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CATHOLIC WOMEN
DEACONS:
PAST ARGUMENTS
AND FUTURE POSSIBILITIES
PHYLLIS ZAGANO
Abstract:
This
paper discusses past and future arguments regarding the ordination of women as
deacons in the Catholic Church, which, despite the common Catholic-Orthodox
history of women in the diaconate, essentially take arguments against women as
priests and overlay them on the question of the diaconate. (The term “woman
deacon” is preferred to “deaconess,” which in Catholic discussion connotes a
non-ordained person.)
The diaconate of
women died out in the West in the 12th century, and has not been restored in
the Catholic Church. The objections to restoring women to the diaconate seem to
be: 1) The female diaconate of history was a distinct non-sacramental order; 2)
To be sacramentally ordained one must be able to physically represent Christ.
This latter is known as the “iconic argument.” The “iconic argument” is
presented in the 1976 Vatican document Inter
insigniores against women as priests, but not in the 1994 papal document Ordinatio
sacerdotalis on the same. However, the Second Vatican Council formally
restored the diaconate as a permanent grade of order, while informal
discussions about women in the diaconate were not acted upon, even though the
1736 Holy Synod of Mount Lebanon (Maronite) included canons—approved by the
Catholic pope—regarding the ordination of women as deacons. Work of the Vatican’s
International Theological Commission (ITC) (1992-1997) supported women deacons,
but was not published; a 2002 ITC document is inconclusive, leaving it to “the
ministry of discernment” in the Church.
I am so honored
to be able to be with you today at this extremely important conference for the
lives of our churches to speak about Catholic women deacons. The discussion is
ongoing at many levels in the Catholic Church, and so I will briefly share with
you the current debate, and speak a little about the future.
Past arguments
are not going away in the Catholic Churches, but they are getting more public.
This past November, I debated a former member of the Vatican’s International Theological
Commission on the topic of women deacons. That in and of itself is interesting,
but the startling fact is that the debate occurred the Catholic seminary of the
Archdiocese of Philadelphia, at the invitation of the rector and with the
approval of the archbishop, before 200 seminarians, deacon candidates and
faculty. It was quite interesting. It was also quite difficult to hear over and
over how women cannot be icons of Christ. That—in a nutshell—would be
what some say is the official Catholic teaching on women’s ordination to any
rank of holy orders: women cannot image Christ.
That is what the
discussion is about. Are women made in the image and likeness of God?
To deny that a
woman can image Christ is to deny the central fact of the Incarnation: God
became human.
In the Catholic
Churches, the diaconate is the ordinary means by which women enter the clerical
state. If women can rejoin the ranks of clergy, then they can obtain offices restricted
to clerics. So, a resumption of ordaining women deacons would give the church a
means by which women could receive faculties for preaching and for performing
and witnessing sacraments.
Women deacons
are part of our common history. You know Saint
Paul called Phoebe “deacon of the church at Cenchreae.”
(Rom. 16:1) You know about the women in
1 Timothy 3:11. You
know about the liturgies and canons and deep history of women deacons in the
East.
At the start,
let me say just one thing about terminology. While the work in Orthodoxy seems
to generally prefer the term “deaconess”, in the
current Catholic discussion “woman deacon” refers to the woman ordained to the
rank of deacon, while “deaconess” is increasingly used to denote a non-ordained
woman minister. Certainly some of the women called deaconesses throughout
history were ordained, and some were not. But, increasingly, the concept of
sacramentally ordained women in the diaconate is connected with the term “women
deacon” perhaps more as a convenience than as a true linguistic distinction.
Women were
ordained as deacons well into the 12th century in the West, and the
diaconate in the West effectively died out during the Middle Ages. We this know
from many sources, including the letters of Peter Abélard (1079-1142) and Héloise
(1100-1162)—Héloise calls herself a woman deacon and abbess in the fourth
letter;[1]
As the deacon’s tasks and duties were absorbed into priesthood, the diaconate
eventually faded to the point that it was merely a step on the way to
priesthood. Any permanent deacons were primarily the seven ceremonial deacons
of major cathedrals.
