The Synod of Synodality spent large parts of Tuesday discussing the roles of both Bishops and women with the Church.
Both issues were raised during the Synodal process, both in Australia and abroad, most notably at the local Plenary Council in July 2022.
In their roundtables on Tuesday in Rome, participants in the Synod spent the afternoon focusing on the role of women in the Church, including whether women should be able to preach the homily at Mass and whether there should be a female diaconate.
At the press briefing on Tuesday, Australian professor Renée Köhler-Ryan, one of 54 women delegates to the Synod on Synodality, said she didn’t feel calls for a female priesthood or diaconate addressed the real concerns of most Catholic women.
“As a woman, I’m not focused at all on the fact that I’m not a priest,” she said. “I think that there’s too much emphasis placed on this question. And what happens when we put too much emphasis on this question is that we forget about what women, for the most part, throughout the world, need.”
She added equality in the Church wasn’t a “one for one thing” and that women could have equality within the Church without being ordained.
“There are realities of motherhood and fatherhood that are both spiritual and biological and that are really important for understanding what is going on across the whole Church,” the wife and mother said, before adding that the issue of women’s ordination distracts the Church from helping women in other ways.
Pope Francis sought to clarify the Church’s position on female ordination, unequivocally stating that women cannot be ordained as priests, a move which was praised by Broken Bay Bishop Anthony Randazzo at the Tuesday media briefing.
“This is not the first time a Pope has been asked a question before a gathering of bishops or an assembly of the faithful,” Bishop Randazzo said.
“Even at the time of the Second Vatican Council when the question of clerical celibacy was raised, Pope Paul VI intervened directly and reserved the question for himself, not to say you couldn’t speak about it, but so he could undergo a more broad conversation, a more profound study and then later on produced something that is an ongoing reference point for conversation and for formation to this day.”
Bishop Randazzo also praised Pope Francis’ approach to these difficult issues.
“I think it’s a good thing the Holy Father took the lead to be able to respond and he’s good at that,” he said.
“He has a real charism in being able to speak into issues that are real for people by listening to them, not dismissing them, and allowing them to sit where they are so that they may come to a maturity, maybe not right at the moment, but maybe as things grow a little further. Nobody expects to pick fruit off a newly planted tree, so sometimes it takes a little bit of time to mature.”
Earlier in the day, the Synod had discussed the role of Bishop’s within the Church, responding to Module B2 of the working document of the Synod.
They Synod discussed the role of the Bishop, the need for support within the Diocese, formation, the appointment of Bishops and the need to pray for Bishops.