ROME (AP) – Pope Francis changed church law on Monday to explicitly allow women to do more during Mass, granting them access to the holiest site of the altar, while claiming they cannot be priests.
Francis amended the law to formalize and institutionalize the common practice in many parts of the world: that women could be installed as readers, read the gospel, and serve at the altar as Eucharistic ministers. Previously, these roles were officially reserved for men although exceptions were made.
Francis said he was making the change to increase recognition of the “valuable contribution” women make to the church, though he stressed that all baptized Catholics have a role to play in the church’s mission.
But he also noted that doing so still makes a distinction between “ordained” ministries, such as the priesthood and diaconate, and ministries open to qualified lay people. The Vatican reserves the priesthood to men.
The change occurs when Francis continues to be pressured for women to be deacons, ministers who perform many of the same functions as priests, such as presiding over weddings, baptisms, and funerals. Currently, the ministry is reserved for men, although historians say that the ministry was done by women in the early church.
Francis has set up a second commission of experts to study whether women could be deacons, after a first one failed to reach a consensus.
Proponents of expanding the diaconate to include women say doing so would give more voice to women in church ministry and governance, while helping to address the shortage of priests in various parts of the world.
Opponents say allowing it to become a slippery slope to ordain women to the priesthood.
Phyllis Zagano, who was a member of the pope’s first study commission, considered important the given changes that represent the first time the Vatican has explicitly and through canon law allowed women’s access to the altar. She said it was a necessary first step before any official consideration of the diaconate for women.
“This is the first movement that allows women to enter the shrine,” Zagano said. “That’s very big.”
Noting that bishops have long called for such a measure, he said it opens the door to move further. “You can’t be ordained as deacons unless they are installed as readers or acolytes,” said Zagano, a professor of religion at Hofstra University.
However, Lucetta Scaraffia, a former editor of the Vatican women’s magazine, called the new changes a “double trap.” He said they only formalize current practice, including papal masses, while making it clear that the diaconate is an “orderly” ministry reserved for men.
“This closes the door to the diaconate for women,” she said in a telephone interview, which she described the change as a “step backwards” for women.