ROME

Pope Francis on Monday changed the Catholic Church’s law to formally allow women to serve as readers at liturgies as well as altar servers and Eucharistic ministers.

In a new edict, the pope formalized what in practice has been already allowed for years in many communities around the world.

“The pontiff, therefore, has established that women can accede to these ministries and they are attributed by a liturgical function that institutionalizes them,” the Vatican said.

It also stressed, however, that these roles were “essentially distinct from the ordained ministry,” explaining that this new step towards women’s equality within the church should not be seen as a precursor to women being ordained as priests – something feared by many conservative Catholics.

The new decree, called “Spiritus Domini,” modifies the Code of Canon Law to establish that women can have access to these ministries and that they are recognized through a liturgical act formally instituting them as such.

The pope said many bishops from around the world had said that the change was necessary to respond to the “needs of the times.”

In recent years the church has struggled in some regions to recruit new members of the all-male priesthood.

Francis specified that he wanted to welcome recommendations which have emerged from various synodal assemblies, writing that “a doctrinal development has been arrived at in these last years that has brought to light how certain ministries instituted by the Church have as their basis the common condition of being baptized and the royal priesthood received in the Sacrament of Baptism.”

The Motu proprio edict was accompanied by a letter addressed to the prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Luis Ladaria, in which Francis explained the theological motivations behind his decision.

The pontiff wrote that “within the spectrum of renewal traced out by the [the 1960s’] Second Vatican Council, the urgency is being ever more felt today to rediscover the co-responsibility of all of the baptized in the Church and the mission of the laity in a particular way.”