Women and lay people will be able to vote at the next assembly of bishops, the Vatican announced on Wednesday April 26, a turning point in the history of the Catholic Church.
The first phase of the final assembly of this “synod on synodality”, a broad worldwide consultation on the future of the Church, will take place in October in Rome and the synod secretariat published on Wednesday the rules for participation in this meeting. It will be the first time that women and non-consecrated lay people will be able to vote at a synod, a decision that has long been demanded when this right was until now reserved for clerics.
In addition to the bishops, archbishops and other religious elected by the local episcopal conferences “are added 70 non-bishop members who represent the other faithful of the people of God (…) and who come from the local churches”, indicates this document. These 70 people will be chosen by Pope Francis from a list of 140 people. “It is requested that 50% of them be women and that the presence of young people be highlighted”, continues the secretariat of the synod.
The criteria for being on the list of 140 are “not only their general culture and their prudence but also their knowledge, theoretical and practical, as well as their participation, in whatever capacity, in the synodal process”, specifies this document. “As members of the synod, they will have the right to vote”, underlines the secretariat of the synod, while recalling that the pope can himself appoint lay members to participate in this consultation. It was Francis himself who approved ten days ago the expansion of lay participation in the synod.
This vast consultation on the future of the Church, already in progress in many episcopal conferences, will make it possible to measure the balance of power on the major issues, such as the place of women, the management of cases of pedocrime or the situation of divorced people. remarried.
Since his election in 2013, Francis has gradually expanded the place of lay people and women within the Church and the Vatican, notably by multiplying the appointments of women within the Curia, the central “government” of the Holy See.