From Zenit:
For decades, the question of whether Catholic women might one day serve as deacons has hovered at the edge of ecclesial debate, alternately resurfacing and receding as popes, theologians, and bishops revisited the issue. Now, the discussion is returning to the foreground with unusual momentum. The General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops has disclosed that a Vatican commission dedicated to the topic is nearing the conclusion of its work, raising expectations that concrete findings may soon be placed before the Holy See. The revelation came in mid-November, embedded in a broader update on the progress of several sensitive research projects launched during the final years of Pope Francis’s pontificate. What emerged from the report is a portrait of a Church carefully but deliberately probing its own internal boundaries.