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Vatican officials declined to say if women would be able to vote on concrete proposals about the future of the Catholic Church at the end of a two-year consultation of laypeople that begins in October.

For years female activists, including women religious, have pressed to be able to vote at Synod of Bishops meetings, which bring together the Catholic hierarchy in Rome to discuss pressing issues facing the 1.3-billion-strong church.

Two revered figures of the Polish Catholic Church were beatified on September 12—a cardinal who led the Polish church’s re­sistance to communism and a blind nun who devoted her life to helping others who couldn’t see.

In a time of growing secularization and societal divisions, the celebration of Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński and Mother Elżbieta Róża Czacka was a reminder of the moral authority and the unifying power the church once held over Poland.