Pope Francis proposes female deacons, married priests at Amazon synod

Pope Francis, rounding out his synod of Amazonian clergy, announced Saturday that he would be reopening a commission to study the history of women as deacons in the early days of the Catholic Church.

After calls by women for greater decision-making roles in the Church, the pope made the announcement at the end of his three-week assembly discussing issues facing the Amazon region, solutions to a shortage of priests, environmental protection and the role of women.

Francis originally opened a commission to study the possibility of women in the role in 2016, but the commission ended its work without a consensus on the topic. A gathering of 181 bishops voted on 120 recommendations presented to the pope. The recommendation to re-examine female deacons passed the two-thirds vote threshold, 137 in favor and 30 opposed, according to the Wall Street Journal.--> READ MORE