"She said, ‘I just don't think this Church is set up for somebody like me,'" Hidalgo recalled in a recent interview. "‘I don't think God would speak to me only through the voice of a priest.'"

The young woman's elders, said Hidalgo, were shocked to realise that despite their own deep Catholic faith, the religion had failed to pass to the new generation, and particularly that, like many young Catholic women, Hildalgo's niece felt the Church had inhibited her from truly experiencing her faith.

Discerning Deacons

Her niece's experience is the kind of story that drove Hidalgo to co-found Discerning Deacons, an organisation that argues for the ordination of women deacons.

The group launched in 2021, spurred in part by the 2019 Synod for the Pan Amazon Region, a meeting in Rome that highlighted the dire need in South America's remotest regions for more contact with clergy.

Deacons can preach at Mass, baptise children and marry couples, though they cannot say Mass, hear confession or anoint the sick.

But Hidalgo's 12 years spent helping with pastoral duties at a Jesuit church in the Latin American immigrant community of Boyle Heights, California, suggested that giving women the responsibilities of the diaconate would also hold out a promise of empowerment and stanch an outflow of women that has become more pronounced in recent years.

A study released in April by the Survey Center on American Life found that women, especially Gen Z women, are now leaving religion at a more rapid rate than men. The same poll found that 65 percent of young women said they don't believe religious institutions treat women and men equally.

The effect seems to be hitting Catholics even harder.

In 2018, a survey of more than 1,500 Catholic women by America Magazine found that only 24 percent attend Mass at least once a week — a lower share than the 27 percent of women of all faiths who attend, as is often cited in a recent study by political scientist Ryan Burge.

Consultation

Pope Francis has opened new opportunities for women to be heard, but compared to the gains made by women elsewhere, the Church's attempts at equality seem feeble.

At the Pan-Amazonian Synod in 2019, bishops voted by a staggering 137-30 tally in favor of female deacons, but the proposal was shelved for further study.

In 2021, Francis invited the Catholic faithful in parishes around the world to gather and speak about their hopes, fears and concerns for the future of the Church.

The massive, three-year consultation, given the underwhelming name of Synod on the theme of Synodality, rattled the hierarchy by showing they had questions about priestly celibacy, welcoming of LGBTQ+ Catholics and even monogamy.

No issue, however, was more urgent to rank-and-file Catholics than the lot of women. The quest to ordain women as deacons, long swept under the rug, reemerged with a newfound energy.

"The Synod process was asking: what's in your heart? What do you think the Holy Spirit is asking of you?" Hidalgo said. "Suddenly, all these women started saying: ‘Oh, if I could discern a call to the diaconate, I would love to do that.'"

After forming Discerning Deacons, which has taught hundreds of women how to lead conversations on the female diaconate in their parishes and on college campuses, Hidalgo said its organisers were convinced that "a growing number of young women are quite discouraged by the limits they see in the Church."

As bishops convened in pre-meetings for the synod, the question of female participation came up again and again.

European Catholics reported "a tension" between a changing society and the Church "practicing a second-class status of women."

In Oceania, "the role and place of women in the Church was a uniform concern," and Latin American and Caribbean bishops asked that attendees of the upcoming summit at the Vatican address the question of "the opening of some ministries to women," according to reports from the bishops' meetings.

The Maronite Church, a Middle Eastern rite in communion with Rome, held its own Synod on Women in 2022, after its bishops suggested that the Church "should begin to reflect seriously on the re-establishment of the diaconate for women," which an earlier pope had allowed the Maronites in 1746.

But in March 2024, Francis put on the brakes.

Canceling discussion of women in the diaconate at October's second meeting of the synod, Francis instead created a study group to tackle this and other controversial topics, charging them with reporting back in 2025.

The report on the female diaconate would be submitted to the Vatican's Department for the Doctrine of the Faith, a notoriously secretive and historically conservative office.

"The support for women's recognition is getting stronger and stronger.

"I don't know how the leadership inside the Vatican think that they can make it disappear by closing the doors, closing the curtains, and having a secretive study," said Miriam Duignan, executive director of the Wijngaards Institute for Catholic Research and a leader of Women's Ordination Worldwide, an umbrella organisation.

The case for women

Duignan will be among dozens of Catholic women making the case for women deacons on the sidelines of October's synod meeting, in vigils, prayer events and public demonstrations.

"They have opened Pandora's box," she said. "They've encouraged people to speak out, and they're not going to stop speaking out now or ever again."

In his letter to the Romans, in the New Testament, Paul introduces a woman named Phoebe as "deaconess of the Church" and praises her as "a helper of many and of myself as well."

A smattering of women deacons has since been scattered across the history of the Church, especially in the Eastern traditions.

In the 12th century, the Church interrupted the ordination of deacons altogether, and for about 900 years, until the Second Vatican Council, it didn't come up.

But in debates during Vatican II in the 1960s over how to re-energise the Church, the deaconate came to the fore once again.

Eventually the male deaconate was restored, but Pope Paul VI supported further study on the ordination of women. In 1973, he defaulted to commissioning a study that took three years to report that nothing in the Bible barred women from becoming priests.

As the Vatican ordered up further studies in the early 1990s without publishing their findings, the current lines were drawn:

Opponents argued that the biblical and historical female deacons didn't serve the same role as deacons today, or served only females in highly segregated contexts. Advocates claimed that the modern diaconate, mostly seen as a first step toward becoming a priest, is the outlier.

In 1994, now-Saint Pope John Paul II declared, "The Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women," seemingly closing the discussion forever.

Francis has supported John Paul's ruling, shutting down hopes in an interview with CBS News in May for women's ordination of any kind. But he has also kept up the pattern of commissioning studies, with one in 2016 and another in 2020, without revealing their findings.

"I think it's pretty clear that the Vatican is trying to lower expectations of any outcome of this synodal gathering," said Kate McElwee, executive director of the Women's Ordination Conference.

McElwee said that it would constitute a "scandal" if the synod were to fail to recognise the call by thousands of women. She described the October summit as "a tipping point" for many.

Coupled with the decline in the number of priests, a downward trend that started in 2012, the demand for women deacons seems to have gathered an irresistible momentum.

A February study by Pew found that 64 percent of U.S. Catholics support the ordination of women as priests. Another Pew report on Sept. 26 in major Latin American countries found overwhelming support for ordaining women priests, especially among young generations.

"While women may not be in the pews in the same numbers on Sunday, that doesn't mean that they're not watching, organising, praying and working on correcting this injustice," McElwee said.

Some women have lost hope in the synod, and Francis. Citing a misogynistic and suffocating environment, Lucetta Scaraffia quit her job in 2019 as the head of "Women, Church, World," the only Vatican magazine specifically aimed at a female audience.

"We women have never been given anything without fighting for it," said Scaraffia.

"There is this absurd idea that a good pope will come who will give women power. But that has never happened in history or in politics. Women took that power for themselves," she said.

In his Sep. 27 visit to the Louvain Catholic University in Belgium, Francis talked about women in terms of their "fertile" and caregiving nature, the latest example of his frequent tone-deafness on gender.

He recently warned a group of priests that "gossip is for women" and once referred to the women appointed to a prestigious theological commission as "strawberries on the cake."

But Scaraffia said deeper issues of trust in Church leadership have arisen with the rampant abuse of power, including sexual abuse of religious sisters by priests.

In her meetings with nuns, she has heard widespread yet often hidden demands of women religious for greater authority and, in some cases, ordination as an antidote.

Close observers of Francis' leadership note that he has allowed women to head Vatican departments and to become lecturers.

