Seven international organizations advocating for reforms in the Catholic Church have requested that Cardinal Mario Grech, Secretary General of the Synod of Bishops, repeal three canons of the Code of Canon Law, including canon 1024, which states that “only a baptized male validly receives sacred ordination.” The petition seeks to extend the scope of synodal reforms to an issue directly related to Catholic doctrine on the sacrament of Holy Orders.
The request is contained in a letter addressed to Cardinal Grech, dated October 22, 2026, in response to the report Toward a Synodal Church, prepared by the Synod’s canonical commission. The signatories consider the proposed modifications insufficient and call for a deeper transformation of ecclesiastical governance structures.
The initiative is supported by We Are Church International, Root & Branch, Council of Australasian Catholics, Spirit Unbounded, Catholic Church Reform International, International Church Reform Network, and Association of Catholic Priests, organizations linked to movements promoting changes in the Church’s doctrine, discipline, and governance.
They demand the repeal of canon 1024 and changes to norms on ecclesiastical governance
The most significant request appears on the second page of the letter, where the signatories question the restrictions established by canons 129 §1 and 274 §1 and their connection to canon 1024.
The organizations argue that these provisions maintain a governance structure reserved primarily to clerics and that, by linking certain ecclesiastical responsibilities to the reception of the sacrament of Holy Orders, they exclude women from leadership and ministry roles.
In this context, they explicitly request “the review of canons 129 §1, 274 §1, and 1024 with a view to their repeal,” a demand they reiterate in the final section of the document.
Canon 1024 of the Code of Canon Law states that “only a baptized male validly receives sacred ordination.” It is therefore not merely an administrative provision, but a norm that establishes a necessary condition for the validity of the sacrament of Holy Orders.
Canon 129 §1, for its part, establishes that those who have received sacred orders are capable subjects for the exercise of the power of governance, while canon 274 §1 reserves to clerics those offices whose exercise requires the power of order or ecclesiastical governance.
The signatories acknowledge that this issue was outside the scope of the Synod’s canonical commission, but maintain that it cannot remain outside a broader synodal reform.
Although the letter focuses its argument on the participation of women in governance and ecclesial ministries, the request to repeal canon 1024 directly concerns the norm regulating who may validly receive ordination.
They accuse bishops of turning synodality into a simulation
The letter also contains harsh criticism of the exercise of episcopal authority and the functioning of synodal bodies.
The seven organizations maintain that numerous bishops continue to govern unilaterally and that some synodal processes are controlled by the hierarchy from their convocation to the adoption of decisions.
According to their denunciation, it is the bishops themselves who determine the participants, the topics to be addressed, and the outcomes of consultations, which, in the signatories’ view, distorts the meaning of synodality.
The document goes so far as to describe certain experiences as “synodal simulations,” considering that decisions still dependent on episcopal authority are presented as participatory processes.
The criticisms also extend to diocesan pastoral councils and parish priests. The organizations warn that these bodies may become merely symbolic structures if bishops maintain control over their composition and functioning.
They also demand that reformist groups be allowed to participate in synodal processes even if they are not formally constituted as associations recognized by ecclesiastical authority.
The signatories ask the General Secretariat of the Synod for firmer instructions to ensure that dioceses incorporate their proposals for participation and accountability.
The Church has definitively taught that it cannot ordain women as priests
The claim regarding canon 1024 concerns a matter on which the Church’s Magisterium has expressly pronounced and which does not depend on a merely disciplinary provision.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church, in number 1577, teaches that only a baptized male validly receives sacred ordination. It explains that Jesus Christ chose men to form the college of the twelve Apostles and that they followed the same criterion in selecting their collaborators.
The Church recognizes itself as bound by this choice of the Lord and therefore does not consider itself to have the authority to modify it.
This teaching was reaffirmed by Saint John Paul II in the apostolic letter Ordinatio sacerdotalis, published in 1994, in which he declared:
“The Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women, and this judgment must be considered definitive by all the faithful of the Church.”
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith subsequently confirmed that this teaching requires definitive assent, as it belongs to the deposit of faith.
Therefore, the attempt to eliminate canon 1024 cannot be equated with a reform of participation procedures or the Church’s administrative structures. The provision reflects a doctrinal teaching that is not subject to the will of a synodal assembly or to legislative modification.
New pressure on the synodal reform of the Code of Canon Law
The letter comes after the Synod’s canonical commission presented a report with proposals to amend 34 canons of the Code of Canon Law.
The document, presented at the beginning of October, contemplates changes related to the participation of the laity, pastoral councils, and the functioning of diocesan synods.
These proposals had already drawn criticism from various canonists, especially regarding the implications they could have for the relationship between the sacrament of Holy Orders and the exercise of the power of governance in the Church.
Among those who questioned the scope of the reform are Dominican Pius Pietrzyk and Father Gerald Murray, who warned of the ecclesiological consequences of some of the proposed modifications.
The new intervention by the reformist organizations goes beyond those proposals. It is not limited to demanding greater participation of the laity or reviewing governance procedures, but explicitly requests the repeal of a provision that reflects the Church’s teaching on the valid reception of the sacrament of Holy Orders.
The letter concludes by asking Cardinal Grech to convey their demands to Leo XIV and for the General Secretariat of the Synod to provide guidance to advance their implementation before the evaluation assemblies scheduled for 2027.