Vatican Commission Members:
Women Served as Deacons
Salt + Light lived streamed the event from Fordham University on Tuesday, January 15, 2019
Speakers:
Commission member Phyllis Zagano, senior research associate-in-residence at Hofstra University and author of several books on women deacons
Commission member Fr. Bernard Pottier, SJ, faculty member at the Institute d'Etudes Théologiques in Brussels
Sr. Donna Ciangio, OP, chancellor of the Archdiocese of Newark, and principal and founder of Church Leadership Consultation
Moderator:
Fr. Thomas Rosica, CSB, CEO of Salt and Light
Catholic Media Foundation
Context:
Zagano said that the committee has prepared a report and submitted it to Francis. It is up to him what to do about the report. She also reminded us that the report was in response to a request from the Union of Women Religious, and that they will be meeting in Rome this summer. Obviously he will probably do something by then. She also said she was asked not to speak publicly on the topic while the committee was preparing it. Obviously she is now speaking publicly. Given the status of the commission members, of Rosica as a helper to the Vatican, we are obviously being prepared for whatever is going to be announced.My comments on the conference:
Zagano gave an excellent overview of the historical
question they tackled:
1.
The rites for instituting women deacons: there are many
examples. Some contain all the elements that Trent said were essential to
ordination. Both the words “ordination” and “blessing” have been used to
describe these rites. These have been reviewed by scholars since the
seventeenth century. Some have decided they are ordinations, some have said
they were blessings that were not true ordinations. If you have a bishop
imposing hands, calling down the Holy Spirit, vesting a women in the stole,
giving her a chalice, and calling her a deacon isn’t she a deacon? Isn’t it a ordination and not simply a
blessing? As Phyllis says if she were something else the Bishop could have called
her something else.
2.
Did women deacons do the same things as male deacons. Both
women deacons and male deacons did many different things in different times and
places. Women deacons often did things that male deacons did not, such as
assisting at the baptism of women, anoint women at baptism, and when they were
sick. Male deacons did not do these things.
3.
Theology of the deaconate. Zagano and Pottier both agreed that
the cursus honorem completely changed how the deaconate was viewed. The deacon
and the minor orders began to be seen as steps to the priesthood. This resulted
both in the deaconate becoming primarily a liturgical ministry and the end
of women deacons, because they were not on the path to becoming priests.
Pottier dealt most with the theology:
The relationship between priests and bishops as part
of the sacrament of holy orders was completely re-conceptualized by Vatican II.
The deaconate was re-conceptualized by Vatican II. We are in the process of
completing that rethinking of the deaconate by recognizing it is has a different
relationship to priesthood different from the cursus honorem.
He also emphasized that the question of whether
women could be ordained deacons has often been asked. The answer from Rome has
always been to a different question. No, they cannot be ordained priests.
They were asked what is the next step in the process
if the Pope agrees that women can be ordained deacons because they were
ordained in the past. Does he simply grant permission to bishops who want to
ordain women? Does he grant permission
to bishop’s conferences if they request it. What was not discussed is the
question that there are some (perhaps many bishops) who think the Pope should
not decide this question without at least a synod or perhaps a Council?
I suspect a key element will be the reception of the
report. If it manages to completely separate ordination to the deaconate from
ordination to the priesthood, i.e. wipes out the argument that ordaining women
to the deaconate means they can be priests, then Francis will be able to make
this an administrative matter up to bishops conferences and individual bishops.
Otherwise he may end up having a very contentious Synod process to deal with.
No one has yet brought up another possibility. In
responding to the women religious Francis could say that they (as well as
bishops) can ask to have women deacons as part of their order constitutions
just as male religious orders have priests that are ordained by bishops but not
subject to them. Many think that Francis is going to be asked and will grant
married priests to the Synod on the Amazon. In fact it will be a way to try out
married priests in the Roman Rite without obliging other bishops to follow. I
think ordaining women religious as deacons would be a fine way to revive
apostolic women’s orders that would be wonderful models of the deaconate for
dioceses since religious orders do so much that goes beyond parish ministry.
As noted, Rome punts when asked about female deacons - and instead answers a different question - No, women cannot become priests.
ReplyDeleteThis group of scholars has documented that women were ordained deacons in the past. Will they be ignored? Probably. There are more than enough men in diaconate formation programs to provide low-paid extra help for priests.
Remember too that another Vatican commission of theologians and biblical scholars was asked, decades ago, if there is anything in scripture to support the ban on the ordination of women to the priesthood. The conclusion was - No, there is nothing in scripture to support the ban on women's ordination.
This study (its conclusions) was shelved, as it did not give the men in Rome the backing they were seeking - validation for its continued denial of a sacrament to people based only on their genetic makeup.
The same thing happened with the Birth Control Commission. The overwhelming vote was in favor of giving married couples the freedom to discern how best to plan their own families. The testimony of experts - medical, psychological etc was important- but it was the testimony of married Catholic couples that swayed a whole lot of bishops whose initial instinct at the start of the study was to support the existing teaching. The pope, pushed by the conservatives in the Vatican, ignored the commission, convinced that papal authority would suffer if he was perceived to be changing traditional teaching.
