WATCH: Could there soon be female deacons in the Catholic Church?

LOS ANGELES, CA - Everyone’s favorite Pope, Pope Francis has created a commission to study the historical role of female deacons in the Catholic Church, according to the Vatican’s press office.  

The commission was first promised by the Pope after he met with a group of nuns on May 12th. He agreed that the Vatican should study the question of ordaining women as deacons.  

This is something that women, particularly in the United States, have been asking the church to address for decades.

The statement from the Vatican said, “Pope Francis expressed his intention to establish an official commission that could study the question” of the Diaconate of women, “especially with regard to the first ages of the Church.”   Professor Phyllis Zagano of Hofstra University has been appointed to the Commission for the Study of the Diaconate of Women. She states that, “History documents women ordained to the Diaconate to the Middle Ages, when the Diaconate faded as a separate order.”

In May, the Pope joked that he felt like a goalie fielding shots-- with women asking why they can’t preach at Mass or be ordained as deacon.

The Women’s Ordination Conference released a statement saying, “until women are included in all decision-making structures and as priests and bishops of the church, equality remains painfully denied.”

So will 2016 be the year that the stain glassed ceiling is finally shattered? We sure hope so.