Priests and bishops have become accustomed in this pontificate to brushing shoulders with women in curial offices and seeing them participate more actively at Mass. But more significant reform remains incremental.

The World Union of Catholic Women's Organisations, which represents more than 8 million Catholic women in 50 countries, has shown itself willing to move at the Church's pace, listening to Catholic women from all walks of life.

They tell in the organisation's latest report how women often express feeling invisible and unappreciated for the work they do for the Church.

"The Church cannot go on with only men making all the decisions, when more than half of the Catholic population are women," said Monica Santamarina, president general of WUCWO.

Santamarina said canon law allows women to do many things in the Church. They can sit on pastoral and diocesan councils that advise the parish priest or the bishop.

If women start by occupying those roles and showing other women and men that it's possible, she said, young people will be attracted to the Church as well.

"I think that what is at stake for us women at the synod is not to take a step backwards," she said. "I think we have to become a little more patient, more careful," she added.

Barbara Dowding, vice president at WUCWO, believes the diaconate is possible for women but doubts it will happen in her lifetime.

"For bishops and priests who are living now and go back a long way, the very notion of having a woman ordained to anything is just so hard for them, you know? Because it's been a male-dominated Church in so many ways," she said.

There will be 54 female voting delegates at the October Synod, commonly referred to as Synod mothers, who will engage with prelates and priests in roundtable discussions.

The youngest is Julia Oseka, 23, a Polish student of physics and theology at St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia, who said she felt awe at the responsibility of representing the hopes of so many women.

"As I sat on that chair, I felt how many women before me contributed so that we might one day be listened to. I also felt inspired by so many women who are, for me, models of leaders in the Church," she said at a webinar organized by WUCWO on Thursday (Sept. 26).

Oseka said that sitting in and voting at the synod "is a gift" and praised the opportunity "to dialogue on the same level with priests, bishops and lay people."

Whether women watch the synod with disappointment or bated breath, Oseka urged that the event should be interpreted as "a sign not to give up on the task of giving visibility to women in the Church."

• Claire Giangravè is a Rome-based reporter for RNS, covering the Catholic Church and the Vatican.
• First published by RNS

Weiler, a theological advisor to the Latin American bishops' council CELAM, highlighted that Jesus challenged the patriarchal norms of his time, treating women as equals.

During an online lecture, Weiler (pictured) stated "We are in the process of breaking through the glass ceiling". She referred to the growing number of women in leadership roles at the Vatican and the participation of women in the global synodal process.

However, Weiler emphasised that much more needs to be done, particularly in addressing the persistent prejudices and clericalism that still hinder women's full participation.

"Even the Church is not free from the machismo that exists in society" she said.

Weiler also highlighted the importance of women contributing to leadership, stating that their involvement is essential for the future of the Church.

"Surely the women's diaconate as sacramental service would be an important step, albeit alongside or together with several others who are also very important in my opinion" Weiler wrote in a recent article for Feinschwarz, a theological publication.

Strengthening synodality

For Weiler, addressing "toxic masculinity" and clericalism is key to strengthening synodality in the Church.

She believes promoting synodality of mentality and structure is crucial for the Church's progress.

Reflecting on her experience in Latin America, she noted that many women in the Amazon region already live out a vocation to diaconal service.

"The Church would publicly recognise what these women are already living, namely that they represent Christ who is present among us and reminds the Church that this is an indispensable part of her mission.

"For the future of the Church worldwide, it will be crucial that women can contribute to the design and practice of leadership in the church with their charisms and abilities" Weiler continued.

Pope Francis appointed Weiler as an advisor to the Vatican General Secretariat of the Synod earlier this year.

Sources

English Katholisch

Katholisch

CathNews New Zealand

The document was relatively stunning in its admission of challenges, beauty of language on the Trinity and Christ and mission; and, for its announcement that opening the diaconate for women will not be a topic of discussion at this coming October synod in Rome.

But there were many omissions — too many for a document that was to lay out the next steps in the "listening" process called synodality.

When it comes to my beloved Catholic Church, I am a realist.

I did not expect there to be a decision on women deacons finalised and announced after the October synod.

I did, however, expect input from experts, robust dialogue, learning and discerning among those present.

Last year's proposal

The synthesis report from last October contained 81 proposals.

Those proposals included bishop accountability, enhancing priest engagement in the synod, more formation for laity and priests, establishing ministries for youth in local parishes, and increasing awareness of Catholic social doctrine, among many others.

The proposals were contained within the document's three major parts: "The Face of the Synodal Church," "All Disciples, All Missionaries," and "Weaving Bonds, Building Communities."

These proposals were the outcome of global listening sessions in parishes, schools and other institutions; with results compiled into diocesan, national and then continental reports.

These reports from around the world were reviewed, analysed and summarised in the Document for the Continental Stage. That information then led to the instrumentum laboris, which guided the discussions for the October 2023 in Rome.

Each of these reports contained the aspirations and frustrations of Catholics from around the world and provided a foundation for future listening and discussion.

The Document for the Continental Stage, for example, opened with the call for us to "enlarge the space of your tent, spread out your tent clothes unsparingly; lengthen your ropes and make firm your pegs" (Isaiah 54:2), urging the church to expand the horizons of our structure and mission.

This month, the instrumentum laboris for the October 2024 synod discussions in Rome was released, with 112 separate assertions. Paragraph 17 notes:

"While some local Churches call for women to be admitted to the diaconal ministry, others reiterate their opposition.

"On this issue, which will not be the subject of the work of the Second Session, it is good that theological reflection should continue, on an appropriate timescale and in the appropriate ways.

"The fruits of Study Group 5, which will take into consideration the results of the two Commissions that have dealt with the question in the past, will contribute to its maturation."

The problem

Here's my fundamental issue with this declaration.

The synthesis report from last October included 81 separate proposals.

Of those 81, the only one itemised as "not … the subject of work of the second session" is one regarding women's ordination as deacons.

That, along with Pope Francis' "no" response during a recent interview about whether little girls can look forward to being deacons in the future, is a bit chilling.

While there is language about continued theological reflection — it does seem odd to call out this issue as the only one off the synod table.

Also odd is the rationale.

The fact that some churches call for women's ordination and others do not is an inadequate reason for not discussing an issue.

I would argue every one of those 81 proposals has some support and some opposition.

Since when has 100 percent agreement in the Catholic Church been a criterion for moving forward?

Aside from a handful of the obvious, I can't name a single theological, social, political or moral issue all Catholics can agree with. (Even the "obvious" might be a challenge.)

Here are the practical impacts of this decision.

Catholics around the world are hopeful about changes that could arise from collective listening to the Holy Spirit.

People have spent hours engaged in the process; speaking from the heart about what they love about the church — and what breaks their heart.

My simple expectation is to continue the process.

We know the church is proud of "thinking in centuries" and that change comes slowly. It is, however, even slower when you don't bother to fully discuss an issue in an ongoing listening and discerning process.

Women deacons necessary

Fundamentally, the church needs women deacons.

I attended Seattle University School of Theology and Ministry and the Jesuit School of Theology Sabbatical Renewal Program. I also participated in the Loyola Institute of Spirituality Spiritual Exercises for Everyday Life.

In each of these sessions, as well as in my parishes, I have met many women capable of serving as deacons, and frankly, as priests. Read more

• Daryl Grigsby is an author and is currently a presenter in the Jesuit School of Theology Sabbatical Renewal Program.

Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich of Luxembourg, a key organiser of the Synod of Bishops on Synodality, has called for sincere dialogue on women's roles in the Church.