Everybody agrees
to this. There were men and women deacons who were ordained and served diaconal
functions in the West—not always the same diaconal functions--until the 12th
century. The problem is whether they received sacramental ordination, and/or
whether women are capable of receiving sacramental ordination.
It appears that
they who argue against women as deacons are also using the same arguments
against women as priests. The objections seem to be: 1) The female diaconate of
history was a distinct non-sacramental order; 2) To be sacramentally ordained
one must be able to physically represent Christ. This latter is known as the
“iconic argument.”
Now, it is hard
to pinpoint exactly when the conversation about women deacons began to
percolate seriously in the Latin West, in the Roman Catholic Church. Various Latin
manuals always note the Church’s history of women called deacons and
deaconesses who were ordained to perform certain tasks in the early church.
Brief paragraphs in these manuals said the women deacons were needed to assist
with immersion baptism of women, that they kept order in the women’s portions
of the assembly, that they ministered to sick women, and that they catechized
women and children. The manuals noted that most, if not all, of these women
ministered in the East, in the parent churches of modern Orthodoxy. The manuals
rarely mentioned that these women were often ordained in identical ceremonies
to men deacons.
The argument that
women cannot be ordained because the person ordained must be the icon of Christ
mistakes the risen Christ for the restricted, human male Jesus. The sign and
symbol of every sacrament is the risen Lord, the glorified Christ. We are each
and all challenged to image Christ.
The flaw in the
iconic argument is the fact that it does not distinguish the human male Jesus from
the risen Christ. Leaving aside the detailed discussions of whether Jesus rose
or was risen, we can all agree at least that Jesus risen is the risen Christ,
and that he lives today in the Church in and through all believers.
But there is
significant contention, much of it led by Cardinal Gerhard L. Müller, Prefect
of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which is the part of the
Roman Curia that looks into these matters on behalf of the pope that women
cannot be ordained because women cannot image Christ. I am not aware of many
other professional theologians who hold this view, although it certainly
circulates around the Roman Curia and in episcopal circles.
Where did this
idea come from? Well, to begin with, it has nothing to do with women deacons. It
is about women priests. In 1976 the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
(CDF) published a document called Inter
insigniores,[2]
which gives its opinion that women cannot be ordained as priests.
The document
repeats St. Thomas Aquinas’s comment that sacramental signs must “represent
what they signify by natural resemblance”[3] and combines St. Thomas’ comment with Pius XII’s statement
that “the Church has no power over the substance of the sacraments…over what
Christ…determined should be maintained as the sacramental sign.”[4]
The CDF presents the opinion that:
The
same natural resemblance is required for persons as for things: when Christ's
role in the Eucharist is to be expressed sacramentally, there would not be this
“natural resemblance” which must exist between Christ and his minister if the
role of Christ were not taken by a man: in such a case it would be difficult to
see in the minister the image of Christ. For Christ himself was and remains a
man.[5]
Here they write
“image of Christ” where they mean “image of Jesus.” Even without arguing that
the priest is actually the president of the assembly that calls down the Holy
Spirit to the Eucharistic banquet, and even without pointing out that the words
of institution are not present in the approved East Syrian anaphora, or
Eucharistic prayer, of Addai and Mari, even without these we can agree that the
point of this argument against women priests is that the celebrant must
physically resemble the human male Jesus.
But the CDF document
says “icon of Christ,” and, as I have said, we all image the risen Christ, who
is God. We are all made in the image and likeness of God. And, the God of
philosophy is neither male nor female, while the God of theology is both.
The unofficial arguments
against women as deacons came well after the Congregation for the Doctrine of
the Faith’s 1976 declaration against women as priests and after John Paul II’s 1994
apostolic letter on the same. In fact, the CDF explicitly left the question of
women deacons aside in 1976, and women deacons were not mentioned in 1994, or
in the 1995 Responsum ad dubium, which
is the CDF opinion on the level of the teaching on women priests. These
documents have nothing to do with the diaconate, except insofar as they close
the door to women priests and thereby further the discussion about women
deacons. If women cannot be priests, and this is stated definitively, then
there is no danger of women entering the diaconate as part of the cursus honorum, on the path to
priesthood.
