Joshua McElwee is reporting this in the NCR today

Pope Francis has announced he will create a commission to study the possibility of allowing women to serve as deacons in the Catholic church, signaling an historic openness to the possibility of ending the global institution’s practice of an all-male clergy. The pontiff indicated he would create such a commission during a meeting at the Vatican Thursday with some 900 leaders of the world’s congregations of Catholic women religious, who asked him during a question-and-answer session why the church excludes women from serving as deacons. Read the article

Dear René Reid,

Thank you for your kind mail. Personally I do not strive for an official rehabilitation, but I appreciate your sympathy and loyalty and welcome your initiative. The Pope’s fraternal response to my »Appeal« may encourage you.

With all good wishes,
Hans Küng

Petition to reinstate Rev Professor Hans Küng as an official Catholic theologian

7 May 2016

Dear Fr. Küng,

We will be watching eagerly for your dialogue with Pope Francis. He seems to be genuinely open to discussions such as this. If it is not well publicized, please keep us in the loop of knowing when and how it will take place and we will notify all of our supporters.

Grateful for all that you have done over your lifetime,

Rene Reid
Director, CCRI

10 May 2016

Dear René,

Thank you for your message.

In NCR (March 25 – April 7) my article was fully published. 

The Pope's answer will certainly follow in one of the next issues.

Cordially,

Hans Küng

by Prof Hans Küng in the National Catholic Reporter

On March 9, my appeal to Pope Francis to give room to a free, unprejudiced and open-ended discussion on the problem of infallibility appeared in the leading journals of several countries. I was thus overjoyed to receive a personal reply from Francis immediately after Easter. Dated March 20, it was forwarded to me from the nunciature in Berlin.

In the pope's reply, the following points are significant for me:

• The fact that Francis answered at all and did not let my appeal fall on deaf ears, so to speak;
• The fact that he replied himself and not via his private secretary or the secretary of state;
• That he emphasizes the fraternal manner of his Spanish reply by addressing me as Lieber Mitbruder("Dear Brother") in German and puts this personal address in italics;
• That he clearly read the appeal, to which I had attached a Spanish translation, most attentively;
• That he is highly appreciative of the considerations that had led me to write Volume 5 of my complete works, in which I suggest theologically discussing the different issues that the infallibility dogma raises in the light of holy Scripture and tradition with the aim of deepening the constructive dialogue between the "semper reformanda" 21st-century church and the other Christian churches and postmodern society.

Read the whole article and NCR Editor's note