Hollerich said that as a church "we have to commit to a very sincere dialogue because the situation is not the same in all the continents. In all of western Europe, women are asking to be admitted to ordained ministry".

Pope Francis established ten study groups to explore critical issues from the 2023 synod, including one on women deacons. While the Vatican recently disclosed the members of most groups, those studying women deacons remain unnamed.

The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith oversees this group's work. However, no individual members have been identified, raising concerns about the process's transparency.

Transparency frustration

Casey Stanton, co-director of Discerning Deacons, criticised this secrecy, stating it undermines trust in the Church's commitment to synodality.

"The lack of transparency with this particular study group does not inspire trust or confidence in the institutional church's commitment to be synodal.

"Synodality requires us to risk being vulnerable, to engage theologically in light of pastoral realities and to hold difficult questions with openness" she told the National Catholic Reporter.

Frustration over the lack of transparency regarding how the doctrinal office is handling the topic of women deacons isn't new - it dates back over two decades.

In 2002, the International Theological Commission concluded a study of the diaconate that considered the question of women deacons. This was followed by two different commissions Francis established in 2016 and 2020. The work of the two commissions has never been made public.

British theologian Tina Beattie suggested that previous commissions might have found evidence supporting a female diaconate. However, the Vatican's leadership remains unconvinced.

"It's hard not to conclude that both reports included evidence in favour of a female diaconate, but that the magisterium's mind is made up so this is just a window-dressing exercise" she told NCR. "I think it shows arrogance and contempt for those of us who have a genuine interest in these theological issues and debates.

"It's hard not to conclude that these commissions are placebos" Beattie added.

Read More

Crux Now

National Catholic Reporter

CathNews New Zealand

Joe Grayland - What's the point of having deacons

You've written a lot about the diaconate and women as deacons.

So I'm going to start because, coming with a little bit of a parish priest appreciation, it's like, why do I need a deacon?

What I need is an assistant priest.

So, why do we need deacons?

Why do we have them at all?

What's the purpose and the point?

Phyllis Zagano

Well, you know, that is the situation the Church was in since the 12th century.

And I think the Church found itself devoid of the diaconate when the priests, mostly the priests in Rome, but priests in other places in Europe, were getting more and more annoyed that the fellow who was going to be elected as bishop was a deacon.

And so when we talk about the diaconate, we're talking about many, many different things.

We talk about the diaconate today, I have the same question.

What good is the diaconate?

Why would anybody want to be a deacon, particularly a woman?

Why would a woman want to be a deacon?

And why would a parish priest want to have a deacon?

Well, if you can't have an assistant priest, if you're not knitting one in the basement these days, you're well off to have a deacon.

But I don't think that's the only reason to have a deacon. When we think of the diaconate as it is, it's about its liturgical functions.

The deacon can do the wedding, the deacon can do the baptism, the deacon can do the funeral.

The diaconate to me is really bringing the Gospel in action to the people of God.

So it's the deacon, really historically, who managed the Church's charity.

And if we really recover the diaconate today, I think the deacon would be the one to help get the checkbook out of the pastor's hands and spread the wealth around, take care of the poor.

I really think that that's what it's about, evangelisation and taking care of the poor.

Joe Grayland - So what about transitional deacons?

Okay, so what do you think then about transitional deacons?

Do they have a point in your opinion?

Phyllis Zagano

Well, there's one diaconate and the diaconate is still a stage on the way to priesthood.

But when we think of what they call improperly, actually, the transitional diaconate, as opposed to the improperly called permanent diaconate, when we think of the diaconate as a stage on the way to priesthood, it is, I think, a necessary training ground for priests.

But I don't know that it's necessary at all, really.

Many people have written on this. I really haven't written that much about it, but a lot of people have said there's no reason to ordain anyone a deacon before that person's ordained a priest.

So, it's what we do.

It's our custom now.

It is confusing.

I don't like the term transitional deacon any more than I like the term permanent deacon.

But it's what we have.

And I don't think it's going to change.

Joe Grayland - Why bother about deacons?

Where does your love and interest for the diaconate come from?

What's influenced you over the years to even bother with the whole thing, given how difficult it can be?

Phyllis Zagano

Well, how difficult the whole Church can be.

I think the love is the love of the Gospel.

And the job of the deacon is to preach the Gospel, to spread the Gospel, to bring, as William Deitwig says, "drag the ambo to the streets."

And I just found myself in a situation, a position when I was finishing my doctorate actually, of learning about the diaconate, learning that there had been women in the diaconate, and marching myself into the local seminary and telling them I wanted to study to be a deacon.

And I stayed there for about a year, taking courses, mostly part-time.

But the encouragement came from the Papal Nuncio to the United States, actually.

When I was at the seminary, there were a couple of fellows who were not what we call lifers.

They had finished college and were just starting their graduate studies there.

Everybody else in the seminary had been in the system for eight or ten years.

And they said, "Well, the Nuncio's coming. How's your Cassock and Sash?" - which I didn't have.

So I wore a yellow pantsuit.

Joe Grayland: And they saw you coming!

Phyllis Zagano: They kind of noticed me.

We sat not in the chapel, but in the refectory. My friends set me on the end so that when the Nuncio and the bishop walked by, it was really hard to miss.

And the bishop, who knew me; the bishop had played basketball with my father.

The bishop looked down and said, "Phyllis, what are you doing here?"

I said, "I'm studying".

So soon enough, a lovely young priest came to me and said, "The Nuncio would like to see you in the front hall."

So I went.

And it was Archbishop Jadot, and he interviewed me for 20 minutes about a vocation to the diaconate.

And he said, "Don't quit."

And so, you know, then I went, I finished my doctorate, I was teaching, I was working for John Cardinal O'Connor.

I actually got a request before I started working for O'Connor as Archbishop of New York. I actually worked first in the military archdiocese.

I got a request from the director of vocations for the Archdiocese of New York that this Vicar General of the Military Ordinariate, as it was at the time, John O'Connor, wanted to know how to get more women in chaplaincy in the military.

So I said, "Tell him to ordain us."

And she came back and said, "He wants a longer answer."

So I wrote a big paper.

And I gave an equivalency of military rank and structure, particularly Navy rank and structure, talking about enlisted and warrant grades and officer grades, and the way that a warrant grade could be established for the diaconate.

The diaconate was certainly a ministry that the Catholic chaplaincies could use in the American military.

So he asked to see me, and I went in, and of course the fight was on.

And he encouraged me, he outlined with me my first book, Holy Saturday.

He told me that he would get it to the Pope.

I said, "Oh, you don't know the Pope."

Well, he did, and he ended up as the Archbishop of New York, and I worked for him.

So I just continued the studies, continued my own work, but also continued interest, training as a spiritual director, working where I could in chaplaincies and church-related entities.

Joe Grayland - Woman suing the Church

I wonder whether you've heard about the 62-year-old woman in Belgium who's suing the church, the Belgian church, because they won't allow her to become a diaconess.

Do you think, there's lots of things going on there.

Do you think it's a matter of justice?

Would you agree with what she's doing?

You know, even though I'm not asking you to understand everything, you know, you probably don't know her personally, but do you think the idea is good, or is it a waste of time?

Phyllis Zagano

Is it a matter of justice that she do this? Well, justice for whom?

You know, the question, if it's justice for the Church, if the Church deserves the ministry of women and its diaconate, then the conversation needs to be concluded in a positive manner.

It has been suggested to me to sue in ecclesiastical court, the restrictions against women and the diaconate.

It's not something I've pursued, certainly, or even studied.

