Document on Women Deaconesses Nears Final Vote

Does anybody anywhere have any idea what's in this document right now?

We should all pray that it unequivocally rejects the notion of ordaining women to the diaconate.

If it doesn't, the women's ordination crowd is going to run with it, and sympathetic bishops will be ordaining deaconesses and priestesses fairly soon.

Let's hope this isn't a portent of worse to come.

Boy, I don't like the looks of this.

I'm shocked!

Women Deaconesses? Are there male Deaconesses? LOL

"We should all pray that it unequivocally rejects the notion of ordaining women to the diaconate."

Well I am not keen on the idea but I will pray that if we are supposed to have them we will, and if we are not supposed to have them we won't. I could be wrong but my impression is the that feminist movement is not quite as radical as it used to be. So it might be a little safer to go ahead and have women deacons. I don't mind it if the Holy See says it is okay but I seriously doubt they will. However I DON'T want them to be radical progressives. One thing is, if they say it's okay, we will need a whole lot of traditional Catholic women to fill those spaces. Thing is, is a traditional Catholic woman the type to want to be a deacon? I would certainly hope so.

"Boy, I don't like the looks of this."

You sure won't like this.

"At the Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon, 451 AD, an earlier minimal age of 60 years for women deacons was relaxed to 40 years. The earlier practice was based on 1 Timothy 5,9: ‘Let a widow be enrolled if she is not less than sixty years of age.’ Voluntary celibacy was understood to be a condition.

“A Woman shall not receive the laying on of hands as a deaconess under forty years of age, and then only after searching examination. And if, after she has had hands laid on her and has continued for a time to minister, she shall despise the grace of God and give herself in marriage, she shall be anathematized as well as the man united to her.” (Chalcedon, canon 15."

Oh man this is pretty clear because it was not a local counsel IMHO. Plus there sure seems to be a scriptual basis for it. Just this one incidence tells me it's gonna be quite a trick to explain women deacons away. Brace yourselves people, we MIGHT have to make big adjustment.

Won't that be something to get used too? Whew!

Deaconesses in the early Church had a purely administrative function, chiefly the supervision of female catechumens. They never performed any sacramental role.

Catechism of the Catholic Church:

1577: Only a baptized man (vir) validly receives sacred ordination. The Lord Jesus chose men (viri) to form the college of the twelve apostles, and the apostles did the same when they chose collaborators to succeed them in their ministry. The college of bishops, with whom the priests are united in the priesthood, makes the college of the twelve an ever-present and ever-active reality until Christ's return. The Church recognizes herself to be bound by this choice made by the Lord himself. For this reason the ordination of women is not possible.

The implications of ordaining deaconnesses are horrifying because they would be fatal to the Church.

Such an action would mean that for the first time in Church history, an infallibly proclaimed doctrine would have been overturned.

And if one doctrine can be nullified, all doctrine can be nullified. The Church's indefectibility and infallibility in doctrinal matters would collapse. The Magisterium would cease to function as teacher and guarantor of the Deposit of Faith. There would be no authority which could call heretics to account because there would be no such thing as heresy. The Church would fall into full-blown apostasy along side the mainline Protestant denominations.

There is a conclusion so frightening to be drawn from this that I can't even bring myself to speak it.

Compared to this horror, the deformation of the liturgy is but a petty crime. No, Theresa, it is not safe to ordain deaconnesses. It is death.

No wait. It probably won't happen. Sorry I don't have a date for this article.

Women Deacons - 'unlikely' for Rome

Although the Vatican has issued no official statement or document on the question of female deacons, the Prefect of the Congregation for Clergy, Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyes, has told a Vatican press conference that it was unlikely the Roman Catholic Church will ordain women deacons and discussions on the issue "is almost a closed chapter".

The cardinal said the possibility of women deacons in the Catholic Church would have to be built on tradition, returning to the New Testament writings that speak of the ministry of women deacons in the early Christian community.

"The most serious studies at this point have clarified one thing - the word "deacon" in the New Testament and the description of what tasks women deacons performed is not the same as the Church's understanding of an ordained deacon today", he said.

He said the early Christian communitys baptismal ritual of complete immersion and redressing of the newly baptised made it necessary to appoint women to help female catechumens. This assistance at the baptismal bath is no longer needed. The cardinal said there were "many other possibilities for women; there are many other services they can give to the Church and to their brothers and sisters."

(Ed: The Traditional Anglican Communion has revived the lay order of Deaconess. It is non-sacramental and provides support and recognition to women called to pastoral ministry.