Further, the two
main reasons given in 1976 against women priests were the so-called “iconic argument”
(the priest must be male) and the argument from authority (Jesus chose male
apostles and the church is bound by his choice). Even without the “iconic
argument” against women priests, there is the argument from authority.
In fact, for the
most part the church has retained the constant tradition of a male priesthood.
Sects here and there had women priests and there are women called presbyteras who were more probably the
wives of priests. But the argument from authority has very real theological
implications, because to perform a sacrament one must do as the Church does.
The Church does not ordain women as priests. So even where such ordinations
would or could be attempted, they would be invalid insofar as their being
Catholic ordinations.[6]
As it happened, the
“iconic argument,” was dropped from the 1994 papal document Ordinatio sacerdotalis, which retained
the argument from authority.[7]
But a new
argument against ordaining women deacons uses an argument from authority to
support an iconic argument that presents the icon of Jesus, not the icon of
Christ, in support of what is called the “unicity of orders”: a person ordained
to one order must automatically be eligible
for the two others. This argument is neither supported by history nor by practice.[8]
Women
deacons and Vatican Two
By the time John
Paul II’s apostolic letter against women as priests appeared in 1994, the
conversation on women deacons had been going on for at least thirty years. At
the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) there was much discussion about the
diaconate, resulting in the renewal of the diaconate as a permanent vocation in
the Latin Church.
The order is
defined in the Council document Lumen
gentium:
29. At a lower level of the hierarchy are deacons,
upon whom hands are imposed "not unto the priesthood, but unto a ministry
of service." For strengthened by sacramental grace, in communion with the
bishop and his group of priests they serve in the diaconate of the liturgy, of
the word, and of charity to the people of God. It is the duty of the deacon,
according as it shall have been assigned to him by competent authority, to
administer baptism solemnly, to be custodian and dispenser of the Eucharist, to
assist at and bless marriages in the name of the Church, to bring Viaticum to
the dying, to read the Sacred Scripture to the faithful, to instruct and exhort
the people, to preside over the worship and prayer of the faithful, to
administer sacramentals, to officiate at funeral and burial services. Dedicated
to duties of charity and of administration, let deacons be mindful of the
admonition of Blessed Polycarp: "Be merciful, diligent, walking according
to the truth of the Lord, who became the servant of all."….It pertains to
the competent territorial bodies of bishops, of one kind or another, with the
approval of the Supreme Pontiff, to decide whether and where it is opportune
for such deacons to be established for the care of souls. With the consent of
the Roman Pontiff, this diaconate can, in the future, be conferred upon men of
more mature age, even upon those living in the married state. It may also be
conferred upon suitable young men, for whom the law of celibacy must remain
intact.[9]
What came out of the Council is different from what went into the
Council, whose 2,600 bishops knew that women were and in fact can again be
deacons. We know this from Council records and from recollections of bishops
and of their assistants.
In discussions preparing for the Council, a Peruvian and an
Italian bishop each discussed women in the diaconate. Their very language reflects
the current debate about the diaconate for women. Bishop León Bonaventura de
Uriarte Bengoa, OFM (1891-1970) of San Ramon, Peru asked that “deaconesses be instituted”;
Bishop Giuseppe Ruotolo (1898-1970) of Ugneto,
Italy,
suggested that “the order of deacons be restored and extended to women with the
obligation of celibacy.”[10]
Women “installed” or women “restored” to the order of deacons? That
would be, and is, the question: Were women ordained to the diaconate, or merely
blessed for diaconal service? Were they ordained women deacons? Or were they non-ordained
“deaconesses”?
Among the two and one-half thousand or so Catholic bishops who
headed to Rome
for the Council, Eastern Catholic Bishop Francis Mansour Zayek may have carried
the answer. Zayek, a bishop of the Syriac Maronite Church of Antioch, headed
the Maronite Church
in Brazil[11]
from 1962, then in United
States, from 1966 until his retirement in
1995. When Zayek was appointed bishop,
Pope St. John XXIII said: “What you Maronites have does not pertain to you
alone but is part of the treasure of the Catholic Church.”[12]
Women deacons were and are well-embedded in the Maronite
tradition. A Brooklyn Maronite priest told me of conversations with Archbishop
Zayek, who related conversations with Vatican Two’s Latin prelates—that would
be Roman Catholic bishops—who were not interested in engaging the history and
possibilities of women deacons. But in the early 18th century the
pope approved in forma specifica
Maronite synod canons that included ordained women deacons. The pope’s approval
meant and means the Synod’s canons have the canonical weight of a formal papal
act.[13]
The National Synod of Mount Lebanon of 1736 met over three days to
regularize the Latin Church’s influences on Maronite liturgical and other
practices. In some cases Latin use overtook older Maronite use. In some cases,
both uses were allowed.
