Vatican City - On Thursday, 4 December 2025, the Holy See Press Office released a letter in which Cardinal Giuseppe Petrocchi, President of the Study Commission on the Female Diaconate, submitted to the Pope a summary of the work carried out by the body.
Throughout Francis’ pontificate, the dynamics of his governance always unfolded along two parallel tracks: an official one and an unofficial one. In this case, on the one hand, the Pope had wanted a commission tasked with examining a question debated for decades, placing it in direct relation with him and removing it from intermediate mediations. On the other hand, he fuelled the discussions within the C9, bringing into the Council figures capable of orienting the conversation and persuading that body – which he had strongly desired as a sort of “king’s council” – toward certain sensibilities.
It was in this context that Francis brought Sister Linda Pocher to the Vatican who, much like Alessandra Smerilli, does not particularly enjoy convent life, preferring to frequent salons, publishing houses, and influential circles, constantly seeking support or favour. Following “wise advice,” Bergoglio had her intervene, together with other women, before the cardinals during the Council meetings dedicated to the role of women in the Church. Yet she is a religious who offered no theological reflection, only vague and clickbait considerations.
This arrangement changed radically with the beginning of the pontificate of Leo XIV. A few days after the election, the new Pope informed his collaborators that the members of the Council of Cardinals could consider themselves free to continue their work as they saw fit, since he would never convene the C9. This decision immediately signalled his intention to reorient the decision-making process toward more direct and transparent methods. At the same time, Leo XIV took up the draft Regulation of the Roman Curia that had been presented to him for signature and added Article 3: “The Cardinals offer assistance to the ministry of the Roman Pontiff, also concerning the activity of the Roman Curia, in ordinary and extraordinary Consistories, in which they are convened by disposition of the Roman Pontiff,” and “Such Consistories take place according to what is prescribed by the proper law.”
The critics, who woke up on 21 April 2025 after a long torpor of “subservience to the Roman Pontiff,” immediately commented: “This is useless; the Code already provides for it.” It is indeed already foreseen in canon 353 CIC that the College “assists the Supreme Pastor of the Church with collegial activity.” Collegial, not sectarian. By adding this provision to the Regulation of the Roman Curia, however, Leo XIV intended to make very clear that he wishes to rely on the support of cardinals from all over the world in the governance of the Roman Curia. All, not nine. Thus shifting Church governance from “Nueve, nueve, nueve!” to “Todos, todos, todos!” — and for real. In this way giving a universal character to that body, the Roman Curia, which makes decisions that affect the life of the various particular Churches.
The [in]justice of canon law
Returning to the question of the “female diaconate,” we must note that, while there are bishops and cardinals always ready to intervene to repress any priest who has the misfortune of doing something authentically Catholic or genuinely useful for his faithful and young people, those same pastors seem to disappear when it comes to religious women making statements contrary to doctrine even in major national newspapers. When the first problems with Fr Massimo Palombella emerged – still within the large and colourful Salesian family – several cardinals and bishops were asking: “But where is the major superior? Does he not have a religious house where he is supposed to be?” The Salesian major superior, however, was nowhere to be found. Perhaps Ángel Fernández Artime was too busy seeking promotion at Santa Marta. In any case, despite the issues that had surfaced, he even ended up promoted to cardinal. Indeed, today he signs documents for a Dicastery that should explain to religious how consecrated life is actually meant to be lived. As Sora Lella would say: “Annamo bene.” (It means that things are not going well, and it is an ironic Roman expression)
The answer that came from Via Marsala, both in 2018 in the Vatican and more recently in Milan, was always the same: “Ah, but Palombella is autonomous.” Too bad that an “autonomous” religious is something the Code does not envision. And yet, in today’s Church, those who have the “right connections” seem able to do whatever they want, and even bishops who would like to intervene find themselves faced with power games and internal networks difficult to decipher for anyone living far from Rome.
