AP: Pope’s meeting on church future says it’s ‘urgent’ to guarantee governance roles for women

BY NICOLE WINFIELD

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis’ big gathering of Catholic bishops and laypeople said Saturday it was “urgent” to guarantee fuller participation of women in church governance positions and called for research on allowing women to be deacons to be released within a year.

But the meeting didn’t take decisive action on that issue, and it backed off any specific calls for welcoming LGBTQ+ Catholics despite Francis’ repeated outreach to the gay community and willingness to consider blessing same-sex couples. …

…Women’s Ordination Conference, which lobbies for women priests, gave a mixed judgment. “On some level, the document seems to reflect a recognition of the wounds women have experienced at the hands of the church, but it falls short of engaging substantially with the healing of those wounds, opting instead to leave those issues to ever more studies and commissions,” the group said in a statement.

Read the full story in the Associated Press here.