The text of the Synod document includes one very interesting
point:
Although the duties of deaconesses in regard to the
sacraments of baptism, confirmation and extreme unction have already ceased
because there is no longer anointing of the whole body, abbesses perform these
functions in sacred houses of virgins dedicated to God.
And,
further,
If a bishop, for urgent necessity, truly wishes to
ordain a woman aside from the abbess as deaconess, he is to ordain a woman
whose chastity and doctrine is testified to according to the cited canons.[14]
So, at
the time of and in the context of Vatican Two, a few Latin bishops were
mentioning women deacons, at least one Eastern bishop later reported many other
Latin bishops were totally uninterested in the concept, but there is modern
evidence of ordained women deacons. The pope approved in forma specifica the Lebanese Maronite practice of ordaining—as
in the laying on of hands—of ordaining women as deacons, and these women deacons
could be charged to perform sacraments.
As you
know better than I, Eastern male clerics did not and for the most part do not
deal directly with women. Such is the crux of the historical arguments about
women deacons. Everyone accepts that they existed as ordained or non-ordained
intermediaries between women and the bishop. History and practice seem to point
to sacramental ordination for women deacons, at the very least because so many churches
would never allow the sacred to be performed by someone not sacramentally ordained,
and also because of the liturgical rites for the ordinations of these women.
A large
part of the opposing Western argument is that ordination as a sacrament was
defined after women ceased being ordained in the West. But here we have
evidence of a papal law regarding sacred ordination of women as deacons in a
Catholic Church.
So, the
fathers of Vatican Two knew that women had been and could again be ordained as
deacons—what the Church had done the Church could do again—although they did
not want to talk about it. Even as the diaconate was well on its way to
restoration as a permanent vocation and office in the Church, it was not being
fully restored. It was not going to include women.
However,
the closing words of the Council in 1965 gave hope to those who wished for a
full and complete restoration of the diaconate:
The hour is coming; in fact it has come, when the
vocation of women is being acknowledged in its fullness, the hour in which
women acquire in the world an influence, an effect and a power never hitherto
achieved. That is why, at this moment when the human race is undergoing so deep
a transformation, women imbued with a spirit of the Gospel can do so much to
aid humanity in not falling.[15]
Restoration
of the male diaconate
Soon after the
Council ended, Paul VI issued the “General Norms for Restoring the Permanent
Diaconate in the Latin Church.”[16]
Some years later, Paul VI issued specific norms for the diaconate in his motu proprio Ad pascendum (August 15,
1972).[17]
Around that time,
in 1972, the pope asked a member of the International Theological Commission
(ITC) a part of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith directly about women
deacons.[18] Cipriano
Vagaggini, a revered scholar of Eastern liturgy, wrote a long and dense academic
paper in which he said “yes” to women deacons: what the church has done, the
church can do again.
Vagaggini’s paper
never appeared as a formal ITC document, but the respected Roman journal Orientalia Christiana Periodica did
publish it, in its original Italian, in 1974. Later, the Fathers of the 1987 Catholic
Synod of Bishops on “The Vocation and Mission
of the Lay Faithful in the Church and in the World” asked Vagaggini to make an
intervention.
In what
essentially was a 1,500-word summary of his earlier, longer paper, in 1987 Vagaggini
quite pointedly spoke of:
the
legitimacy and urgency for competent authorities to admit women to the
sacrament of order of the diaconate and to grant them all the functions, even
the liturgical functions, that in the present historic moment of the church are
considered necessary for the greater benefit of believers, not excluding—as I
personally maintain—if it is judged pastorally appropriate, equality between
the liturgical functions of men deacons and women deacons.[19]
Of course, the
story does not end there, with a revered scholar telling a synod of bishops
that admitting women to the diaconate was both legitimate and urgent. No matter
how legitimate and urgent, things move slowly in Rome.
