(LifeSiteNews) — The Synod on Synodality released a teaser interim report on women’s role in Church leadership, anticipating that the “question” of the women’s diaconate will be addressed in the final report.

The synod on Monday published the interim report, in which it announced the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF), headed by the heterodox Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández, is currently drafting the final report on “the participation of women in the life and leadership of the Church.”

“A special word must be reserved for the question of women’s access to the diaconate,” the interim report hinted. 

The synod has thus far presented a proposal for the women’s diaconate, as well as calls for women to “preach in the parish setting,” and the “active role” of women in Church governance. The latter has already been furthered by Pope Francis in a revolutionary way, particularly when he appointed a nun as head of a Vatican dicastery early this year who became the first woman to lead an office in the Roman Curia.

While no official recommendations on the women’s diaconate have yet been made, synod officials have expressed support for the practice, which contradicts the perennial teaching and tradition of the Church. 

For example, Cardinal Mario Grech, one of the two leading cardinals in charge of the synod, stated last year that “the female diaconate and a different space for women in the Church are a natural deepening of the Lord’s will.”

Other supporters of female deacons have been appointed to the General Secretariat of the Synod advisers by Pope Francis, including a woman who has argued for female priests.

Cardinal Gerhard Müller, former prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, has affirmed that the impossibility of women receiving the Sacrament of Holy Orders in each of the three degrees, including the diaconate, is a “dogma” of the faith of the Catholic Church.

In his book “Ministers of Christ,” liturgist Dr. Peter Kwasniewski explained, “All liturgical services within the sanctuary of the church represent Christ, the supreme ‘deacon,’ and therefore, according to the perennis sensus of the Church and its uninterrupted tradition, both the higher and lower liturgical services are performed by male persons.”

“The function of subdeacon or deacon was exercised by Christ, for example, during the Last Supper when He girded Himself with a servant’s apron and washed the feet of the apostles who, during the same Supper, were constituted by Him true priests of the New Covenant,” Kwasniewski wrote.

According to the interim report released Monday, the final report will include “a reasoned synthesis of the principal findings and convergences” regarding women’s leadership in the Church, “drawn from the voices of the various components of the Dicastery.”

The final report will also include a catalog of the material submitted to the DDF for consideration, categorized into the following topics:

1) Significant female figures in the history of the Church.

2) Personal accounts from women currently engaged in Church leadership.

3) Personal accounts from women serving within the Roman Curia.

4) The Marian and Petrine principles: relevance and limitations.

5) Ecclesial potestas: nature and exercise. 

6) Critical tensions regarding clericalism and male chauvinism.

7) The contribution of Pope Francis and Pope Leo XIV concerning the role of women in the Church.

The synod and DDF have not announced a clear timeframe by which to expect the release of the final synod report but have only stated that it will be published in “the coming months.”