Women can vote in Bishop’s meetings, Pope approves voting power for first time
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Vatican City: For the first time in the Catholic community, women have got recognition to vote for the Church affairs along with men with Pope Francis endorsing the changes made in the norms governing the Synod of Bishops, a Vatican body that gathers the world’s bishops together for periodic meetings.
With the decision to allow women to vote in the upcoming meeting of bishops, it is expected that women will be given a greater role in decision-making responsibilities.
The latest outcome in regard to granting voting power to women has been a demand that has been sought for decades. On Wednesday, the Vatican published the changes approved by the Pope, highlighting his vision for encouraging believers to take more active roles in church affairs, which have been dealt with by clerics, bishops, and cardinals until now.
"Since the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, which modernised the Catholic Church, popes have gathered bishops from around the world in Rome for several weeks at a time to discuss specific topics. After the meetings, the bishops vote on proposals and present them to the pope, who takes their views into account in producing a document.
Until now, only men were allowed to vote. However, under the new changes, five female religious sisters will join five priests as voting representatives for religious orders. Additionally, Pope Francis has decided to appoint 70 non-bishop members to the synod and has requested that half of them be women. These members will also be granted voting rights.
The goal is also to include young people among these 70 non-bishop members, who will be nominated by regional groups and ultimately approved by Pope Francis.
The upcoming meeting, scheduled from 4th to 29th October, will focus on the topic of making the Catholic Church more responsive to the needs of laypeople, a process known as "synodality" that Pope Francis has advocated for many years. This October gathering has been preceded by an unprecedented two-year survey of Catholic laity, asking for their vision of the Church and how it can better serve the needs of Catholics today.
Cardinal Mario Grech, who oversees the synod, emphasized that with the new changes, non-bishops will make up 21% of the total representatives at the October meeting, and half of that group will be women.