"No, Theresa, it is not safe to ordain deaconnesses. It is death."

Not an issue I ever kept up with. Just now reseaching and I think you are right.

"Deaconesses in the early Church had a purely administrative function, chiefly the supervision of female catechumens. They never performed any sacramental role."

Yeah it sure looks that way. The liberals are gonna go nuts when they get formally turned down on this.

Where did you get your article anyway? Look what I found dated 9/27/2001 exactly one year earlier than yours?????:

By Luigi Sandri

Rome, 27 September (ENI)--The official refusal by the Vatican this month to the ordaining of women as deacons in the Roman Catholic Church has prompted strong protests by groups campaigning for equality between men and women in the church.

The Vatican ruling came in an official "notification" published on 17 September by three senior cardinals - Joseph Ratzinger, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Jorge Arturo Medina Estevez, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, and Dario Castrillon Hoyos, prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy. The statement said that the notification had been approved by the Pope three days earlier.

Elfriede Harth, spokesperson of the international movement "We are Church", which is campaigning for radical changes in the Catholic Church, said: "For how much longer will the Roman Catholic Church allow some of its sons to have the audacity to deny to women in the church, because of their sex, the dignity and comfort provided by a sacrament [ordination]?"

Soline Vatinel, spokesperson of the movement "Women's Ordination Worldwide" described the statement as "another sad example of the inflexible sexism that afflicts the church" and an attack by men "on the personal dignity of women, their sisters in Christ". The church, she added, needed to use the "gifts of all its members" to accomplish its mission to the world.

The diaconate was re-established in its present form in 1964 by the Second Vatican Council, which also stated that married men could be ordained as deacons - one of the church's three major orders of ministry, alongside bishops and priests. The council defined the duties of a deacon, which included, when authorised, performing baptisms, administering communion, assisting at and blessing weddings, instructing and exhorting the faithful, and officiating at funerals.

In their statement, the three cardinals said that they had received information "from certain countries" that courses were "being planned and developed, directly or indirectly relating to the ordination of women to the diaconate". The cardinals did not specify the countries concerned.

Such initiatives, they said, could raise expectations "lacking any firm doctrinal foundation and, consequently, can generate pastoral confusion".

"Since ecclesial regulations do not include the possibility of such ordination, it is not licit to take part in initiatives that intend, in some way, to prepare female candidates for the diaconal order," they said.

They added that "the authentic advancement of women in the Church, in accordance with the consistent teaching of the Church" offered alternative prospects "for service and collaboration".

The ordination of women to the priesthood was ruled out by Pope Paul VI in 1976 and again by Pope John Paul II in 1994, two months after the Church of England began ordaining women as priests.

In his statement rejecting the ordination of women as priests, Pope John Paul was silent on the issue of women deacons which was interpreted as a green light for open discussion of the matter. In 1994, Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini of Milan said that the moment had arrived for "serious consideration" of the question of whether women could be admitted to the diaconate.

All articles (c) Ecumenical News International Reproduction permitted only by media subscribers and provided ENI is acknowledged as the source.

Women Deaconesses? Are there male Deaconesses? LOL

Ever heard of a male boar?

Go right to Zenit News Agency . Click on English. It's right at the top under latest news.

Okay I think the document that is coming out will be a formal study where as what I posted from 9/37/2001 was not a formal think but kind of an advisory warning or something like that.

Okay so no women deacons. Fine by me.

Desperately prayerful bump

"Does anybody anywhere have any idea what's in this document right now?"

Yes - or at least a good idea of what was in the draft last November as a result of an interview with a German professor who is on the ITC.

It was quite revealing! :)

Sorry - should have said January, 2002.

Interview from Die Tagespost follows:

WOMEN DEACONS? A PERSPECTIVE ON THE SACRAMENT OF ORDERS

Gerhard Ludwig Müller, Member of International Theological Commission

At its annual assembly last month, the International Theological Commission of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith addressed the topic of the diaconate.

Professor Gerhard Ludwig Müller of the School of Theology of Munich University, summarized the results of the discussion. The results are included in a document given to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.

Müller explained that the diaconate is not a separate sacrament, but part of the sacrament of orders. He noted that there never have been priestly ordinations of women, a possibility excluded by the Church on many occasions. Following is an excerpt from Müller´s interview.

Q: Is the diaconate a sacrament in its own right?

