a case for it.

Along these same lines, Il Corriere della Sera, a centrist daily and the most-read newspaper, focused its reporting on the possibility of female deacons. This is what they reported:

The document that was published will serve as a working instrument during the Assembly that will get together in two sessions starting this October and in 2024. The document aims to create spaces for those who feel injured by the church and how does it work towards recognizing these issues, not judging others and work towards making it easier to ask questions.

La Repubblica, on the political left, also covered the female deacons angle. This is how they opened their piece:

In the form of "questions" and not of "statements or positions taken," the secretariat of the Synod opens up the possibility of the diaconate for women, of the priesthood for married men, of a greater involvement of the faithful in the decisions taken by priests and bishops, as well as a better inclusion of gay people.

In the Vatican’s own newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano (the print edition is available in Rome), had an interview with Cardinal Hollerich. This is what Hollerich, who is the synod’s relator general and president of the European Union’s episcopal conference, had to say about women in the church:

“We have, however, in all the continents the importance of women in the Church, which gets expressed in a very different way in Africa and in the United States, for instance. But we have to reflect on how women can fully participate in the Church’s life. And this is not a question of ordination of women. It’s much deeper and much more important. It goes to the dignity of baptism. The dignity of baptism is not lesser for women than for men.

“But how is this acted in our normal church life? Have women their say, or do they just have to make tea for the men? No. Like it was the case in many Japanese companies.”

Hollerich also said the following when asked about the process and purpose of this synod:

“So if we compare Catholic synodality with Orthodox or Protestant synodality, there is a slight difference. For the Orthodox, it’s, first of all, bishops’ collegiality. And for Protestants, it’s very often like a parliament. We are Catholic, so we believe in the primacy of Peter. We believe that there is a collegiality of the bishops. It’s part of the Church’s teaching. And the Church’s teaching will not be changed. But how will this be balanced in a synodal church? That’s one of the points we have to see.

“But the Holy Father has accompanied all the different steps of the Synod. We have never taken any decision without submitting it to the Holy Father, and his reaction was always full of confidence. And when I say full of confidence, it’s not confidence, the kind I find in myself, but confidence that the Holy Spirit is guiding the Church. Confidence in all these women and men who express themselves. Confidence that listening is important. Confidence that we all have to work together. How often the Holy Father [has said]: “Everyone, everyone, everyone”. We’re putting the stress on that.

“And the pope, I think, our Pope Francis is a man of Synodality. And I think he deeply inspires us. He deeply wishes a synodal church to be. But a synodal church cannot be imposed.”

Finally, the other influential newspaper in Italy regarding the church is Avvenire, which is owned and operated by the Italian bishops. This is how they reported the document’s release:

In this light, the Instrumentum laboris cannot be understood as a first draft of the Final Document of the Synodal Assembly, to be corrected or amended, while outlining a first understanding of the synodal dimension of the Church from which to operate a further discernment.

Therefore, the Members of the Synodal Assembly are the main recipients of this document, which is made public not only for reasons of transparency, but also as an aid for the implementation of ecclesial initiatives.”

In particular, it can encourage participation in the synodal dynamics at the local and regional level, waiting for the results of the Assembly to provide further and authoritative elements on which the local Churches will be called to pray, reflect, act and give their own contribution.

This is all great background for American mainstream news reporters who will certainly be more interest in this story come October. This could very well be the biggest Catholic story of the year with many meaty storylines to follow. In other words, this is one of the most important religion-news stories of the year — period.

For now, the Italian press has set the stage for what could be the biggest thing to emerge from this synod and its early debates. The issue of female deacons, while not a new one, has come to the forefront again.