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The Second Vatican Council (1962-65) renewed the ministry of the diaconate in the Catholic Church — restoring it as a permanent state of life, opening it to married men, and teaching that deacons are ordained to serve in liturgy, word and charity to the people of God.

At the Council itself, and in the decades that followed, a question has consistently emerged among popes and bishops and many others: Might the restoration and renewal of this ministry also involve giving official recognition to the diaconal ministry exercised by women?

In the early 1970s, Pope Paul VI commissioned a study. In 2002, the International Theological Commission said, “It pertains to the ministry of discernment which the Lord established in his Church to pronounce authoritatively on this question.” In 2016, Pope Francis established a commission to study the topic. And in 2020, following the Synod of Bishops on the Amazon, where a majority of bishops were in favor of ordaining women as deacons, and where the Synod formally requested to share their “experiences and reflections” with a papal commission, Pope Francis established a new commission that will begin meeting in September 2021.

The question of women and the diaconate is a living conversation and an active discernment in our Church. In a listening, participatory and synodal Church, it is a question not only for Synods of Bishops and papal commissions, but it is a discernment for the entire people of God.