Nearly concurrent
with the synod at which Vagaggini presented his intervention, the Committee on
Women in Society and the Church of the National Council of Catholic Bishops (a
predecessor organization to the current U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops)
was writing on a pastoral letter on women. They began in 1983 and finished in
1994.
The
first of the pastoral’s four drafts suggested women be “installed” not
“ordained” as deacons.[20]
That is a leading “solution” so to speak, currently offered: installed but not
ordained women who would have some liturgical role and be called “deaconesses”
but would not belong to the order of deacons.
The
second draft urged deeper study of the question of women as deacons, noting
pointedly that the diaconate for women was left aside in the most recent
document on women priests.[21]
The
third and fourth drafts merely asked for more study on the diaconate, on
lectors and acolytes, without mentioning women in these roles.[22]
Overall, the
pastoral gradually changed from a document reflecting the concerns of women and
the needs of the church, to a statement supporting Rome’s determinations that women could not be
ordained as priests.
A final approved
and published committee report—not a pastoral letter—is called “Strengthening
the Bonds of Peace.” The report admits the fact of sexism in the church, and
speaks about the value of women’s leadership, but does not consider the deep
history of ordained women deacons in Christianity, nor does it suggest that Rome do so.[23]
Meanwhile, in Rome it was not until
1992 that Paul VI’s interest in women deacons was formally taken up by the
International Theological Commission. By this time, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger
was prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and therefore
president of the ITC.
Initiated in
1969 by Pope Paul VI, ITC has member-theologians from around the world,
appointed for five-year renewable terms. In 1992, the task of a small ITC
subcommittee was simple: discuss and decide the history of and future
possibility for women ordained to the diaconate. By 1997, the all-male working
group[24] had prepared a 17- or 18-page
document that I understand was printed and passed by the entire body of the
ITC. The ITC president, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, refused to sign it.[25]
Why not sign and publish the opinion of genuine scholars? It
seems the ITC agreed with history. It also seems that even though the iconic
argument had already been tossed from the argument against women as priests,
the idea that a woman could not represent the risen Christ was still floating
around Rome--“Christ
was a man.”[26]
Shoring up the party line against ordained women, Cardinal Dario Castrillón
Hoyos, at the time prefect the Congregation for Clergy, said that “deaconesses”
would run contrary to the intent of the diaconate.[27]
At the time, the French periodical La Croix opined that the fear was that women ordained as deacons
could become a “Trojan horse” used to break the barriers of the all-male
priesthood.[28]
We know that not all deacons are expected to become priests,
and that the Church has stated that women cannot become priests, but Rome cannot get its mind
around the possibility of women deacons without the probability of women
priests.
So, what to do with a problem? Don’t make a decision. Send
it back to committee.
That is exactly what happened with the ITC’s 1992-1997 work
on women deacons. The mandate to provide a document on women deacons remained,
so Cardinal Ratzinger reconfigured the committee, leaving his former graduate
student, Portuguese Fr. Henrique de Noronha Galvão as the only hold-over from the first
subcommittee and appointing him subcommittee chair. Galvão wrote on St. Augustine at Regensburg.
The new committee was comprised of six other priests: one each from Spain, Canada,
France, Germany, the Philippines
and Hungary,
among them Gerhard Ludwig Muller, the current prefect of the Congregation for
the Doctrine of the Faith.[29]
Between 1997 and 2002, the new ITC subcommittee transformed
a 17- or 18-page positive document into a 78-page inconclusive study that includes
uncited paragraphs from an earlier book by committee member Műller in which he
applies the iconic argument against both women priests and women deacons.[30]
Nearly coincidental with publication of the 2002 ITC document, Műller became
bishop of Cardinal Ratzinger’s old diocese of Regensburg; as pope, Benedict XVI named
Muller prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.[31]
The new, 2002 ITC document concludes:
With regard to the ordination of women to the diaconate, it
should be noted that two important indications emerge from what has been said
up to this point:
1. The deaconesses mentioned in the
tradition of the ancient Church – as evidenced by the rite of institution and
the functions they exercised - were not purely and simply equivalent to the
deacons;
2. The unity of the sacrament of Holy
Orders, in the clear distinction between the ministries of the bishop and the
priests on the one hand and the diaconal ministry on the other, is strongly
underlined by ecclesial tradition, especially in the teaching of the
Magisterium.
