Women: Protagonists in a Synodal Church?

The presence of women at the recently concluded Synod of Bishops and its renewed attention to their participation in the life of the church marks the reopening of a conversation that has languished for decades. This essay examines the Synod’s reflections on contemporary Catholic women’s experience against the horizon of their role in the Second Vatican Council, the council’s teaching, and its reception. Today no less than sixty years ago, women ask to be recognized as equal members of the baptized Christian faithful, genuine protagonists in the life and mission of the Church.