Did Pope Francis Just Pave the Way for Women Priests?

VATICAN CITY
The Daily Beast

Barbie Latza Nadeau

With the creation of a commission to study the possibility of ordaining women as deacons, Pope Francis may have just changed everything.

ROME — At what was meant to be a love fest for 900 nuns at a meeting of the International Union of Superiors General at the Vatican on Thursday, Pope Francis didn’t just rock the boat; he may have created a tidal wave.

During the question and answer session of the meeting, one of the sisters at the conference brought up the fact that women had served as deacons in the early church.

Then, according to the National Catholic Reporter, she asked the pope, “Why not construct an official commission that might study the question?”

Francis then said that he had discussed the matter of those early deaconesses with a professor several years earlier, but that he remained unclear about what role they actually served.

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