Deacon Month
Just about a year ago I wrote a post on deacons. Maybe the discussion begins every January. Not bad, like a liturgical anniversary or a dedicated month: Deacon Sunday, Deacon Month. Then on to other things.
It was NOT in Deacon Month but in May 2016 that the leaders of the International Union of Superiors General (UISG) asked the Pope Francis to consider women deacons. This apparently spontaneous request resulted in a commission to study the history of women deacons. A classic “assign it to a committee” or a genuine commitment? At least the nuns opened the discussion, and there are equal numbers of women and men on the panel, apparently a Vatican first.
This year two members of the commission kicked off Deacon Month when they spoke at Fordham University January 15. One way NOT to do a report that’s dead on arrival is to speak out, but oddly, they felt constrained about discussing the report itself, which they submitted to Francis just before the sex abuse scandal broke last summer. Theologian Phyllis Zagano and Jesuit Bernard Pottier talked about their research, which documented that women served as ordained deacons with varying duties at various times and places until about the twelfth century.
We know that, maybe with less specificity. Remember Phoebe? NCR, Commonweal, America, Crux and LifeSiteNews all have significant articles summarizing this research and the theological questions it raises. I must ask, “Is it good for women’s ordination?” as my late husband’s family and my friends ask, “Is it good for the Jews?” I think so.
Of course, some are horrified that the question of women deacons, not to mention priests, is even raised. Take the American Bishops. Please.
CARA, the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University, decided to celebrate Deacon Month by releasing a survey that asked the bishops whether they believed that women’s ordination to the diaconate was “theoretically possible”: 41% did. But 54% said they’d consider implementing it in their diocese if the Vatican permitted it. I felt this encouraging, as well as descriptive of the leadership exercised by the top of the hierarchy here. Reeds blowing in the wind. I found articles in NCR, America, and Crux about this survey, so thanks to CARA, the pot is stirred again.
Most interesting, however, are two articles by NCR columnists. Zagano begins hers with a sentence that makes me almost as angry as the LifeSite story: “The question of women deacons has nothing to do with women priests.” Maybe the only way to get women in the diaconate is to present Facts – Zagano has six – that deal only with the deacons. But don’t put down the aspirations of others, and don’t ignore the main obstacle to this change: the fear of what’s next. Of course, we know any opening will be exceedingly difficult, and Zagano has been a persistent voice for deacons for years.
The second article doesn’t upset me quite as much, but it’s a catalogue of some of the difficulties I allude to above. Jamie Manson examines the various problems that could arise if women are ordained deacons. Will they be silenced as priests have been silenced if they support priestly ordination? Will they be assigned a “special,” lesser role, different from men deacons? Raising these questions has to be done; they must be addressed as the process continues.
And I want it to continue. It prefigures what the struggle for the priesthood will be. A minor theme in both the Fordham panel and the CARA survey is women’s leadership. It’s now a cliché for every official document to support expanded roles for women in the church. That is not lost on the third panelist at Fordham, Dominican sister Donna Ciangio, Newark Archdiocesan Chancellor. She’s in real leadership and she’s not afraid to articulate the desire of the people for women’s ministry and preaching. I bet she’d join me in saying “do the real thing and ordain women.” Deacon Month is over.
5 Responses
Hey Regina- I think that was a mic drop!
Boom….
As long as women priests are not “theoretically possible,” it means that church doctrine is deficient. It is deficient because it is based on an inadequate theological anthropology. All men and women are ontologically consubstantial in one and the same human nature. To suggest that we can have women deacons, but not women priests, would add another layer of divisive nonsense to the cultural aberration that is the exclusively male priesthood. The redemption of the body (as explained, for example, in JP2’s “Theology of the Body”) deconstructed, 2000 years ago, the patriarchal “binary” in the entire body of Christ, head included. It has taken 2000 years for the sexual abuse crisis to erupt, so why should we be surprised that the “male headship” mentality has prevailed until now in the church as a family? The sexual abuse crisis is a sign that the conflation of church doctrines with patriarchal gender ideology must be resolved, and this for both ecclesiastical and social/ecological integrity. For your consideration:
The Patriarchal Roots of the Ecological Crisis
http://www.pelicanweb.org/solisustv15n02page24.html
I absolutely agree that we should be addressing the issue of priesthood for women, nothing less.
Deacons as a whole should not be ordained because lay people can do what deacons do, and they have been doing all the ministries of the permanent deaconate, with full permission of their bishops, in countries that could not afford an ordained deaconate for decades.
If a lay person can baptized, officiate equally to deacons at marriages and funerals without a mass, lead Eucharistic Celebrations with previously consecrated hosts, and preach or reflect at mass on the Gospel then why are we ordaining anyone to do these things except to give these married men prestige to push lay people out and away from work in liturgy? This is exactly what has happened in many U.S. parishes and that is why deacons are not really respected or wanted (if anyone bothered to ask the lay people.)
Parishes in South America that have had lay women and men trained to do this instead of deacons have had more active parishes than ones with ordained deacons. Often these lay people come from the parish and the congregants feel a connection to them.
Women should be ordained to priesthood and not held back from being ordained or made bishops, cardinals and popes as a matter of basic human justice and the upholding of the commandment of Christ demanding no believer (including bishops) ever treat any other believer (including women) or anyone any differently than they wish to be treated themselves.
Phyllis errs in her fight because she is intentionally seeking far less than equality and justice for women because her lack of faith in God’s powers has her convinced God is not capable of truly freeing women immediately. This is the unfortunate price of sexism’s abuse over centuries: It is the women who need to be convinced often even more than the men that God sees no notable difference between genders. God made man – male and female God made them. Both are made in God’s image which is Spirit. Jesus flesh was perfect because of His Spirit – His Holy Spirit which is the Spirit of God is what permeated and made his flesh immortal – not the other way around. Jesus tells us the Spirit in a person is everything and the flesh accounts for nothing. All we have to do is believe Jesus and act like we believe Jesus.