In the light of these elements which have been set out in
the present historico-theological research document, it pertains to the ministry
of discernment which the Lord established in his Church to pronounce
authoritatively on this question.[32]
These are the most recent statements
from Rome. Of
course there is Phoebe, the only person in Scripture called “deacon”. Of course
there is testimony to women deacons in Paul’s letter to Timothy. Of course there
are ancient conciliar statements that give detail about the men and women
deacons of the Church. There are papal letters from the 12th century
giving bishops permission to ordain women deacons. There is so much literary,
epigraphical, liturgical evidence for women deacons that there seems no way for
either Rome or the U.S. bishops to ignore it.
Except they have. Except they do.
The important thing to remember here
is that because there is so much evidence to support the restoration of women
to the order of the diaconate, that the restrictions against ordaining women to
the diaconate are what is called a “merely ecclesial law.” That is, a
discontinued practice is now outlawed. There are other “merely ecclesial laws.”
For example, Pope Francis has told bishops and bishops’ conferences that if
they want to ordain married men they have only to ask. Theoretically, then a
bishops’ conference has only to ask for women deacons.
Conclusion
I believe the
question of women rejoining the ordained diaconate matters and matters deeply,
for our churches, for our world, and most especially for every woman on the
planet. It is not only what deacons can do, it is who deacons are, and how our
churches can take a positive stand for the status of women around the world.
[1] Letters of Peter Abelard: Beyond the
Personal, Trans. Jan. M. Ziolkowski. Washington,
DC: Catholic
University of America Press,
2008; The Letters of Abelard and Heloise,
Trans. Betty Radice. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974; The Letters of Abelard and Heloise, Trans. C. K. Scott Moncrieff. New York: Knopf, 1942.
[2] Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the
Faith, Declaration Inter insigniores
on the Question of Admission of Women to the Ministerial Priesthood (October
15, 1976) http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/
cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19761015_inter-insigniores_en.html
(accessed September 5, 2014).
[3] Saint Thomas, In
IV Sent., dist. 25 q. 2, quaestiuncula 1a ad 4um, as cited in Inter insigniores, 5.
[4] Pope
Pius XII, Apostolic Constitution, Sacramentum
Ordinis: loc. cit., 5, as cited in Inter insigniores, 5.
[5] Inter insigniores, 5.
[6] See
Phyllis Zagano, Women & Catholicism:
Gender, Communion, and Authority, New
York: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2011 on this point.
[7]
Apostolic Letter Ordinatio sacerdotalis
of John Paul II to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on Reserving Priestly
Ordination to Men Alone (May 22, 1994) http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters/1994/
documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_19940522_ordinatio-sacerdotalis_en.html
[8] See
Catechism of the Catholic Church nos. 1536, 1537, 1537 on the sacrament of
orders; especially 1536, which reads in part: “Today the word "ordination"
is reserved for the sacramental act which integrates a man into the order of
bishops, presbyters, or deacons, and…confers a gift of the Holy Spirit that
permits the exercise of a "sacred power" (sacra potestas)
which can come only from Christ himself through his Church.”
[9] Italics
mine. Dogmatic Constitution on the Church
Lumen gentium (November 21, 1964) 29.
[10] Acta et documenta Concilio oecumenico
Vaticano II apparando; Series prima (ante prapparatoria) (Typis Polyglottis
Vaticanis, 1960-61) (ADA), II/II, 121, as cited
in Gary Macy, William T. Ditewig and Phyllis Zagano, Women Deacons: Past, Present, Future, Mahwah, NJ:
Paulist Press, 2011.
[11]
Formally: the Maronite Apostolic Exarchate in Brazil. There are approximately 3.5
million Maronite Catholics in Syria,
Lebanon, Cyprus, Canada,
United States, Israel, Australia,
Argentina, and Brazil.
