Color me skeptical — more on that below — but here is a report from the website of the Catholic Church in Germany:
Italian theologian and religious Linda Pocher has confirmed that Pope Francis is in favor of the diaconate of women. As reported by the Spanish portal “Religion Digital” (Friday), the Pope is “very much in favor of the diaconate for women”, according to the Don Bosco sister, who teaches Christology and Mariology in Rome. The Vatican is currently trying to understand how the diaconate of women can be put into practice.
At the request of Pope Francis, the Italian theologian organized a discussion on the role of women at the most recent meeting of the Council of Cardinals from 5 to 7 February. One of the participants was the Anglican bishop Jo Bailey Wells, who was invited to present the Anglican Church’s experiences with the ordination of women. Among other things, the meeting focussed on “possible ministries for women in the Catholic Church”, but also on “possibilities that are already possible in the Church”.
The bishop described to the cardinals and the Pope how the Church of England came to the decision to allow the ordination of women and how the life of the Church has changed as a result. Pocher, who had already attended the previous meeting of the Council of Cardinals in December, explained that the head of the Church wanted to rethink and reorganize the relationship between the sacramental priesthood and the priesthood of all the faithful “by extending some rights that until recently were reserved to bishops, priests and religious to all the baptized.”
But Francis threw cold water on the idea of women deacons just a few months ago. Here’s the report from CNA:
Pope Francis reaffirmed the impossibility of women becoming priests, or even modern Church deacons, in an interview for a book released Tuesday in Italy.
The question of whether some women in the early Church were “deaconesses” or another kind of collaborator with the bishops is “not irrelevant, because holy orders is reserved for men,” the pope said.
The pope’s answers to questions about women’s roles in the Church were included in a book published in June in Spanish as “El Pastor: Desafíos, razones y reflexiones sobre su pontificado.”
The book, whose title means in English “The Shepherd: Struggles, Reasons, and Thoughts on His Papacy,” was released in Italian on Oct. 24. The Italian edition is titled “Non Sei Solo: Sfide, Risposte, Speranze,” or “You Are Not Alone: Challenges, Answers, Hopes.”
About the possibility of women deacons, Francis pointed out that the diaconate “is the first degree of holy orders in the Catholic Church, followed by the priesthood and finally the episcopate.”
He said he formed commissions in 2016 and 2020 to study the question further, after a study in the 1980s by the International Theological Commission established that the role of deaconesses in the early Church “was comparable to the benedictions of abbesses.”
… Asked about women’s ordination bringing “more people closer to the Church” and optional priestly celibacy helping with priest shortages, Pope Francis said he does not share these views.
“Lutherans ordain women, but still few people go to church,” he said. “Their priests can marry, but despite that they can’t grow the number of ministers. The problem is cultural. We should not be naive and think that programmatic changes will bring us the solution.”
In that interview, Pope Francis also referenced a long letter he wrote to German Catholics in 2019, stating that “structural” or “organizational” change won’t fix the church’s problems:
The pope reiterated concerns he raised with the German bishops during their ad limina visit in Rome in November 2015 in which he had already noted a grave lack of participation in the sacraments among Catholics in Germany. He challenged bishops to “pastoral conversion” and warned of “excessive centralization.”
“To accept and endure the present situation … is an invitation to face what has died in us and in our congregations, which requires evangelization and visitation by the Lord,” Francis said. “But this requires courage, because what we need is much more than structural, organizational or functional change.”
Finally, there was this assessment of the situation by Deacon Dominic Cerrato, who served on the most recent commission studying the issue of women being ordained deacons:
With both the 2016 and 2020 commissions now concluded, and with neither report being released to the press as of the date of this publication, the matter rests where it has always rested, in the hands of the pope. He may choose not to speak on the topic, or do so in an informal way, or even issue a formal teaching. Only he knows. Nonetheless, it may be possible to speculate from recent statements where his mind may be headed based on three factors.
First, Pope Francis insists that any change must be grounded in divine revelation. As we have already demonstrated, with this lacking he is unlikely to rule in favor of the ordination of women.
Second, the very recent additions in Book VI of the Code of Canon Law, additions approved by the pope as chief legislator, now criminalizes the ordination of women. This section, promulgated June 1, 2021, deals with sanctions, offenses and penalties. As Brown Tkacz states, “Both the one who tries to confer a sacred order on a woman and the woman who tries to receive it, incurs a penalty of excommunication latae sententiae reserved to the Holy See; the responsible cleric may also be punished by exclusion from the clerical state.” It should be kept in mind that this addition was approved by Pope Francis during the 2020 commission. Because of Canon 1379.3, it seems quite unlikely that the pope will rule in favor of the ordination of women to the diaconate.
Third, in an interview with America magazine discussing ordaining women to holy orders, Pope Francis asks the rhetorical question, “And why can a woman not enter ordained ministry? It is because the Petrine principle has no place for that.” This seems to suggest that the limits of his Petrine office omit the possibility of ordaining women, mirroring the argument for priestly ordination found in Ordinatio sacerdotalis put forth by Pope John Paul II in 1994.
Stay tuned.
Photo: YouTube