The very Catholic Linda
The words of Sister Linda Pocher, published today in La Repubblica, have relaunched in public debate the idea that the lack of openness to the female diaconate is merely a cultural problem: “I am increasingly convinced that it is more a cultural problem than a theological one,” she says, adding that reserving ordination to men would be “the last bastion of gender difference” and that behind ecclesial resistance there would be the idea “that Jesus saved humanity because he was male.” This conceptual framework finds no support either in serious historical-theological scholarship or in the Summary of the Study Commission on the Female Diaconate, released yesterday, 4 December, nor in the document Diaconate: Evolutions and Perspectives.
Looking at the teaching and the history of the Church, we can now examine the religious sister’s claims, which are not only non-Catholic, but offer readers of that newspaper – already strongly aligned – a synthesis of the issue that is entirely distorted and untrue.
The novelty of the text released yesterday lies not so much in caution, but in the clarity with which the Commission highlights established points. Already in the first session, in 2021, the ten members voted unanimously for the thesis describing as problematic “the systematic study of the diaconate within the theology of the sacrament of Orders,” since such study “raises questions about the compatibility of the diaconal ordination of women with the Catholic doctrine of ordained ministry.” In 2022, the Commission further clarified that “the status quaestionis concerning historical research and theological inquiry, considered in their mutual implications, excludes the possibility of proceeding in the direction of admitting women to the diaconate understood as a grade of the sacrament of Orders.”
These data make it clear that the issue does not lie on the cultural plane but on the properly theological one. And it is significant that, despite this internal convergence, Sister Pocher chooses to focus the conversation on categories such as “imaginary,” “new experiences,” “cultural resistances,” suggesting that the Church would be defending a masculine role as an “identity bastion.” In this sense, her words reveal a sociological twisting of the problem that finds no support in the documents. The Commission repeatedly insists that the decision “must be taken on the doctrinal plane” and that historical research, while useful, does not offer definitive certainties. Hence the need to refer to Tradition and to the sacramental meaning of Orders, realities that cannot be reduced to cultural patterns or representational dynamics.
Distorting reality in the absence of arguments
The issue is not merely history. It is history in the light of faith. The International Theological Commission, already in 2002–2003, had affirmed that the so-called ancient female diaconate was never understood as equivalent to the male diaconate, nor did it have a sacramental character. The ITC explained that the ministry of deaconesses had specific functions, tied to discipline and catechesis in early communities, but was not situated within apostolic succession. The Study Commission on the Female Diaconate confirms this reading: “The female diaconate was conceived as a ministry sui generis, not situated in the line of the diaconate conferred on men,” reiterating that it “does not appear to have possessed a sacramental character.”
It is thus misleading to conclude, as Pocher does, that the existence of the permanent diaconate open to married men automatically creates space for an analogous opening to women. Her argument starts from a functional premise: since today’s diaconate involves service tasks and can be conferred upon married men, this would prove that there is no substantial difference related to Orders. But this does not correspond to the Catholic understanding of the sacrament. The fact that married men may be ordained is not a sign of “cultural flexibility,” but a disciplinary choice that does not affect the sacramental nature of Orders. To place on the same level an ecclesial discipline and the theological question of the subject of Orders is to confuse different planes and risks producing erroneous conclusions.
This is where an additional remark is essential: it is conceptually incorrect to discuss access of women to Orders as if it were the consequence of an “adaptation” of practices, because the sacramental structure cannot be modelled on cultural dynamics without losing its theological identity.
Vocation or sentimentalism? Pocher’s confusion
Another delicate point in the interview is the reference to vocation. Sister Pocher laments that the Commission did not give value to the testimony of women who speak of a strong “feeling” that they are called: “What is considered appropriate discernment for a man, who enters seminary because he feels the vocation, is not deemed appropriate for a woman.” But the summary clarifies that many of the testimonies examined by the Commission limited themselves to describing services already performed or desires for recognition, visibility, and authority. The official text notes that the sacrament of Orders does not derive from a right or from self-perception, and that a “vocational feeling” cannot constitute a sufficient criterion for ecclesial discernment. This is something not even those who knock on seminary doors with the “claim” of being ordained often understand. Once again, reducing vocation to a subjective feeling means losing the distinction between spiritual discernment and functional revendication.
