Pope Leo XIV Puts End to Female Ordination Debate in Catholic Church

<![CDATA[So endeth a debate that has officially percolated for more than a decade, and less formally, much longer. When the Catholic Church reinvigorated the permanent diaconate as an ordained ministry several decades ago, activists began lobbying for the inclusion of women in such orders. Unlike the priesthood, the church had ordained women as deacons in its long-ago past, but essentially allowed the entire ministry to wither, with its only vestige being the transitional diaconate used as the final stage before full ordination for priests. ]]>