Women got the right to vote at the Synod of Bishops in the Vatican – Kommersant

On Wednesday, Pope Francis amended the rules for holding the Synod of Bishops, a permanent deliberative body under the head of the Roman Catholic Church. The main change was the expansion of participation in the regular assemblies of the Synod of “non-bishops” – priests, deacons, consecrated men and women, representatives of the flock. About it reported General Secretary of the Synod, Cardinal Mario Grec and Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, Chief Speaker of the regular assembly. In particular, this decision provides for the granting of voting rights to women participating in the work of the assembly. This right is given to them for the first time in the entire existence of the Synod of Bishops, established in 1965.

While Pope Francis has repeatedly responded to calls to increase the participation of women in church affairs (from 2021, women are allowed to read Holy Scripture at Mass, serve at the altar and distribute the sacrament, and in 2022, women are allowed to be part of the papal committee for the appointment of bishops ), the right to vote in the assembly of the Synod, for all its revolutionary nature, is not a revolution, Cardinal Hollerich noted: “This is an important step. This is not a revolution.”

The Synod of Bishops is an exclusively deliberative body, directly responsible to the pope. The women who will participate in its work are nuns. In addition, new members of the assembly will make up 21% of all its participants. Moreover, the decision was not unexpected. Back in March of this year, in an interview with the Argentine La Nation Pope Francis said that at the next meeting everyone will have a vote. “Men and women. Every. Every. For me, this word – “everyone” – is the key.

However, the decision has already been criticized by conservatives. As the authors of the Catholic website noted Silere non possum (“I cannot be silent”), “it is quite clear that Pope Francis and the cardinals who lead the Synod are trying by any means to bring into this body people whose only interest is the destruction of the church for the sake of their own ambitions. Finding no more bishops ready to trample on the teachings of Christ, they introduce (into its composition.— “b”) ambitious laity”.

Andrey Kelekeyev