The Vatican announced Wednesday that a select group of women and nonclergy would be afforded the ability to vote in a meeting of bishops, marking a significant departure from the Catholic Church's traditional practices.
The announcement is the latest indication that the Vatican is blazing an unconventional path with its "Synod on Synodality," a two-year meeting of bishops that is scheduled to begin in October.
RUBIO DEMANDS ANSWERS AFTER WALTER REED TERMINATES CONTRACT WITH CATHOLIC PRIESTS
The change stems from a modification in the rules governing such meetings that previously stipulated only bishops were permitted to vote. Priests, deacons, and nonclergy or "laypeople" were permitted to participate as "auditors" and had no voting power.
The synod will instead allow 70 attendees who are not bishops to vote. The voting participants will be selected from a group of 140 general attendees, and the synod's organizers have requested that 50% of those attendees should be women and "the presence of young people also be emphasized.”
But despite the newly granted power to participate as voting members, those who will be permitted to vote in the synod's sessions must be personally approved by Pope Francis.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“It’s a change, but it’s not a revolution,” Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, the Synod on Synodality's relator general, said on Wednesday, according to the Catholic News Agency. "Change is normal in life, in history."
For the length of the 2,000-year history of the Catholic Church, participation in institutional decision-making has been reserved for men who have been ordained to the priesthood. Women have never been able to be ordained priests, a position that has been reaffirmed by all recent popes, including Pope Francis.