The Pope will for the first time allow women to vote at an influential global meeting of bishops in October – a move that has been welcomed as a historic first.
The new rules, announced on Wednesday, will grant voting rights to five religious sisters at the synod, a papal advisory body.
Women were previously only permitted to attend the gathering as observers.
Men will continue to cast the vast majority of votes at the influential gathering.
Nonetheless, the reforms are regarded as a significant step forward for the Roman Catholic Church, which has been dominated by men for centuries.
The reform has been described as “a significant crack in the stained glass ceiling” by the Women’s Ordination Conference, which advocates for women priests in the United States.
“For years Vatican representatives and bishops resisted, moving the goalpost with every synod as to why women were not allowed to vote,” the group wrote on Twitter. “The unspoken reason was always sexism.”
“In the near future, we hope that the synod continues to develop into a fully representative body of the people of God.”
In another departure from tradition, Pope Francis announced that voting rights would be extended to 70 hand-picked non-clerical members of the religious community, transforming the synod from a meeting solely of the Church hierarchy.
The Pope, a reform advocate, has stated that he hopes half of these will be women, and there has also been a focus on including young people.
“It’s an important change, it’s not a revolution,” said Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, a top organizer of the synod.
According to Christopher Lamb, Vatican correspondent for the Catholic news publication The Tablet, the changes are “highly significant” and an attempt by the Pope to make decisions about the Church’s future more inclusive.
He went on to say that the women’s reforms reflected an “unprecedented” dialogue about female representation that had been going on for some time.
Mr. Lamb, on the other hand, predicted that the Pope would face “significant resistance” from some parts of the Church as a result of this latest decision.