But I would say she's not asking to be a diaconess, she's asking to be a deacon, unless she is in the Eastern tradition.

And I will tell you that on May 2nd of this year in Harare, Zimbabwe, the Greek Orthodox Archbishop of Africa ordained a woman a diaconess.

And so there is a movement, particularly now with our older cousins, explaining that this is truly a sacramental ministry to which women can be called.

So I don't know anything about what's going on in Belgium.

It's interesting, but I don't find going to the courts helpful in really in most any controversy.

Joe Grayland - Was the woman ordained a deacon

I want to come to an example I was reading as well of the woman who was ordained a deacon.

So, some questions were raised in the German media, the Catholic media, here in Germany, and the questions were really: Was it right or worthwhile for one part of an Orthodox communion to operate without having consulted the rest?

So that's one question.

But more specifically for the diaconate is, in what manner or form was this woman ordained?

So is it a sacerdotial thing that she's received?

Is it a laying on of hands?

Is it an institution?

What words would we use in the Roman church, if you like, or in the Western world to describe what happened to her in terms of ritual?

And also to describe, would we use the word ontological change in terms of...

I know, yes, I can see your heads going, God help us.

But it is a real problem, which you actually address in your book.

But it's that concept of, was she ontologically changed?

Did the ritual provide that ontological ritualiszation?

What happened there?

Phyllis Zagano

I'm not going to get into the ontological debate, but I will tell you, I've seen photographs of the ordination.

She had the laying on of hands inside the iconostasis.

The ritual was the ordination ritual for the Orthodox church.

It's part of the section, or Harare is part of the Patriarchate of Alexandria, which agreed, and also with the agreement, as I understand it, of His All Holiness Bartholomew.

So, it was not so much a departure that it may have been presented in the German papers.

Maybe four or five years ago, there was another ordination in another part of Africa.

And that was more likely an ordination to the subdiaconate, which is still a major order.

But the women there, the five women there, three religious and two lay people or vice versa, were ordained.

And the intent of the bishop at that time was to ordain them to the diaconate, not to the subdiaconate.

However, American money interests said that if he did that, they would pull their money from him.

So it was a subdiaconal ordination, and that's all I know about that.

But I will say that the one in Harare, and I haven't spoken, an American named Dr Carrie Frost was there.

I've spoken to her before, but not since.

She was there to witness it, and she was assuring me that it would be a liturgically correct Greek Orthodox ordination, which is to a major order, and that the woman would be considered a member of the clergy and a deacon.

She wanted me to know there are women deacons in Bulgaria.

There are women deacons in certain places of the Orthodox world that we really don't hear about, and they do proclaim the Gospel.

And they're not all women religious.

And this particular woman is not a religious.

She will be what might be termed a social service deacon.

She's not a monastic deacon.

She'll be out there working with the people, and that was the intent of the bishop, the ordaining bishop.

That's what he said he wanted.

Joe Grayland - The Gospel with hands and feet

So he wanted in many ways then to go back to the roots that you talked about at the beginning of our conversation, that taking the checkbook away from the pastor, I think, was the phrase you used, but getting out there and being part of that social outreach of the church, you know, where the Gospel actually has feet and hands and an intention beyond a proclamation within the liturgy or a homily without reality behind it.

I think it's interesting, don't you think, that if Orthodoxy moves in this way, do you think it makes it easier for Roman Catholicism to follow on?

Do we need them to take the lead rather than the Anglicans?

Phyllis Zagano

Well, I'll tell you, years ago, one woman, a Greek Orthodox woman, spoke with His All Holiness in Constantinople, and he said, well, you know, we don't want to get ahead of the Romans on this.

And another woman I know, a great funder actually in Boston, spoke to Cardinal Sean O'Malley, and he said, well, we don't want to get ahead of the Orthodox on this.

And, of course, three women speaking together said, we could figure this out pretty easily, boys.

I think it's helpful that the Orthodox are reclaiming their tradition.

And the most important thing is that you use the word "sacerdotal ordination," the diaconal ordination is not a sacerdotal ordination.

Pope Benedict XVI, with omnium in mentum in 2009, really echoed the words of the catechism, which had been promulgated, what, in 1983, that basically the diaconate is not the priesthood.

And we see this in Lumen Gentium 29.

We see it in many, many places, that the diaconate is clearly not part of the priesthood, which really rebounds to your question about the so-called transitional and permanent diaconates.

The diaconate is part of holy orders, but it's not part of the priesthood.

And to get that through, the minds that govern the decisions in the Church, I think is the most important barrier that we must overcome.

There is no need, no reason, to assume that an individual ordained as a deacon will actually become a priest.

However, with the work of Gresham in the codification of the Cursus Honorum, at the time you could not be ordained a deacon unless you were, for the most part, going to be ordained a priest.

That's really where the problem is, and it's eight, nine centuries old.

So it's a steep hill to climb.

And I think it's a question of a greater understanding that's needed in the church on both sides of the altar rail on what exactly is the diaconate and how can the diaconate be part of the circle.

Joe Grayland - Catholic Social teaching, Synodality and Women

I want to move the circle on a little bit.

Your recent book, Just Church, was a fascinating read: Catholic Social Teachings, Synodality, and Women.

Why did you put those three elements together?

Phyllis Zagano

Well, the book actually came out a little while ago.

It was completed before the most recent meeting of the Synod.

Catholic Social Teaching, I found an interesting way to enter how women have been discussed in the church.

And of course, I was interested in the way the Synod would be and is discussing the questions relative to women in the church.

So, I just felt there'd be a one, two, or three step, and we first have to understand what Catholic Social Teaching is.

We can take a look at how Catholic Social Teaching has spoken about women, which I do.

Then we can try to understand what is Synodality, and then see how these two concepts have affected the discussion about women in the church and how they might affect the discussion going forward.

The last time we spoke, three years ago, I think, on this program, and at the time I read a letter from someone who I said was a bishop, who I knew, actually was a Jesuit bishop.

Well, actually, I didn't tell you it was from the Pope.

And what he wrote to me, now he wrote me this in 2020.

So, this is one year before the Synod was announced.

And he talks about discernment.

He thanks me for my work and how relevant it is to the question of discernment.

And I'll read you the paragraph that I read on your program three years ago.

"Discernment is not an organisational technique and not even a passing fashion, but it is an interior attitude rooted in an act of faith.

"Discernment is the method and at the same time the goal that we propose.

"It is based on the belief that God is at work in the history of the world, in the events of life, in the people we meet and speak to us.

"This is why we are called to listen to what the Spirit suggests to us with often unpredictable ways and directions."

And he goes on to talk a little bit more about that.

But I don't even think I got it.

I don't think I understood what he was saying in 2020.

And I think we are all trying to grasp.

And I think, you know, I'm trained as an Ignatian director.

Why didn't I get it?

I had been told that the Holy Father was waiting to hear the voice of the Spirit on the question of women in the diaconate.

I think genuinely, and going back to the book, genuinely, that is what I was setting up, and that is what is happening.

Joe Grayland - Taking the Gospel to the streets

We see that Catholic social teaching has taken the Gospel to the streets.

We see a growing understanding of what is synodality, what is discernment.

And now we can take a look at the question of women.

Do we need deacons, such as you asked?

Do we need women deacons, such as you suggest?

These are things to be discerned and carefully discerned.

Can I just go back to some things in your book.

On page 25, you talk a little bit about the UN and what they've been up trying to do.

And you say, not in your words, but in mine, that the Church remains at odds with a lot of these sort of statements.

You know, that we've got, you don't say this so much, but we've got all of this language, all of this intentional language around the place of women and the place and families and everything like this.