Well, papal authority along with the church's teaching authority in general suffered greatly because he ignored the wisdom of the recommendation of the commission, opting instead to uphold power in the church as belonging exclusively to the male, clerical class in the church. Few Catholics pay any heed at all to the birth control teaching. In realizing how wrong a group of celibate males totally divorced from the lived experiences of marriage and family could be, Catholics also began to tune out official Catholic teaching on sexuality in general.
It's still all about power - male power.
Women should not applaud if at some point women are allowed to be appointed as deacons. They should not applaud until all seven sacraments are open to women as well as to men.
Jesus did not create the Roman Catholic priesthood. It was created by men - human beings. It was created well after Jesus' death (as a Jew, not as a Roman Catholic) and the deaths of his apostles and early disciples - all Jews, not Roman Catholics. The priesthood evolved as the church grew, and, given that it was a totally patriarchal society, the men who began building what became the hierarchy conveniently ignored the role women played as leaders in the early communities of Christ-followers, teaching the good news, and also presiding over the gatherings of Jesus' followers to share bread and wine "in memory of me (Jesus)".
Thanks for the update and the link, Jack. Going to have to come back later and read the whole thing.
ReplyDeleteI feel that unless they are willing to consider the diaconate for women as being part of Holy Orders, as it is for male deacons, it is meaningless.
Well they could restore women deacons without deciding they were part of Holy Orders. They could use the historical rites for women deacons.
DeleteMale deacons can do nothing that lay people cannot also do at times, or have done at times, e.g. preach, baptize, preside over marriages. Of course there would be an uproar if they said only male deacons can give a homily. However giving women permission to give a homily does not make them deacons. Any lay person can be given permission to do so.
Francis is a very pastoral person not a theologian. He is far more concerned about the pastoral usage of women deacons than their theology. He has expressed concern about ordaining lay men as deacons if it deprives us of lay leaders, and spreads the idea the deacons are a step above lay leaders, and encourages laymen to seek the deaconate as if it were a merit badge.
I suspect that Vatican II's theology of holy orders, seeing orders as a sort of unity - a single sacrament - with three degrees of participation (in ascending order, deacons / priests / bishops), is why, when asked, 'Can women be deacons?', the answer is, 'No, women cannot be priests.'
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't oppose religious women being ordained as deacons. But religious women, by their very nature, life a life that is apart from the lives of most women. If it were up to me, I'd lean more in the direction of a variety of different charisms. I'd open up the diocesan permanent diaconate to lay women. In women's religious orders, there are traditions of women leaders exercising authority that was pretty substantial - much more so than today's permanent deacon (who, by and large, has little authority - we're servants, the Jeeveses of holy orders). Women could wield that authority without the necessity of making them deacons. Just my initial thoughts.
Jim, I don't really have a dog in the fight because I have never felt that I had a calling to the diaconate. However a good friend of mine would like to pursue it, if it were open to her, and she would be good at ministry. So for the sake of women who do feel called, I hope it will be opened to them. You are right that they could wield authority without being deacons. To me it's about the sacrament. The idea that women can't be "in persona Christi" is to me bogus theology. Yeah, I think they ought to be able to be priests, too. But I realize that St. JPII complicated, if not more or less sunk that idea in the Marianna Trench. It's not the hill I'm going to die on, but if the PTB think they don't have a woman problem they should check out what women under 40 think about it. They might get an earful.
DeleteJim,
DeleteYou are very right that women leaders in women's religious orders exercise governance much like a bishop. In fact priests who are abbots, or major superiors are very similar to bishops except they cannot ordain others today (however I think some priest abbots ordained to minor orders in the middle ages). In the early centuries, e.g. Benedict, abbots and monks were not usually priests. Benedict organized the Divine Office for his community without getting his rule approved by the bishop or Rome, etc. Abbots participated in many Councils just as bishops did with voting rights etc. We still have this when some major superiors of men's orders had voting rights at Vatican II and Synods.
A lot of our notions of holy orders, even those expressed in Vatican II just don't fit the facts.
The notion that there are three degrees of participation in holy orders does not mean they are in ascending order. Many times in the early church the archdeacon (head of the deacons and social services, etc.) were elected and ordained bishop without being first ordained as presbyter.
People were blessed (ordained) as abbots, widows, virgins, cantors, etc. without any theology of graduation.
"The notion that there are three degrees of participation in holy orders does not mean they are in ascending order."
DeleteJack, that's an interesting thought. Maybe a way through the dilemma.
Jack - your past paragraph, with its list of abbots, widows, virgins, etc. is very much what I had in mind when I called for a plenitude of orders, suited to ways of life and charisms.
DeleteAs for the three degrees of holy orders being in ascending order (or they could be listed in descending order) - if one doesn't like the imagery of ascent, there is other imagery that could be applied. For example, there is the notion of ripples in a pond, with three concentric circles, each enveloping the circles within it plus more besides. But whatever imagery we use, the teaching is that bishops have the fullness of orders; bishops and priests are ministerial orders; the diaconate helps the two ministerial orders; the bishop is the head of the priests; etc. It's difficult to not end up with the idea of a ladder or ascending steps or something similar.