[12]
“Address of Archbishop Francis M. Zayek to His Holiness Pope John Paul II on
the Occasion of His Golden Jubilee of Priestly Ordination”. The Maronite Voice 6:9 (October 2010) p.
8.
[13]
Benedict XIV approved the canons in 1741 in forma specifica, giving them the force
of pontifical law.
[14] F.
Cappello, Tractatus canonico-moralis de Sacramentis, vol. IV, Torino: 1951, pp. 55-6 (my translation); Morin, J., 1758. De sacris Ecclesiae ordinationibus secundum antiquos recentiores
latinos, graecos ... commentarius. Editio nova; tertia parte auctior ...
repurgata. Rome:
Barbiellini; cap.2, pp.124-126. Arcudius,
De Concordia Eccl. occid. et orient.,
lib.VI, cap.10.
[15] As
quoted by John Paul II, Apostolic letter Mulierus
dignitatum (August 15, 1988).
[16] motu proprio Sacrum diaconatus ordinem
(June 18, 1967)
[17] Officially
published in Latin with translations to Italian and Portuguese now posted on
the Vatican web site.
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/motu_proprio/documents/hf_p-vi_motu-proprio_19720815_ad-pascendum_lt.html
[18] See
Peter Hebbelthwaite, Paul VI: The First
Modern Pope. NY and Mahwah,
NJ: Paulist Press, 1993, p. 640.
[19]
Phyllis Zagano, ed., Ordination of Women
to the Diaconate in the Eastern Churches: Essays by Cipriano Vagaggini, Collegeville, MN:
Liturgical Press, 2013, p. 5.
[20] NCCB
Ad Hoc Committee for a Pastoral Response to Women’s Concerns, “Partners in the
Mystery of Redemption: First Draft of a Pastoral Letter on Women’s Concerns for
Church and Society,” Origins 17:45
(April 21, 1988) 757, 759-788, para. 220 at 781 and fn. 144 citing Inter Insigniores 24. The footnote
citation is unclear.
[21] Idem, “One in Christ Jesus: A Pastoral Response to the Concerns of Women for Church and Society,” Origins 19:44 (April 5, 1990) 717, 719-740, para. 120 at 730 and fn. 97, here citing Commentary on Inter Insigniores, p. 24: “In any case, it is a question that must be taken up fully by direct study of the texts, without preconceived ideas; hence the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has judged that it should be kept for the future and not touched upon in the present document.” Commentary by the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on the Declaration Inter Insigniores. L’Ossavatore Romano, January 27, 1977; Acta Apostilicae Sedis 69 (1977) 98-116.
[22] Idem,
“Called to Be One in Christ Jesus,” Origins
21:46 (April 23, 1992) 761, 763-776; and, Idem, “One in Christ Jesus: Response
to Women’s Concerns,” Origins 22:13
(September 10, 1992) 221, 223-240. Neither refers to women as deacons, lectors,
or acolytes, nor to the Commentary on
Inter Insigniores.
[23] Idem. “Strengthening the Bonds of Peace,” Origins 24:25 (December 1, 1994) 417, 419-422; Hugh Joseph Nolan, Pastoral Letters of the United States Catholic Bishops: 1989-1997. Washington, DC:
National Conference of Catholic
Bishops, pp 13-16. See also, Rosemary
Smith, “Strengthening the Bonds of Peace Revisited,” Proceedings of the Canon Law Society of America 58 (1996) 354-367.
[24] Max Thurian, (1921-1996) a Catholic priest member of Taize, was appointed to the Congregation for Clergy in 1994; Christoph Schönborn (b. 1945) was ordained a bishop in 1991 and elevated to cardinalate in 1998; Joseph Osei-Bonsu (b. 1948) became bishop of the newly-erected Diocese of Konongo-Mampong in 1995; Charles Acton (b. 1943) is now theological adviser at the seminary of the diocese of Westminister, England; Giuseppe Colombo (1923-2005) was a theology professor in Milan and ITC member from 1980-1987; Sulpician Joseph Doré (b. 1936) was ordained bishop and appointed archbishop of Strasbourg, France in October-November, 1997; Prof. Gösta Hallonsten; Fr. Henrique de Noronha Galvão (b. 1937), whose 1979 dissertation Die existentielle Gotteserkenntnis bei Augustin: Eine hermeneutische Lektüre der Confessiones was directed by Joseph Ratzinger. Fr. Stanislaw Nagy, SCI (b. 1921) was ordained bishop and elevated to cardinal in 2003; Catholic News reported on December 3, 2001 that the ITC had already considered two previous drafts. http://cathnews.acu.edu.au/112/05.php (accessed January 22, 2013).
