These groundworks of the 1970s magisterium led to John Paul II’s 1994 apostolic letter Ordinatio sacerdotalis, which stated that “the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful.” It is worth noting that Ordinatio sacerdotalis is about women in the priesthood, not women in the diaconate. On the other hand, the 2001 joint document of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Congregation for the Clergy, and the Congregation for Divine Worship also shut the door to a women’s diaconate. And a 2002 document on the diaconate issued by the International Theological Commission appeared to lock it. John Paul II tried to silence the debate, and the election of Benedict XVI was taken by many as proof that the debate about women and ministry in the Catholic Church was over. But the issue did not disappear.

The history of Paul VI’s commission and its aftermath helps us understand the current situation of the commission on women deacons. First of all, the commission created by Francis had (or has, in case it is still in existence) more freedom than the “commission on women” of the early 1970s, which had to contend not only with papal teaching that seemed to discourage their work, but also with the entire Curia. Today the situation is different: the ecclesiastical-theological establishment is now much more divided than it was forty years ago. A year ago the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Luis Ladaria, SJ, published “In Response to Certain Doubts Regarding the Definitive Character of the Doctrine of Ordinatio sacerdotalis,” stressing the continuity from John Paul II to Francis of the teaching against women’s ordination to the priesthood, but not to the diaconate.

But among the bishops—not to mention the whole people of God, including theologians—there is a wide variety of opinions about women deacons, a wider variety than there was in the 1970s. In the past two or three decades, and especially during the pontificates of John Paul II and Benedict XVI, the debate about women deacons has remained limited mostly to specialists, but the theological reflection supporting the women’s diaconate and the current ecumenical situation (some Orthodox Churches have recently reintroduced women deacons) are much more favorable to such a development in the Catholic Church than they were in the 1970s. The role of women in the church is now an important one throughout the church in a way that it was not in the 1970s. It is no longer an issue only in the Northern hemisphere; it is being discussed in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. And the discussion is likely to continue and grow in intensity no matter what the pope’s position on the issue.

But the Catholic Church today is also more divided than it was in the 1970s. On Vatican II, for example, Paul VI adopted a line of firm defense that Francis cannot take because of the effects of Benedict XVI’s pontificate—especially on liturgical issues closely related to the debate over the diaconate. Despite Francis’s severe criticisms of clericalism, it is again on the rise, sacralizing the hierarchical priesthood as an ordo. The trend was away from clericalism in the 1970s, not toward it. The debate on women in ministry has to face the same problem of traditionalism that Paul VI had to deal with, but back then the traditionalism of Lefebvre was more isolated. Now traditionalism has become mainstream among certain groups of young Catholics, including young priests and seminarians. These young traditionalists and their supporters in the higher clergy would mount a strong resistance against any proposal to reintroduce women deacons.

In short, the Catholic Church now has a stronger theology of women deacons than it did during the time of Paul VI, but the political conditions for such a development are now less auspicious. Still, Francis has said we should continue the discussion. How can we make sure this discussion does not lead to the same impasses that it led to in the 1970s?

A first step would be to publish all the reports on the women’s diaconate, starting with those commissioned in the 1970s and including those commissioned under Francis. The discussion needs to be an open discussion if it is going to get anywhere. A second step would be to make the discussion synodal—which would require a synod ad hoc on women in the church. Why a synod? Because the discussion should be about not only the history of women’s ministry (the preserve of experts) but also the theology. A commission of experts can and should go only so far in this issue. I repeat here what I wrote in 2016 before the announcement of the commission by Francis: we should disabuse ourselves of the naïve belief that agreement about the historical evidence of women deacons and the role of the diaconate in the early church can resolve this controversy. Appeals to history are rarely conclusive in theological debates, and they can easily backfire. It is traditionalist Catholics, not progressives, who are supposed to believe that something is legitimate only to the degree that it is not new.

The good news is that both the theological debate about women deacons and the sensus fidei in the global church are not what they were in the 1970s. Today it is unlikely that Rome could get away with dismissing requests for the diaconal ministry of women simply by pointing to lack of consensus on the historical findings. People are now demanding better answers.