In a move that has been described as a historic first, the Pope will for the first time allow women to vote at an influential global meeting of bishops in October.
The new rules announced on Wednesday will give five religious sisters voting rights at the synod, which is a papal advisory body.
Before now, women were only allowed to attend the gathering as observers while the men cast the majority of the votes at the influential gathering.
With the new reforms which has been described as a significant shift for the Roman Catholic Church which before now has been male-dominated for centuries, the United States-based Women’s Ordination Conference, which advocates for women priests, has called the reform a significant crack in the stained glass ceiling.
The group while reacting to the move on its verified handle on the microblogging site, twitter o noted that for years, Vatican representatives and bishops resisted, moving the goalpost with every synod as to why women were not allowed to vote, describing it as sexism.
The conference says it hopes that the synod continues to develop into a fully representative body of the people of God.
In a further break with tradition, Pope Francis announced that voting rights would also be extended to 70 hand-picked non-clerical members of the religious community, moving the synod away from being a meeting solely of the Church hierarchy.
The Pope, who has championed reform, has said that he hopes half of these will be women and there has also been an emphasis on including young people.
A top organiser of the synod, Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich described the move as an important change, but not a revolution,
Also, Vatican correspondent for the Catholic news publication,The Tablet, Christopher Lamb, told BBC World Service’s Newshour programme that the changes were highly significant and an attempt by the Pope to make decisions about the Church’s future more inclusive.
He added that the reforms concerning women reflected an unprecedented dialogue over the issue of female representation that had been happening for some time.
Mr Lamb, however, predicted the Pope would face significant resistance from some parts of the Church over this latest decision.