But when it comes down to it, maybe the point is that lay people cooperate with power, but they don't share it.

This is an example that comes out of the Australian Plenary Council, you know, and their vote on the diaconate for women.

And I'm just wondering whether, again, another quote from page nine, which I thought was really cool, ontological equality, while also admitting hierarchical subordination.

And so, taken out of context, you know, which is the perfect thing for an interviewer to do, taken out of context, putting all of those things together.

What do you think is the big problem, not the problem, or the challenge that the Church is facing in terms of laity being involved and being included, being activated, but more particularly in terms of women being included?

And then I suppose it comes down to the very particular question around women in the deaconate, which I think is very particular.

But could you take us back up out of the roots, to the top of the grass, and give us an overall view of where you see the Church being at odds with the reality of the world in which many Western Christian Catholic women live?

Phyllis Zagano

Well, you know, Joe, I think the Church will always be at odds with the world as it is typified.

I've just been invited to debate at the Cambridge Union in the UK that feminism is incompatible with religion.

And I wrote them back and said, please define your terms, because if you're talking about feminism that is pro-abortion, etc., of course, if you're talking about feminism that says, no, excuse me, women can do jobs just as men can do, and there's really no restriction, well then, no, it's not.

And in fact, that is something that the Church is, that religion needs to support.

When you talk about authority in the Church, and you reference the term cooperate, I know you were thinking about Canon 129, which was actually written by Joseph Ratzinger, with the exception of one comma.

It went straight into the 1983 Code of Canon Law, that basically lay people can cooperate but not share in governance.

And that is where the tension lies.

And in fact, in terms of the somewhat significant advances that Pope Francis has made in terms of giving women position in the Curia, it's still management, not ministry.

The jobs are ancillary to the spreading of the gospel, not that they're not necessary, but they don't include women at the altar, they don't include women at the ambo, they don't include women in an official capacity, I think, managing the Church's charity.

Except, you know, it's certainly legally, there are ways to do it.

But I think when we, and they certainly don't include women as single judges, you have to be a cleric to be a single judge in a canonical trial.

So there are things that a cleric, and I was just reading this morning, discussions about how the woman deacon of history has always been considered a cleric.

Joe Grayland: There are certain things that are necessary, clerical status is necessary.

Now, does that also imply power?

Phyllis Zagano: Not necessarily.

You know, if you think of power in terms of authority, the woman who is the abbess in history may also have been a deacon, most likely was.

She has ultimate authority in her abbey and her abbey territories.

That authority is also given over to her by the members of her community.

So if we move back to the 21st century, and we find the authority that rests in the episcopacy, it is still given over by the people.

The authority to the bishop is given over by his priests and deacons, and the authority of the people of God is similarly given over.

I don't know, I was asked the other day about power and women asking to be deacons so they could have power.

And my answer is simply that if you're looking to be ordained to have power, you probably want to do something else.

But isn't that the problem?

Well, yeah, it is a problem, but you won't get much or any.

And certainly an individual who comes to be a deacon, just because he or she can't be a priest or a bishop, they'll be shown the door.

I mean, they're just two separate questions.

But again, let's return to the circle.

If we think about the way that a community can discern, and I know that the Australian meeting was not last summer, but the year before, I think it was, was contentious.

And I am aware that 18 Australian bishops voted down the original wording that included women deacons, and I think only five voted it down and one kind of abstained when they reworded it.

But there was still some admission that the people in that assembly did have some power to change things.

I have been described a couple of times as quite interested in the meeting. After tea time, two bishops stood with the rest of the people who refused to sit down or take their seats.

And I've talked to a couple of the bishops who were there.

And, you know, sometimes in families, discussions get tough, and I think this was one of them.

Joe Grayland - Women deacons a sign of a just Church

Why would you suggest that the deaconate for women would be a sign of a just church?

Would it be a sign of the end of discrimination?

Would it be a sign of a theological movement?

Would it be a sign of coming back to the original source?

Phyllis Zagano

You know, Mary Magdalene, for instance, proclaimed the resurrection?

Well, again, I said this before: the question of justice, it's not so much justice for me, and I want this job.

It's more justice for the people of God in a couple of different directions.

First of all, and I've said this quite often until the Holy Father has a woman proclaiming the gospel in St Peter's at a Mass he celebrates, the church really doesn't have the right to say women are to be recognised as equal and to be held as equally human to men.

I mean, it's as simple as that.

I've been told by officials of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which is now the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, I've been told that women cannot image Christ.

I said, watch me. And I wrote a book about it.

You know, that women cannot image Christ is silly.

It's a silliness that is restricted to naive fiscalism.

If you think that only a man on this planet can represent in any way the love and beauty of the risen Christ...

And I think that (women representing the image of Christ) is the justice the church needs.

The church in justice needs to have the whole gospel proclaimed.

The church in justice needs to have all its people ministered to and ministered to as they need to be ministered to.

You know, the Holy Father, and twice I've heard him say this, once in a commission meeting and again in public, or actually first in public, to the International Unions of Superiors General.

He said, you know, he had spoken with an expert, a scholar of Syrian history, who told him that when a woman accused her husband of beating her, she would go to the woman deacon who would examine the bruises and then give testimony to the bishop.

Well, that to me says so much.

The bishop affirmed the testimony of a woman and probably did something about it.

I mean, it's almost an annulment, you know.

And so when you move to the present, when there is a single judge, the single judge is not going to be a woman.

So you will not have a woman going into us for an annulment, telling a single judge who would then give testimony basically to the bishop that there is reason for an annulment.

And that to me, I debated American Professor Sarah Butler at a seminary in Philadelphia years ago.

And she said, oh, women deacons only minister to other women.

I said, well, who ministers to women today?

I mean, even if you restrict the work of women deacons to other women, so what?

Joe Grayland - Cultural beliefs about women

Well, it takes us back to the original, as I mentioned, Mary of Magdala.

And the whole question that is subcutaneous there is about somebody proclaiming a truth when they are considered before the law to be incapable of proclaiming truth.

Yet when the Christian church takes it on, as you've just said, and a woman testifies for another woman in front of a bishop and the bishop does it, then you begin to see that there is a tradition that women are truth tellers within the church.

An uncomfortable tradition, possibly.

Phyllis Zagano

You know, that comes in collision, I think, with a lot of cultural beliefs about women.

I walked out of Mass the other day with a 82-year-old woman, religious, and I told her something that maybe she could mention to the pastor.

She said, well, he's not going to listen to us.

And the influence, well, the implication was he's a man and we're not.

And that's quite true.

And you do find that the stained glass ceiling does exist in other traditions who have ordained women to the diaconate and to priesthood, certainly in the Anglican communion.

Although there are more and more Anglican women bishops, not that I'm arguing for either Anglican bishops or priests, but there is the cultural problem of the way men in the world relate to women in the world.

And as I alluded to or said earlier, until the pope stands up and says, you know, that women are trustworthy enough to proclaim the gospel, even to preach, I don't think the church has the right.

And I will blame the church.

I will blame the church for female genital mutilation.

I'll blame the church for dowry burnings.

I'll blame the church for menstruation huts.

I'll blame the church for wife beating.

There are many instances around the world where women are really badly treated and denigrated and looked down upon.

And you don't know this.

I've suffered it myself.

You know, I love to go to places where they have no idea who I am and they treat me like I'm a dimwit.

I mean, you just laugh because it's so, it's so sad, really.

Joe Grayland - Synods affirm women's diaconate as sign of hope

Recently, you may be aware that in Austria the synodal process there has affirmed the decision of the women's diaconate as a sign of hope.

