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Vatican tamps down expectations over women deacons

Pope Francis hugs Sister Carmen Sammut, a Missionary Sister of Our Lady of Africa at the end of a special audience with members of the International Union of Superiors General in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican, Thursday, May 12, 2016. Pope Francis said Thursday he is willing to create a commission to study whether women can be deacons in the Catholic Church, signaling an openness to letting women serve in ordained ministry currently reserved to men. (L'Osservatore Romano/Pool photo via AP) Pope Francis hugs Sister Carmen Sammut, a Missionary Sister of Our Lady of Africa at the end of a special audience with members of the International Union of Superiors General in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican, Thursday, May 12, 2016. Pope Francis said Thursday he is willing to create a commission to study whether women can be deacons in the Catholic Church, signaling an openness to letting women serve in ordained ministry currently reserved to men. (L'Osservatore Romano/Pool photo via AP)

By Associated Press May 13, 2016 1 min read

VATICAN CITY (AP) – The Vatican is tamping down any expectations that Pope Francis is about to let women serve as deacons in the Catholic Church.

Francis made headlines Thursday when he told a closed-door meeting of some 800 superiors of women’s religious orders that he agreed with their proposal to create a commission to study the issue. He was responding to a question about what was impeding women today from serving as deacons, who aren’t priests but perform many of the same functions as priests.

The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, told Vatican Radio on Friday that the pope stressed the role of nonordained women deacons in the ancient church, and “didn’t say he had any intention of introducing diaconal ordination for women, much less priestly ordination for women.”