[Vause:] Welcome back, everybody. You're watching CNN NEWSROOM live from Los Angeles. I'm John Vause.
[Sidner:] And I'm Sara Sidner, in for Isha Sesay. Japan and South Korea are condemning North Korea's apparent launch of two more ballistic missiles. One exploded on launch from a province in the southwest, and the other flew about 1,000 kilometers to the east before falling into the sea.
[Vause:] Final decision could come Thursday on which Russian athletes will be allowed to compete in the Rio games. The International Olympic Committee has been reviewing doping test results for the entire Russian team.
[Sidner:] And two new chemical gas attacks have been reported in Northern Syria. Anti-regime group said an attack in Idlib province has sickened dozens of people there. Syria's government is claiming a terrorist group is responsible for another gas attack that killed five people in Aleppo.
[Vause:] And Donald Trump says he is withholding his endorsement for U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan and former presidential nominee, Senator John McCain, in the upcoming election battles. Both men have been critical of Mr. Trump, but they have not dropped their support for him. OK, we can lose the music now. Women have been asking the Catholic Church for years why they can't preach at mass or even be ordained as deacons.
[Sidner:] Now, the Vatican is actually taking a look into the issue. Delia Gallagher has details on the Pope's brand new initiative and where it might lead.
[Delia Gallagher, Cnn Correspondent:] Pope Francis has named a 12- member commission, six men and six women, to study the historical question of women deacons in the early church. This was a request made on the part of a group of nuns in may. The Pope said he would look into it, but he specifically stated that creating the commission was not opening the door necessarily to women deacons. He merely wanted to study a period of history, he said, that was unclear to him. Currently in the Catholic Church, only men are deacons. Deacons perform some of the functions of a priest but not all. The important thing is that they are ordained. That's a special category in the Catholic Church that is not open to women. Now, should the commission come back to the Pope and say, in the early centuries of the church, women deacons performed many of the same functions as male deacons today, then yes, indeed, that would give the Pope grounds to look at the question of ordaining women deacons. And that question is important because it would then open the argument for the ordination of women priests. However, it is a long shot, because there has already been a commission in 2002 who studied the question of women deacons and came back and said, there is not a similarity between what the women deacons did in the early centuries of the church and what male deacons do today, and because Pope Francis has previously said that the door to women priests is closed. In any case, the commission must undertake their study and give their report. Conservative estimates could take up to a year, and then Pope Francis will have to decide if he's going to make a decision. Any developments on the controversial issue will have to await the commission's work and report which could take up to a year, and of course, Pope Francis's decision should he decide to make one. Delia Gallagher, CNN, Rome.
[Sidner:] Joining me now via Skype from Martha's Vineyard is CNN Religion Commentator, Father Edward Beck. He is also host of the Sunday mass. Thank you so much for joining us today.
[Father Edward Beck, Cnn Religion Commentator:] Great to be with you, thanks.
[Sidner:] Let's talk about this commission. There's a lot of people interested in what the Pope has to say, and about this decision to put a commission in place what exactly is this commission going to be studying?
[Beck:] It's going to study deaconesses in the early church, whether there were women deacons and what their role was. Because the belief is that if there were women deacons in the early church6 and they functioned in pretty much the same way as male deacons today, then what would prohibit Pope Francis from saying, why don't we ordain women deacons now? And so really it's going to be an historical study to look at the early centuries of the church, women deacons, what they did, and is it comparable to what they might do today.
[Sidner:] Out of curiosity, is it scripture that's going to be looked at? Is it historical events that will be looked at, or all of them? How do they come to their decision in this particular case?
[Beck:] Well, there's at least one woman deacon that we know is mentioned in scripture by St. Paul, that's Phoebe. Now exactly what women deacons did in the early church, some believe that they basically ministered to the poor. And so they did almsgiving, they did service. It's not clear that it was a liturgical function, because deacons today, as you know, in the Catholic Church, they can baptize, they can preside at weddings, and they do liturgical functions. They can preach at mass. Women can do none of that in the Catholic Church.
[Sidner:] I have to play the devil's advocate, sorry for the pun there, but when it comes to these commissions, there have been commissions on this before, and time and time again, his predecessors have said, no, this is not the role for women in our church. What might change?
[Beck:] Well, it was in 2002, and basically what that commission said was that deacons in the early church did not function women deacons, did not function the same as men. Again, they weren't liturgical functions. I think what people are looking for, can women preach at mass? Can they perform baptisms? Can they preside at weddings? Because that opens the clerical function aspect of being a deacon to priests as well. So I think what's maybe different about this commission is, they're going to look at historical documents through kind of a different lens. Some time has passed. This pope seems more willing to have the conversation than perhaps past popes. And so I think it's all a matter of how that commission comes together, what their findings are. And you do have a pope here who listens, who has spoken about the need to include women in the decision-making of the church in more substantial ways. He's already said that. He's talking about the feminine genius. And so what we have to see is, does he then take that forward and say, well look we've come to a point where we can take the next step. Many are hoping he does take that step. Others are kind of afraid of it. They don't want to open the door to women. They're saying, the Catholic Church is the only church that has just male priests now, male celibate priests. We should stay that way. So there is this tension between the progressives and the traditionalists. We will have to see what this commission says and where the Pope winds up with it.
[Sidner:] All right, thank you so much for joining us. Father Edward Beck, joining us from Martha's Vineyard.
[Beck:] My pleasure, thank you.
[Vause:] And we'll take a short break. When we come back, voters heading to the polls in South Africa. What's at stake for the country's ruling party?
[Sidner:] Plus, thousands are fleeing South Sudan, and even more are expected to leave. What's driving people from their homes? That's coming up as well.