Perhaps someday, the Catholic Church will allow women to serve as deacons. But that time, a Vatican commission has decided, is not now.

In a letter submitted to Pope Leo XIV and released this week, a Vatican group formed in 2020 under Pope Francis to mull the issue said historical and theological research "excludes the possibility” of considering allowing women to the diaconate.

“In light of Sacred Scripture, Tradition, and ecclesiastical teaching, this assessment is strong, although it does not allow for a definitive judgment to be formulated at this time,” a 2022 statement shared as part of the letter said.

Deacons are ordained ministers qualified to perform a number of priestly duties such as weddings, funerals and baptisms, though they are not priests and cannot celebrate Mass. The diaconate represents the Church’s third degree of holy orders, below the presbyterate, or priests, and episcopate, or bishops.

Currently, the role is only open to married men, though according to historians, women served as deacons in the early Church.

In 2016, Pope Francis indicated he would support creation of a commission to examine the possibility of female deacons, and the topic created some buzz at the Vatican’s Synod on Synodality in 2023 and 2024. The selection of Pope Leo had spurred optimism that the Church's stance on the issue might change.

Cardinal Giuseppe Petrocchi, president of the commission, left open the possibility of future consideration following more in-depth discussion.

“Issues relating to the ordination of women as deacons remain open to further theological and pastoral study,” he wrote.

Given that the issue has proven divisive within the Church, he said, “this approach should be supported by increasingly well-equipped, global investigations, aimed, with farsighted wisdom, at exploring these ecclesial horizons.”

The Vatican’s decision was excoriated by the Women’s Ordination Conference, a national group that has long advocated for women’s ordination in the Church.

“The Women’s Ordination Conference is appalled by the Vatican’s refusal to open its doors to women, even a crack,” Kate McElwee, the group’s executive director, said in a statement. “Make no mistake: this is a decision that will harm the global church.”

Few will have the patience, McElwee said, to wait out the further discussion suggested by the Vatican commission. She questioned the seriousness of the group's consideration given the lack of female input and noted that only 8 of 10 members voted on the issue, “adding more doubt that this commission functioned with any deep consultation or courage to respond to the signs of the time.”

Petrocchi’s letter noted that the commission had been equally divided on a statement advanced for consideration that said “the masculinity of Christ, and therefore the masculinity of those who receive Holy Orders, is not accidental, but is an integral part of the sacramental identity, preserving the divine order of salvation in Christ.”

That the commission had even pondered such a statement, McElwee said, “is a deep, and theologically unsound, insult.”

“For many women, this will be the final straw,” she said.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Catholic Church not yet ready to let women serve as deacons

Reporting by Marc Ramirez, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect