Father Thomas Reese pulls the pin and tosses a live grenade into the conversation about ordaining women as deacons, by suggesting that if we can’t have women in the order, we should stop ordaining men for it, too.
The permanent diaconate was revived for the Catholic Church in the 1960s by the Second Vatican Council, where the council fathers thought it would be helpful in mission territories.
But the hope that permanent deacons would spread the word in Africa, southern Asia and other places traditionally considered missionary lands never came to pass. Today the United States is home to almost 20,000 of the 50,150 Catholic deacons in the world, or about 40%, according to the Vatican Statistical Yearbook. The U.S. and Europe combined have more than two-thirds of the world’s deacons.
There are only 500 or so deacons in all of Africa, fewer than in the Archdiocese of Chicago, which has more than 850.
Instead, Africa’s Catholic bishops prefer catechists, who may be men or women. There are more than 450,000 catechists in Africa who teach the faith, hold Bible study, run small Christian communities, prepare people to receive the sacraments and do Communion services when priests are not available. The African bishops put a great deal of resources into training catechists.
Those who advocate women deacons point out that only the ordained, whether deacons or priests, can give homilies at Mass or preside over weddings. Catechists can do neither, and expanding their role would neither give women a greater role in the church nor expand the number of people who can minister to the faithful.
But in the case of giving homilies, this is simply canon law and can be changed, and laypeople can be delegated in many circumstances to preside at a wedding. The ministers of the sacrament of marriage are the couple, not the priest or deacon, who only witness the marriage for the church.
Similarly, lay people may preside at funerals without a Mass. And any layperson, even a non-Catholic, can baptize.
In truth, there is nothing a deacon can do that a layperson cannot do.
I am not saying that many male deacons do not do wonderful work for the church. I am simply saying that they could do the same work without ordination.
He raises some interesting and provocative points — perhaps, intentionally — but I like to remember the wise words of my friend and mentor Deacon Bill Ditewig, who said that there are two critical aspects of the ordained diaconate that separate it from the ministries of lay people: it’s public and it’s permanent. Lay volunteers come and go. Teachers, lectors, EMHCs and DREs are just not bound to ministry (or the church or the local bishop) in the same ways as deacons.
When a man is ordained, he makes a commitment to change and to be changed, for the sake of the Church and the good of his soul. Whether he realizes it or not (and if he doesn’t, just ask his wife), it’s a profoundly sacrificial act. And, at the risk of stating the obvious: the act of ordination has implications that ripple out far beyond his own life.
Father Reese’s point also reduces deacons to mere functionaries. It’s worth noting once again that being a deacon is not just about what you do; it’s also about who you are. It is rooted in a mysterious desire, a calling, to live a profoundly diaconal life, a life of service to others and to God’s Church.
I could go on, but you get my drift.
UPDATE: Lo and behold, Bill Ditewig himself has jumped into the fray, reposting a piece from a few years back:
Jesuit Father Thomas Reese has, once again, wheeled out some tired old myths and misperceptions about the diaconate. He seems to go through this exercise every so often. His argument seems to be that if the Church starts to ordain women as deacons, all will be well. However, if the Church doesn’t ordain women deacons, then no one should be ordained deacons. He seems to say that the diaconate is sacramental and necessary if women are ordained, but not sacramental or necessary if they are not. He reaches this bizarre conclusion applying principles that are ahistorical, theologically untenable, and downright dangerous in their ignorance of the matters involved. Such misinformation must be addressed.
And Bill does that, brilliantly, right here.
