Catholic women react to the Vatican’s report on women’s leadership

Jesuitical

America Media

News, News Commentary, Spirituality, Religion & Spirituality, Christianity

4.7 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 2 April 2026

⏱️ 38 minutes

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Summary

In March 2026, the Vatican’s doctrine office released its final report on women’s participation in the life and leadership of the Catholic Church. The report brings to a close the two-year work of Study Group 5, which, as part of the Synod on Synodality, was tasked with studying women’s ministries and leadership. In this special roundtable conversation, editors at America magazine discuss the report’s content and proposals, and ask if the document changes the status quo for women in the Catholic Church. Featuring: Ashley McKinless, executive editor and co-host of the “Jesuitical” podcast Kerry Weber, executive editor Colleen Dulle, Vatican correspondent and co-host of the “Inside the Vatican” podcast Molly Cahill, associate editor 0:00 The Vatican’s final report on women and ministry 4:23 Women’s reactions to the report 11:28 New ministries for women? 20:05 The horizons and limits of women’s authority 30:30 Will women be involved in decision-making? Links: ⁠The final synod report on women: what it says, what it means and what’s next⁠ ⁠Where the women deacons question stands at the Vatican⁠ ⁠Full Report of Study Group 5 on “The Participation of Women in the Life and Leadership of the Church⁠” Please consider supporting Jesuitical by becoming a digital subscriber to America magazine at ⁠americamagazine.org/subscribe⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to a special America Media roundtable discussion on the place of women in the church.
0:11.6	I'm Ashley McKinless, an executive editor here at America Media, and one of the hosts of the Jesuitical
0:16.8	podcast. I am joined by three of my distinguished colleagues here at America, Colleen Dully,
0:22.2	a Vatican correspondent, and the host of the Inside the Vatican podcast. Hi, Ashley. Welcome.
0:27.5	And Molly Cahill, an associate editor here at America. Nice to be here. And joining us from
0:32.9	Massachusetts is Carrie Weber, an executive editor here at America.
0:38.4	Very glad to be here.
0:39.6	Great to have you all.
0:44.7	So on March 10th, the General Secretariat of the Synod published the report from Study Group No. 5 on Women's Participation in the Life and Leadership of the Church.
0:50.6	And this is one of the study groups that was established during the Synodon's synodality
0:54.8	to tackle a number of controversial or difficult issues. And this specific group had a pretty
1:00.5	tumultuous history. So before we get to the specifics of this final report, Colleen, I know
1:07.4	you've been following this from the beginning very closely. So could you give us a brief history of this study group that has led to this report?
1:15.2	Sure. So essentially, study group five was set up to study the question of women's ministries in the church. And right away, the thing that captured a lot of people's attention was that this was going to include discussions of the female deacconate. This came up a lot in the global synod consultation phase, and then it was also
1:33.1	raised at the 2023 Synod. And so in order to follow up on it, deepen it a little bit before
1:39.5	the 2024 Synod, this study group was set up, along with those others you mentioned. Once we got to the
1:46.0	synod, though, in 2024, there were concerns already about the transparency of this study group.
1:53.1	Its members were not named publicly. And at the very beginning of the synod, when the groups gave
1:58.2	their interim reports, Cardinal Fernandez of the Dicasture of the Doctrine
2:02.0	of the Faith got up and basically said that this group had already decided it was not going
2:07.3	to address women deacons. So for people invested in that question, that was a big concern. The
2:12.0	synod delegates asked for the chance to pose questions to the study groups. They held a meeting,
	...

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