The Vatican has released a summary report, delivered to Pope Leo, regarding the latest study commission on women’s potential access to the diaconate.

The report identifies two opposing theological “schools” and “the lack of convergence on fundamental doctrinal and pastoral polarities,” echoing prior conversations and yielding a consensus that neither supports nor rules out the female diaconate. It calls for a “prudential approach” that “should be supported by increasingly well-equipped, global investigations, aimed, with farsighted wisdom, at exploring these ecclesial horizons.”

I’ve previously published a sociological report on women in the U.S. Catholic Church whose service looks ‘diaconal’ apart from access to formal ordination, some of whom feel called — or ready to discern such a call — to the diaconate. I’ve more recently put out a call for papers, under the aegis of the Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies, for a seminar on authority and co-responsibility in the Roman Catholicism (applications welcome). I am prepared to support or lead global investigations that proffer further context and data needed to move this conversation forward (please reach out with leads).

Thanks to Fiona Murphy for interviewing me for the Religion News Service about this latest development.