[25] Phyllis Zagano, “It's Time: The Case for Women Deacons"
Commonweal (December 21, 2012) 8-9.
[26] La Croix “le diaconat féminine n’est pas
à l’ordre du jour” March 12, 1998, 10. Martins, then Secretary of the
Congregation for Catholic Education, was soon named Prefect of the Congregation
for the Causes of the Saints, and elevated to cardinal in 2001.
[27] Ibid.
[28] La Croix “Faut-il inventer un ministère
de diaconaesse?” March 29, 1999, 22. La Croix noted that the 1999 “Dialogue
for Austria”
voted overwhelmingly in favor of restoring women to the diaconate. It bears
stating that those who fear women deacons portend women priests apparently do
not accept teachings on women as priests.
[29] Fr.
Santiago del Cura Elena, professor on the Theological Faculty of Northern Spain
(Burgos); Fr. Pierre Gaudette, is now retired from the Grand Séminaire de Québec;
Roland Minnerath (b. 1946) named archbishop of Dijon, France in 2004; Gerhard
Ludwig Műller was named bishop of Regensburg upon publication of the 2002
document, became prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
under Benedict XVI; Luis Antonio G. Tagle (b. 1957), named a bishop in 2001,
became archbishop of Manila in 2011 and cardinal a year later; and Prof. Fr.
Ladislaus Vanyo (Hungary).
[30] Compare, for example From the Diakonia of Christ 3 and Priesthood and Diaconate 183, 185-6; From the Diakonia of Christ 4 and Priesthood and Diaconate 186, 184, 186,
187; From the Diakonia of Christ 5
and Priesthood and Diaconate 190-91; From the Diakonia of Christ 6 and Priesthood and Diaconate 187; From the Diakonia of Christ 19 and Priesthood and Diaconate 216; From the Diakonia of Christ 20 and Priesthood and Diaconate 216, 217, 204; From the Diakonia of Christ 22 and Priesthood and Diaconate 218; and From the Diakonia of Christ 23 and Priesthood and Diaconate 217. Some
citations and footnotes are identical. See Gerhard L. Müller, Priesthood and Diaconate (San Francisco: Ignatius,
2002) trans. by Michael J. Miller of Priestertum und Diakonat: Der Empfänger des
Weihesakramentes in schöpfungstheologischer und christologischer Perspecti.
(Freiburg: Johannes Verlag, 2000).
[31] On
July 2, 2012. It should be noted that Müller’s
patron in his home archdiocese, Cardinal Karl Lehman, is beyond retirement age.
[32] From the English translation (apparently
identical to that of the Catholic Truth Society) as published on the Vatican
web site: http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/
rc_con_cfaith_pro_05072004_diaconate_en.html The original: “Pour ce qui est
de l’ordination des femmes au diaconat, il convient de noter que deux
indications importantes émergent de ce qui a été exposé jusqu’ici: 1) les
diaconesses dont il est fait mention dans la Tradition de l’Église ancienne –
selon ce que suggèrent le rite d’institution et les fonctions exercées – ne
sont pas purement et simplement assimilables aux diacres; 2) l’unité du
sacrement de l’ordre, dans la claire distinction entre les ministères de
l’évêque et des presbytres d’une part et le ministère diaconal d’autre part,
est fortement souligné par la Tradition ecclésiale, surtout dans la doctrine du
concile Vatican II et l’enseignement postconciliaire du Magistère. À la lumière de ces
éléments mis en évidence par la présente recherche historico-théologique, il
reviendra au ministère de discernement que le Seigneur a établi dans son Église
de se prononcer avec autorité sur la question.” http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/
cfaith/cti_documents/diaconate-documents/conclusion.html (accessed January
23, 2013).