But, and here in Germany the same, and in various other places it's come through the synodal process.

However, on the other side of it, we've seen other people like Cardinal Sara and others in Africa talking very strongly against these Western European colonial ideas, with introducing the thing that I would describe as an African exceptionalism.

Where in sub-Saharan Africa, you know, the exception is that gay people can be mutilated, burnt, raped, and then killed.

It's perfectly okay for the African episcopate to accept that.

Possibly because they've got some other problems they think are much more important.

Like having to face down Islam, for instance, or as a scholar friend of mine who's in Tübingen at the moment from Nairobi has been informing me of the movement of young people back to the pre-colonial worship forms and understandings of God.

That's a context.

My point is this.

Is it possible that the push for women deacons, equality of women, to not accept, you know, the arguments of the menstruation huts and all the rest of it, is a thoroughly European, North American, white person, I don't know how you describe it.

It's become very difficult to describe.

But it's sort of our argument, but it's not an argument of the global South, which is also a sort of a silly sort of term, because the global South doesn't include places like Australia and New Zealand.

I mean, you know, from all of your travels, what do you think it's just, do you think we're the only ones really interested in it?

Or, you know, is it European, North American exceptionalism to have women or want women or need them?

Phyllis Zagano

Well, European, but probably not Italy, North American, but also Australia and South America and Central America.

I sat at a table with Wilfred Nepier in South Africa, the retired cardinal, who told me that he objected to my pushing Western ideas down his throat.

I said, well, no one's pushing anything down anybody's throat.

If your territory does not need or wish for women in the diaconate, it will not have it.

It's as simple as that.

If Austria and Germany find that the diaconate can include women and the church can accept it, and there is a need for it, then that's what it is.

I sat at a table with the bishops of Cambodia and Thailand, and I asked them about women in the diaconate.

They said, we wouldn't care, male or female, we need the help, number one, but you know what, we don't have enough educated people to make them deacons.

That was, I think, before the Holy Father invited the church to include women as acolytes and lectors.

I can see where, for example, in Cambodia and Thailand, formally training and installing women and men as lectors and acolytes would be a wonderful expansion of the church's ministry.

I think that the cultures that can accept the ordination of women will, and the cultures that cannot may move to have a greater understanding of the equality of women as human beings.

Even if they do not include women in their own diaconates, if they have diaconates at all, I think it could still be helpful as an example of the way women can and should be recognized and respected.

I'm certain that if, not actually if, when it rolls out, it'll be the same as the diaconate was rolled out after the Second Vatican Council.

That is, Episcopal conferences would need to decide if they would include women in their own diaconates, and Rome would approve their requests.

And then it would go back, and the Episcopal conferences would simply say to their bishops, individual bishops would make their own decisions about what they need in their diocese.

And one would hope, with an increase in synodality, that the bishop's decision could be a more synodal decision, and less of an individual "I'm in charge" decision, which the church suffers in too many places still.

Joe Grayland - Census fidei

Maybe there are other things going through your head and you would like to give us a sentence or some sort of phrase just to wrap up maybe the loose ends of this conversation.

Something that occurs to you that I haven't asked that I should have asked, or a point that you'd just like to emphasise before we wrap up.

Phyllis Zagano

Well, I think the thing I would like to emphasize is that the work of the church, the mission, you know, the synod talks about communion, mission, and participation.

As the dogmatic constitution of the church teaches, we must be in communion on matters of faith and morals.

You know, the census fidei is there, and it's very important.

The mission of the church to me is to spread the gospel and to act on the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And participation is who gets to do what.

And I think that's where we are in terms of figuring it out as we go along in our different cultures.

You know, Joe, you're in Germany. Others are listening in New Zealand, in Australia.

I'm in the United States.

Everybody has a different situation.

But if that situation and if that conversation has the gospel at its centre, I think that's where we will progress as human beings, certainly, and as Christians.

• This is a transcript of a conversation between Phyllis Zagano and Joe Grayland on the topic of the diaconate. The text has been edited in parts for flow.
• Phyllis Zagano is American author and academic. She has written and spoken on the role of women in the Roman Catholic Church and is an advocate for the ordination of women as deacons. She is a researcher and adjunct professor a Hofstra University. Her latest book is "Just Church: Catholic Social Teaching, Synodality, and Women".

The Western media has gone a bit mad, calling it "breaking with tradition" and a radical new step forward.

Ordaining women deacons

The usual suspects have trotted out the usual creaky arguments about female diaconal ordination being just a matter of days away in the Catholic church.

But some of our Orthodox brothers and sisters would beg to differ.

I've been reading conflicting news accounts from different Orthodox news services about how the process was approved, what for, and how it was done.

It's made me heave a sigh of relief that the Catholic church is moving in geological time on this issue.

The Orthodox churches have a range of views on deaconesses, and when and how they should be deployed, and what they can and can't do. So far, they can't agree with each other.

There's also a group of Orthodox women - the St Phoebe Centre for the Deaconess, based in the United States - with a familiar feminist twist.

They want women deacons to be fully involved in the Orthodox liturgy and equivalent to male deacons.

But this isn't how most Orthodox churches see it.

Orthodox differences

It seems that the Catholic church isn't the only one with a wealthy, educated and privileged minority who think the church should be re-made in their own image.

What I've now learned is that many—but not all—Orthodox communities have accepted that deaconesses were part of the early church.

This doesn't include a group called "The Church of Greece", who are part of the Greek Orthodox church. They say they've never had deaconesses and aren't about to start now.

But for the others, if it's a matter of reviving something ancient for modern times, what might that look like? Even the Patriarchate in Africa admits that this is still a work in progress.

There's a nice distinction in the Orthodox church between chirotony (what we'd call ordination) and chirothesy (‘the laying on of hands').

Deaconesses were traditionally appointed through chirothesy.

The Orthodox liturgy is also different from the Western rite of Mass.

There's already been a row because Deaconess Angelic assisted with the distribution of holy communion at her ordination ceremony, which wasn't meant to be part of her role.

But in the West, we've already introduced women readers at Mass, and women as extraordinary ministers of holy Communion.

Women as readers are still quite rare in the Orthodox churches, so we're streets ahead.

Baptism in Orthodox churches is full immersion. It's usually for children aged about three, and they also make their first communion and are confirmed at the same time.

In Africa there's a lot of adult converts to Christianity, including Orthodoxy.

Deaconesses could well assist there with adult female baptisms in a way that's consistent with their role in the early church.

Deaconesses in Africa could also go into women's homes and visit them pastorally without causing trouble in male-dominated communities.

So maybe this old practice could work in this specific pastoral situation.

Changing need

The Orthodox authorities are very aware that the role of women deacons became obsolete as things changed.

Like the Catholic church, they moved to mostly child baptisms, and women gradually gained more freedom of movement.

Most of us would recognise that in the Western Catholic church, there's no urgent pastoral call for women deacons.

We don't do full immersion baptisms, there's no stampede of adult female converts, and women have full social equality with men.

We're already a female-dominated church in the pews—around two-thirds of all regular Mass-goers in Australia are women.

Most of these are feisty souls who come and go as they please and aren't trapped at home by a patriarchal husband.

We've got plenty of priests to manage our very small Mass-going population, even if we do need to spread them out a bit more.

We have extraordinary ministers of holy Communion to help with Sunday Masses and sick calls.

And if you absolutely must preach, get yourself a YouTube channel or a TikTok account. Or a Catholic newspaper column.

Vatican II gave us back the lay vocation and the personal call to holiness.

