While priesthood for women may appear an impossibility in the Roman Catholic Church, it isn’t. A pathway to its realization has arisen through the Synod on Synodality, but only if the process were to be honestly implemented. Unfortunately, Pope Francis—who typically practices remarkable inner freedom—has repeatedly violated his own synodal process and values to obstruct the synodal process when it comes to the role of women in the Church. Barriers to a free discernment include scrubbing the topic of priesthood for women from agendas and documents, excluding priesthood from the Vatican-commissioned study on the role of women, and ultimately removing the diaconate for women off the table. 

How can Pope Francis get away with this? There is one reason: the silence of bishops.

The Pope is often mistaken as a king, but he is best understood as the head pastor of the Church. While power has been increasingly concentrated in the papacy over the last millennium, it has limits. We saw this in real time when some bishops rejected the Pope’s teaching on same-sex blessings. They simply stood up and said, “No.” I use this example in no way to support anti-LGBTQ sentiments, but to show how power functions in the magisterium when bishops claim their collective power.

At this moment in history, there are bishops from all parts of the world who know wholeheartedly that the exclusion of women from all ordained ministries is immoral. Further, they know this at the level of conscience, which—according to Catholic doctrine—means they are required to come forward. In other words, it is not a choice; it is a moral duty. What if instead of silence they urgently embraced their moral obligation and spoke out as one body on behalf of women?

While this transparency of bishops is critical to the proper functioning of the Church, frankly, they might considering coming forward for their own sanity. While some bishops are criminal, many are faithful, humble men who get up day after day to carry the cross of an impossible job through an especially difficult time. They are good people paying for the sins of their forefathers at great cost to themselves. At this point, how much of a bishop’s daily job—especially in the West—consists of navigating lawsuits and bankruptcies, deciding which parishes to close and cluster, navigating complaints from the Catholics devastated by these decisions, all the while witnessing their male priests be crushed by ungodly workloads because of a “shortage” of vocations. Things are not good, and the bishops are on the frontlines, doing their best to pick up the pieces. 

At the very same time, however, today’s bishops are becoming culpable for the sexual violence that is continuing at the hands of the Church other parts of the world. They are the ones in the driver’s seat now, and the fundamental thing that must occur above all else to create safe environments for women and children is the full participation of women at every level of Church life—and this includes ordination to priesthood.  If the supportive bishops fail to speak up forcefully on behalf of women during this opening of the Synod, the sexual violence that continues across the globe will be on their hands. I would think that Archbishop Gomez, Archbishop Wester, Archbishop Aymond, Bishop Soto and the many the other bishops who have had to navigate this nightmare would take this to heart.      
 All this is to say that the bishops all around the world--and especially those in the Synod hall right now in Rome--who support ordaining women as priests face a decision: they will either band together to hold Pope Francis accountable to a free and fair study on the role of women in the Church that unfolds with transparency and without prejudice, or they will go along with the wrongdoing. They have two more days to decide.
 
In a spirit of great hope and deep respect, I implore my brothers in Christ: God gave you balls, so use them--speak up for women before it is too late.

The bedrock value of synodality is the inner freedom to give God the freedom to move as God desires. Giving God this freedom requires the removal of the barriers that stand in the way of the Spirit. Unfortunately, when it comes to the topic of the ordination of women, especially as priests, Pope Francis continues to erect barriers instead of remove them. Let us trace the topic of holy orders for women through the Synod process, which began in October 2021. 

• Calls for women in preaching, women in governance and women in the diaconate surfaced from around the world. Calls for ordination of women as priests also surfaced, though not universal. (paragraph #64)
  
  
• Under the Pope's direction, the process immediately narrowed the acceptable topics for conversation down to the diaconate. Priesthood for women was notably absent from Instrumentum Laboris, the document used to prepare delegates for the October 2023 assembly.
  
  
• Though eliminated from the preparatory document, delegates have explained that priesthood for women came up on the Synod floor during the October 2023 assembly. However, it was scrubbed from the final synthesis report.  
  
  
• In March 2024, Francis created ten working groups to study the significant issues that arose early in the Synod, appointing Working Group 5 to investigate the role of women in the Church. However, he intentionally excluded priesthood from the scope of its work. 
  
  
• Nine of these ten working groups are made up of a group of appointed experts, however, the study on women is being treated differently. It has been assigned to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, best known for its formidable enforcement of doctrine. The reason given for this different treatment is that before the Synod was conceived, Pope Francis tasked the DDF to study the role of women in the Church. Rather than have two separate studies, the Pope asked the DDF to take on the work of Working Group 5. 
  
  
• While the names of those participating on the nine other working groups were released, there has been no transparency regarding who is participating on the DDF's Working Group 5.  This  changed on Thursday, October 24 after delegate outcry (see below). 
  
  
• Before the October assembly, Pope Francis violated the process of prayerful listening and freedom to be led by the Spirit by going onto 60 Minutes and answering "no" to the question of ordaining women as deacons.  
  
  
• On day one of the October 2024 assembly, Cardinal Fernandez of the DDF announced that no serious consideration would be given to ordaining women as deacons though this issue arose consistently at all levels of the Church throughout the three year process. He has repeatedly doubled down on this position, likely at the request of the Pope.
  
  
• Nevertheless, while priesthood for women continued to be taken off of agendas and scrubbed from synod documents, the topic of priesthood for women came up multiple times on the Synod floor during  the October 2024 assembly.
  
  
• After synod delegates voted to have input in the work of the working groups, Cardinal Fernandez did not show up to the October 18th meeting with delegates, which caused outrage at his absence. It turned out he tasked the priest Fr. Amando Matteo who is leading the study to attend, but he had a medical appointment and did not communicate that he would be absent. No arrangements were made for other members of the DDF's Working Group 5 attended the meeting, only junior staff with no authority to answer questions. While it is clear this debacle was not malicious in intent, it clearly reveals the deep lack of awareness regarding the significance of the issue and the respect it demands at this historic moment. 
  
  
• Under pressure from the fallout of the mishandling of the October 18th meeting, Cardinal Fernandez agreed to release the names of the working group and, probably with the Pope's support, restart the 2020 Commission on the study of the diaconate for women. Priesthood is still being left out of the study on women.

While it is the synod process began in good faith, it has become clear that the Pope lacks interior freedom on the issue of the ordination of women, whether as deacons or priests. This lack of freedom leads to decisions over discernment--the erecting of obstacles to the work of the Spirit by determining the outcome before a proper discernment can be made.  If the Pope and those in charge of the Synod honored the integrity of the process, every issue related to women in the Church would be included without prejudice in the study, giving God the opportunity to lead the Church where God desires us to go.