A significant majority of delegates at a national gathering of Catholics, the first of its kind in Ireland, has voted in favour of a recommendation to bishops that there be ongoing discussion on women’s ordination in the church.
On the question of “women’s ministry, including ordination to the diaconate”, 54 per cent voted in favour, of which 42 per cent highly recommended the proposal and 12 per cent simply recommended it.
Another 19 per cent felt it required further discernment, while 27 per cent were opposed.
The approximately 300 lay and clerical delegates attended the first National Synodal Assembly of Catholics in Ireland, at Gormonston, Co Meath, on Saturday.
The proposal said “the question of women’s ministry, including ordination to the diaconate” should be “engaged with openly, seriously and in a theologically informed way” and called on the bishops “to use their role and influence to encourage discussion and education both nationally and internationally”.
Such advocacy, it said, “needs to be theologically informed by current theology and ecclesiology, with particular emphasis on female theologians who have researched, reflected and written on the history, tradition and role of ordained ministry”.
Conversations about the ordination of women, it said, should “be considered in any discussion on the opening up of all ministry in general to women, so that as we open what is now possible, we are also continuing the conversation about what may be”.
However, delegates voted 56 per cent against the establishment of a national office for women which, it was proposed, would be “a witness to the church’s communal commitment at parish and diocesan levels in Ireland to the full inclusion of women”.
A majority of delegates also recommended to the bishops that the church in Ireland ask the universal church “to develop a more respectful and life-giving vocabulary when speaking about LGBT+ people”.
A total of 41 per cent highly recommended this proposal, with 20 per cent recommending it, 26 per cent saying it required further discernment, and 13 per cent opposed.
The day-long assembly, which followed a five-year process, considered and voted on 35 proposals dealing with the future of the Catholic Church in Ireland as recommendations to the bishops.
At the assembly’s conclusion on Saturday evening, Catholic primate Archbishop Eamon Martin told delegates that the bishops’ conference would be meeting next week, and that “we look forward to reflecting together on today’s assembly and all that has led to it”.
“We need this process, because many of our parishes and even our dioceses are unsustainable in the current model and will struggle to survive,” he said.
He also said he had “a personal hope” that at some point over the next seven years, “our holy father Pope Leo XIV might come to Ireland - please God his health will allow for it.”