Thousands of lay people in Australia have already embraced it willingly, and their work in their parishes and communities is bearing fruit.

Reviving women deacons in the Catholic church in the West is pointless—they're already obsolete. What on earth could they do that isn't already done competently by lay men and women?

• First published at The Catholic Weekly
• Philippa Martyr is a Perth-based historian, university lecturer and academic researcher.

The question is resounding more loudly as the summit of bishops and lay Catholics known as the Synod on Synodality, scheduled for October, draws near.

Participants and observers alike recognize that any conversation about reforming church hierarchy or promoting lay involvement, Francis' twin goals for the synod, has to include honest exchanges about the role of women.

"It's not just one issue among others that you can tease out," said Casey Stanton, co-director of Discerning Deacons, a group committed to promoting dialogue about the female diaconate in the Church.

"It's actually kind of at the heart of the synod and we need to take a step forward that is meaningful, and that people can see and feel in their communities."

Stanton believes that opening the door for women to become deacons — allowing them to oversee some aspects of the Mass but not consecrate the Eucharist or perform other duties reserved for priests such as anointing the sick — could send an important signal to Catholics that the Vatican is listening to their concerns.

The upcoming synod already gives a greater role to women, who will be allowed to vote for the first time in any such meeting.

Of the 364 voting participants, mostly bishops, more than 50 will be women.

But women were never the intended focus of the synod, a project Francis hoped would inspire discussion of a "new way of being church," which was interpreted to mean a focus on church power structures and rethinking the privilege enjoyed by clergy.

But by the end of the last phase of the synod, when gatherings of bishops divided by continents examined the topics brought up at the grassroots level, it was clear that the question of women had taken center stage.

The document that emerged from those discussions, with the telling title "Enlarge Your Tent," spoke to the "almost unanimous affirmation" to raise the role of women in the church.

The document described the peripheral role played by women in the church as a growing issue that impacted the function of the clergy and how power is exercised in the historically male-led institution.

While it made no mention of female ordination to the priesthood, it did suggest that the diaconate might answer a need to recognize the ministry already offered by women all over the world.

"It's remarkable the shared cry that came through in ‘Enlarge the Space of Your Tent' around the deep connection between creating a new synodal path in the church and a church that more fully receives the gifts that women bring," Stanton said.

When, in June, the Vatican issued its "instrumentum laboris," or working document that will guide the discussion at the synod, it explicitly asked:

"Most of the Continental Assemblies and the syntheses of several Episcopal Conferences call for the question of women's inclusion in the diaconate to be considered. Is it possible to envisage this, and in what way?"

Attributing the question to the continental assemblies and avoiding the words "ministry" and "ordination" in asking it, said Miriam Duignan, co-director of Women's Ordination Worldwide, constituted a "preemptive strike" against open discussion of priestly ordination.

This avoids a direct challenge to the Vatican, which has shut down the possibility of women's ordination many times.

In 1976, the Pontifical Biblical Commission established that Scripture did not prevent the ordination of women and voted that female priests did not contradict Christ's vision for the church.

But soon after, the Vatican's doctrinal watchdog, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, intervened to state that the church was not authorized to ordain women.

Pope John Paul II had the final word on the issue when he definitively stated that "the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women," in his 1994 apostolic letter "Ordinatio Sacerdotalis" ("Priestly Ordination").

Francis and synod organizers have emphasized that the synod has no intention of opening that door.

"For the Catholic Church at this moment, from an official point of view, it's not an open question," said Nathalie Becquart, undersecretary at the Vatican's synod office, in an interview.

The question of the female diaconate, however, remained open.

Pope Benedict XVI changed canon law in 2009 to clarify the distinction between priests and bishops, who act as representatives of Christ, and deacons, who "serve the People of God in the diaconates of the liturgy, of the Word and of charity."

"Benedict predicted that the call for women priests and ministry was going to get stronger and stronger," Duignan told Religion News Service on Tuesday (July 25) in a phone interview.

The demand for women deacons was an underlying topic during Francis' previous synods on young people, the family and the Amazonian region. Francis created a commission to study the possibility of women deacons in 2016, and when no clear results emerged, he instituted another in April 2020.

According to Duignan, the commissions were "set up to fail," since a decision on the matter required a unanimous vote.

While it's undeniable that women deacons existed in the early and pre-medieval Church, theologians and historians remain divided on whether women were ordained deacons or if they occupied the role in a more informal way.

"There were women deacons in the past. We could do it again," Stanton said. "Let's just settle that."

The division on the question means that Francis will likely have to decide.

"Our prediction is that there is going to be a bit of a stalemate between those bishops who fear a diaconate role for women, and those who say now it's the time, let's give them the diaconate," Duignan said.

Advocates for female deacons hope the pope will finally welcome the demand felt by many Catholic women. "For many young people it has become untenable," Stanton said, "an obstacle to feeling the gospel."

The pope could leave the decision to individual bishops, which would create a patchwork of policies.

Stanton, who has witnessed many experiments for new ministries for women, said that while one bishop may open new opportunities for women, the issue will "wither on the vine" if another bishop doesn't see it as a priority.

In the end, she added, "it's one cleric getting to determine the scope of a woman's vocation and ministries."

Historically, the path to priestly ordination follows the steps of lector, acolyte and deacon. In January 2021, Francis allowed women to become lectors and acolytes; a decision in favor of female deacons could signal a cautious opening for the cause of women priests.

"The glacial pace for change in the modern Catholic Church means we have to accept any steps forward as progress," Duignan said.

The female diaconate would in her opinion offer some recognition for the women who catechize, evangelize and assist faithful all over the world.

"Once they start seeing women at the altar in an official role and seems to be leading the Mass there will be more calls for women priests," she added.

Advocacy groups such as Women's Ordination Worldwide will be in Rome in October to make their demands known through vigils, marches and conferences.

The Synod on Synodality will draw the attention not just of Catholics but women everywhere, putting the question of female leadership in the church and beyond in the spotlight.

"The women are coming," Duignan said. What remains unknown is whether the Vatican is prepared.

• Claire Giangravé is an author at Religion News Service.
• First published by Religion News Service. Republished with permission.

Dr Zagano was one of 12 scholars appointed by Pope Francis in 2016 to the commission to study the diaconate as it existed in the early Church to ascertain the possibility of women deacons.

The Pope said their research was inconclusive and in 2020 reconvened a new commission to examine the question.

Addressing an online seminar on 3 September held to coincide with the feast of St Phoebe, who is recognised as a deacon saint in Orthodox churches, Dr Zagano referred to an "ongoing battle" for the female diaconate, and she believes the interest has grown in Australia over the 10 years since she last visited the country.

Though known for arguing strongly for ordination of women to the diaconate, Dr Zagano said that in many places women acolytes, lectors and particularly catechists hold important roles and, in some places, what may be needed is greater investment in lay parish leaders rather than widening the scope for ordination.

But she said the discussion about the female diaconate had become circular, and she "can't imagine that the Holy Father would be able to make a statement about the topic before the Synod on Synodality in 2023".

Australia's Plenary Council motions, which are yet to be sent to Rome, include a recommendation that should the universal law of the Church be modified to authorise the diaconate for women, that the Australian bishops examine how best to implement it in the context of the Church in Australia.

It comes as the Church in other countries undertakes similar discussions in the lead up to the Synod on Synodality called by Pope Francis for October 2023 in Rome. German bishops voted in favour of women deacons earlier this year as part of the country's current synod path process.

More than 100 people joined the two-hour seminar organised by Mercy Sr Elizabeth Young of Liturgy on the Margins and supported by Catholic Religious Australia.