Müller: The Church teaches clearly that the sacrament of orders is one of the seven sacraments of the Church; as the full exercise in the Holy Spirit of the mission, unique in its origin, of the apostles of Christ, exercised in its fullness by the bishop. According to its degree of specificity, the differentiated participation in it is called presbyterate or diaconate.

Q: Is it possible to separate the diaconate of women from the priesthood of women?

Müller: No -- because of the unity of the sacrament of orders, which has been underlined in the deliberations of the Theological Commission; it cannot be measured with a different yardstick. Then it would be a real discrimination of woman if she is considered as apt for the diaconate, but not for the presbyterate or episcopacy.

The unity of the sacrament would be torn at its root if, the diaconate as ministry of service, was opposed to the presbyterate as ministry of government, and from this would be deduced that woman, as opposed to man, has a greater affinity to serve and because of this would be apt for the diaconate but not for the presbyterate.

However, the apostolic ministry all together is a service in the three degrees in which it is exercised.

The Church does not ordain women, not because they are lacking some spiritual gift or natural talent, but because -- as in the sacrament of marriage -- the sexual difference and of the relation between man and woman contains in itself a symbolism that presents and represents in itself a prior condition to express the salvific dimension of the relation of Christ and the Church.

If the deacon, with the bishop and presbyter, starting from the radical unity of the three degrees of the orders, acts from Christ, head and Spouse of the Church, in favor of the Church, it is obvious that only a man can represent this relation of Christ with the Church.

And in reverse, it is equally obvious that God could only take his human nature from a woman and, because of this, womankind has in the order of grace -- because of the internal reference of nature and grace -- an unmistakable, fundamental, and in no way merely accidental importance.

Q: Are there binding doctrinal declarations regarding the question of the feminine diaconate?

Müller: The liturgical and theological tradition of the Church uses unanimous language. It is a binding and irreversible teaching of the Church on this matter, which is guaranteed by the ordinary and general magisterium of the Church, but which can be confirmed again with greater authority if the doctrinal tradition of the Church continues to be presented in an adulterated manner, for the purpose of forcing the evolution of a specific direction.

I am amazed at the lack of historical knowledge of some, and the absence of the meaning of faith; if it wasn´t like this, they would know that it has never been possible and never will be to place the Church, precisely, in the central ambit of her doctrine and liturgy, in contradiction with sacred Scripture and her own Tradition.

Q: What happens when a validly ordained bishop, outside the communion of the Church, ordains a woman as deaconess?

Müller: Invisibly, that is, before God, nothing happens, because such an ordination is invalid. Visibly, that is, in the Church, if something [like this] happens, a Catholic bishop who carries out an irregular ordination incurs the penalty of excommunication.

Q: Could the Pope say that in the future women will receive the diaconate?

Müller: Contrary to what many think, the Pope is not the owner of the Church or absolute sovereign of her doctrine. He is only entrusted with safeguarding Revelation and its authentic interpretation.

Keeping the Church´s faith in mind, which is expressed in its dogmatic and liturgical practice, it is all together impossible for the Pope to intervene in the substance of the sacraments, to which the question of the legitimate receiving subject of the sacrament of orders essentially belongs.

Q: Are women completely excluded from participation in ecclesial services? Is there no place for women in the Church?

Müller: If we leave to one side a clerical reduction of the Church, the question is no longer asked in this way. In her vital processes and in her service to man, the Church is the essential co-responsibility of all Christians, specifically also of the laity.

In many countries at present we cannot complain of an excess of active apostolate of the laity. Let us think of the dramatic withdrawal of women´s orders and religious communities, without which the Church would never have taken root in the different nations and cultures.

In the specific ministries of canon and human law, to which the laity can also be called to collaborate together with the hierarchy, namely the bishop, presbyter and deacon, women carry out important services for the Church, which are also satisfying to themselves from the human and spiritual point of view.

What women accomplish today as professors of religion, professors of theology, pastoral agents, and also in unremunerated activities in the communities goes far beyond what the deaconesses of the early Church did.

The re-establishment of the former ministry of the deaconesses would only be an amusing anachronism. On the contrary, the Council has given guidelines for the future for the collaboration of the laity in Chapter 4 of the constitution "Lumen Gentium" -- unfortunately, not much studied.

Just thinking that the possibility of ordaining women deaconesses flies in the face of the speach given by JPII earlier this week to be careful not to clericalize the laity.

And Theresa had a good point earlier... I don't think "traditional/orthodox" type females would be interested in being a deaconess. The role would almost certainly be filled with the older womans lib types, IMO. I can think of a couple of them from my parish who would be first in line (they are nuns, of course).