Free Republic

WASHINGTON — Fifty-seven Orthodox Christian clergymen and lay leaders, including the heads of two leading Orthodox seminaries in the U.S., have issued a public statement calling on church leaders to defend Orthodox teaching on the creation and calling of man as male and female by opposing the appointment of deaconesses in the Orthodox Church. The statement comes in response to a public statement issued in October by nine Orthodox liturgical scholars in the U.S. and Greece, expressing support for the Patriarchate of Alexandria’s November 2016 decision to “restore” the ancient order of deaconesses and its February 2017 appointment of deaconesses...

First, today I saw a piece at Breitbart that Pope Francis popularity has dropped.  HEREThat said, I have received links to various articles saying that the Pope has considered establishing a commission to study the issue of the ordination of woman as deaconesses…. (aka deaconettes -it’s easier to pronounce).Studying is one thing and doing is another.That said, I saw something telling in the Fishwrap account (aka National Schismatic Reporter). The pope responded that he had spoken about the matter once some years ago with a “good, wise professor” who had studied the use of female deacons in the early centuries of...

On October 6, 2015, Archbishop Paul-André Durocher of Gatineau, Canada surprised Catholic Synod observers when he called for more study on the possibility of women deacons. In the course of his allotted three-minute address to the assembled bishops at the Synod on the Family, the Archbishop suggested that admitting women to the permanent diaconate could help affirm the dignity of women by giving them a wider role in the Church. He proposed this as something he considered feasible, given that the diaconate is traditionally ordered “non ad sacerdotium, sed ad ministerium” (“not to priesthood, but to ministry”).The goal of...

Q: A coworker was talking loudly at work about an article she’d read, endorsing the ordination of women as deacons, and she was all for it. It didn’t sound right to me, though, but I couldn’t put my finger on why not. Would it be possible for the Church to ordain female deacons? If not, what’s the argument against it? –Katie

It’s not a joke. It’s something that Pope Francis has thought about before: naming a woman cardinal. Those who know the pope, both before and after he took over from Ratzinger, say that the first Jesuit pontiff is not only surprising people with his comments, but also with his actions. And this has been happening throughout his first six months in the role.Those who think that Francis – who has all the simplicity of a parish priest – is a naïve man are wrong. This pope isn’t an ordinary pope. He has come to St. Peter’s with concrete plans for...

Document on Women Deaconesses Nears a Final Vote VATICAN CITY, SEPT. 27, 2002 (Zenit.org).- The International Theological Commission is now analyzing the final draft of a document that addresses the issue of the ordination of women deaconesses. A Vatican Press Office statement said the document will be voted on next week, when the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith holds its annual plenary assembly. The congregation coordinates the work of the theological commission. The Vatican congregation commissioned the document. ZENIT learned that the subcommittee which wrote the document was presided over by Henrique de Noronha Galvâo, a member of...