Another speaker, associate professor Anthony Gooley of the Broken Bay Institute and a deacon of the Archdiocese of Brisbane, said the permanent diaconate is vital but often undervalued, misunderstood and lacking necessary support in the life of the Church.

Ordination of women to the diaconate should "not be a means to increase the power or representation of women or to replace a shortage of clerics elsewhere, any more than the ordination of any man as a presbyter, bishop or deacon should be made for the purpose of increasing their power or the shortage of clerics.

"It must be affirming of our faith, affirming our faith in the tradition and affirming this history," he said.

Reprinted with permission of Catholic Weekly.

Sources

Catholic Weekly

On June 1, Pope Francis promulgated revisions to the Code of Canon Law detailing crimes and punishments.

The new "Book VI: Penal Sanctions in the Church" takes effect on December 8.

Most of the revisions have to do with crimes of sexual abuse and the responses (or non-responses) of bishops and religious superiors.

Some have to do with financial crimes.

And then there is the one about women's ordination: "Can. 1379 § 3.

Both a person who attempts to confer a sacred order on a woman, and the woman who attempts to receive the sacred order, incur a latae sententiae excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See; a cleric, moreover, may be punished by dismissal from the clerical state."

While the folks on the right can barely contain their glee, and more folks on the left are heading for the door, there is nothing new about this tiny sentence in a much longer document.

In fact, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith presented the same wording and the same penalty in a 2007 General Decree.

Then, in 2010, Pope Benedict XVI presented nearly identical modifications to legal norms regarding "grave delicts."

Francis now presents an entirely new law book.

On the whole, he repeats or strengthens the ways canon law can chasten, punish or even dismiss offenders in a broad variety of crimes. And he includes laity as well as clerics.

Francis also codifies some interesting concepts. For example, drunkenness is not a defence.

In fact, one is doubly responsible if the crime occurs during willful drunkenness, and the penalty for a drunken crime must reflect that greater responsibility.

Then again, there are a lot of loopholes: It seems that ignorance of the law is indeed an excuse.

Finally, there is some new language: Twice "means of social communication" are mentioned, once for exciting contempt for religion or the church, another for recording confessions and releasing the information.

"Technology" also makes an appearance, in relation to pornography and grooming vulnerable individuals.

The revisions to this particular book of canon law actualize things Francis has spoken about; in particular, they more clearly describe sexual abuse crimes and the punishments thereof.

Some complain he has not gone far enough, and others complain about an apparent favouring of secrecy, but on the whole, the revised and new canons seem a step in the right direction.

But then there is that new canon about ordaining women, which seems dropped in from nowhere.

Maybe so, maybe no.

Recall, the wording duplicates the CDF's 2007 decree and Benedict's 2010 modifications to legal norms.

Proponents of women moving into the clerical ranks may be disappointed, but there is nothing new.

However, the new canon specifies "a sacred order."

That could be just priesthood, at least if history is to be respected.

By the time the canonist Gracian collected canon laws in the 12th century, few women and fewer men were ordained to the diaconate as a permanent vocation.

The law developed so that no (man) could be ordained a deacon unless he was destined to become a priest.

Only more modern arguments conjoin the diaconate and the priesthood, such that that the diaconate is part of the priesthood.

It is not.

The Orthodox have no such confusion, and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I has said nothing bars the ordaining women deacons.

In fact, to conjoin the two orders is to argue for women priests, because there is a long and documented history of women sacramentally ordained as deacons.

What the church has done, it can do again.

The important thing to remember is that the now codified restriction against ordaining women, at least as deacons, is a "merely ecclesiastical law."

That is, it can be changed.

Recall, if you will, that Francis modified canon law to allow all laity — male and female — to be installed as lectors and acolytes.

That represented a development of doctrine. And the current discipline is that all persons who are ordained deacons must first have served in these two installed lay ministries.

We know "merely ecclesiastical laws" can be modified. So does Francis.

The best news in all this came at a press conference when Bishop Juan Ignacio Arrieta, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, answered an interesting question.

Catholic News Service asked why the revised canon does not specify priestly ordination, thereby leaving open the question of women deacons.

After all, there is now a second study commission on women deacons.

Arrieta said that law reflects current church teaching, and "If we come to a different theological conclusion, we will modify the norm."

• Phyllis Zagano is a senior research associate-in-residence at Hofstra University, in Hempstead, New York. Her most recent book is Women: Icons of Christ, and her other books include Women Deacons: Past, Present, Future. Study guides for both books are available for free download at sites.hofstra.edu/phyllis-zagano/.
• First published by ncronline.org. Republished with permission.

"They anointed ill women; they brought communion to ill women," said Ms. Zagano.

They also participated in baptism, served as treasurers and, in at least one case, participated in an annulment.

Discussing that annulment, Ms. Zagano said a woman in Syria "complained that her husband was beating her.

It was the woman deacon who examined the bruises and gave the testimony to the bishop.

Well, to me, that's an annulment—she is providing the information."

"But to say that everybody did the same thing all over I think is disingenuous," Ms. Zagano added.

Father Pottier said he was able to find strong evidence of women deacons in church records and histories, but "not everywhere and not always because it was also a choice of the bishop."

In an interview with Michael J. O'Loughlin, America's national correspondent, on Jan. 14, Ms. Zagano and Father Pottier, who serve on the Vatican's Study Commission on the Women's Diaconate, discussed their research on women deacons and the early church.

They emphasized that roles for women deacons varied greatly depending on geography.

The two commission members were in New York for a symposium at the Fordham Center on Religion and Culture called "The Future of Women Deacons".

Ms. Zagano said, "There was ordination…. The most interesting evidence is the fact that the ordination ceremonies [we discovered] for women deacons were identical to the ordination ceremonies for men."

Father Pottier said women began to serve as deacons "very early" in the Eastern church but by the 10th century that ministry ended. In the West, women served as deacons from approximately the fifth century until the 11th or 12th century. Continue reading

Francis has, of course, been busy with other things. The seventy-eight-year-old Jesuit now in the third year of his papacy seems quite serious in his efforts to reform the Roman Curia, by all accounts a bloated bureaucracy resistant to change. The pope's early movement toward transparency in Vatican financial matters earned him enemies within the system, and his ongoing efforts to uncover fiscal improprieties do not exactly grease the wheels needed to move the Curia forward to reform. Francis's dual efforts—curial and financial reform—support his larger agenda and aim: preaching the Gospel and living its message.

But, what about women? In interviews and writings, the pope often returns to the topic of women's roles in the Church. Within a few months of his election, Francis called for a "more widespread and incisive female presence in the Church" in an interview with Antonio Spadaro, the Jesuit editor of La Civiltà Cattolica, one of Italy's oldest periodicals and the only one whose text is approved by the Vatican's state department.1 The papal interview, translated into several languages and printed in sixteen Jesuit journals, caught the attention of the major Spanish daily newspaper El País,2 which suggested Francis might be considering female cardinals. The report brought a papal response: "I don't know where that comment came from!"

Even so, Francis repeated the same call a few months later in his first apostolic exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel): "we need to create still broader opportunities for a more incisive female presence in the Church."3 He repeated that phrase when speaking before the Pontifical Council for Culture's February 2015 plenary assembly on women in the church.4 The event was perhaps a response to another papal suggestion—development of a "theology of the woman in the Church"—made on the papal plane ride back to Rome from the 2013 World Youth Day in Brazil. Continue reading

• Phyllis Zagano is senior research associate-in-residence at Hofstra University, and a leading authority on women deacons in the Catholic Church.