Pope allows women to vote at upcoming bishops’ meeting

Under the new changes, five religious sisters will join five priests as voting representatives for religious orders (Alessandra Tarantino/AP)

Pope Francis has decided to give women the right to vote at an upcoming meeting of bishops, an historic reform that reflects his hopes to give women greater decision-making responsibilities and laypeople more say in the life of the Catholic Church.

Francis approved changes to the norms governing the Synod of Bishops, a Vatican body that gathers the world’s bishops together for periodic meetings, following years of demands by women to have the right to vote.