Another crucial point raised by Pocher concerns ecclesial imagery. She claims that the Church preserves “internalised images” that are difficult to overcome and that the Synod would serve as a “training in mutual listening” capable of overcoming prejudice. Yet the Commission’s summary presents a very different picture. Not only did the post-Synodal material come from a very limited number of contributions (22 worldwide), but the Synodal proposal on the female diaconate received the highest number of negative votes: 97 No. The text also notes that numerous local Churches firmly oppose this possibility.
It is therefore false to present the Synodal process as a dynamic uniformly oriented toward reform. On the contrary, the Synod revealed deep division and, in several respects, an explicit rejection. Pocher’s claims confirm that some of these women taking part in the Synod are not speaking of listening because they want everyone to have a voice, but because they want a Synodal assembly that thinks only and exclusively like them. It is evident: these interviews are given to Jacopo Scaramuzzi, who, poor man, is an illiterate and possesses neither the competence nor the intellectual honestyrequired to ask Pocher the questions that should be asked.
Do not bear false witness. Pocher and the commandments
Perhaps the most significant detail is the nature of the internal votes of the Commission. Pocher speaks of a “slowdown” and an organism “in antithesis,” but the numbers tell another story. In 2021, four members voted a clear “no,” four a “no” open to future developments, and only two voted “yes.” In 2022, seven out of ten members voted for the thesis excluding the possibility of moving toward sacramental diaconate for women. And the fundamental theological theses were approved unanimously, including those describing the relationship between Ordination and the female subject as “problematic.” It is true that the Commission, correctly, does not issue a definitive judgment: it is not for a study body to define doctrine. But this does not mean that the lack of definition implies openness. The Commission’s text clarifies that the absence of a green light does not depend on “male resistance,” but on theological reasons relating to Scripture, Tradition, Magisterium, apostolic succession, and sacramental structure.
A passage of the interview deserves one final comment. Pocher claims that some arguments against female ordination derive from a “sexist” view of the representation of Christ. The example she gives – “Jesus was also Jewish; should anyone who represents him also be Jewish?” – is meant to suggest that Christ’s gender is accidental. Yet this reasoning fails to grasp the essential point of Catholic doctrine. The Magisterium does not claim that Christ must be imitated in everything, but that the sacrament of Orders represents Christ the Bridegroom of the Church. This symbolic dimension cannot be translated into ethnicity without distorting the sacramental language. Thus, Pocher’s argument is a category mistake: it confuses the historical reality of Christ with the sacramental structure deriving from his filial and spousal identity.
The overall picture shows that the problem is neither cultural nor sociological, but theological. The documents studied from 2002 to today converge in defining the question of the female diaconate as one involving the essence of the sacrament of Orders, not its disciplinary adaptation.
The media reaction that reduces the debate to a clash between “progressives” and “conservatives” ends up obscuring the real complexity of the issue. And it sidelines what clearly emerges from the documents: the Church recognises the dignity and usefulness of women in many roles, but cannot reshape Orders according to cultural expectations without altering its sacramental nature.
The statements of Sister Pocher, therefore, are unfounded both historically and theologically. The Commission did not “apply the brakes” out of cultural caution, but because the research – historical, doctrinal, ecclesial – provides no basis for moving toward a sacramental female diaconate. And the Synod did not strongly request this reform: on the contrary, it showed deep reservations.
A serious debate must begin here: the Church is not moving to accommodate identity visions, but to remain faithful to the living Tradition which, in its continuity, also guides discernment for the future. The fact that a religious sister goes so far as to lie in order to promote ideas that have nothing Catholic about them should require action from her superior general. But today, as we well know, we live in a completely upended world, in which what once seemed obvious no longer scandalises anyone.
s.P.A. and fr.B.N.
Silere non possum