Francis was asked during a meeting with leaders of female religious congregations about women deacons and their role in the early church.

The Pope responded that he had spoken about the matter some years ago with a "good, wise professor" who had studied the use of female deacons in the early centuries of the Church.

Francis said last Thursday that the professor had told him that female deacons had helped the early Church, particularly in baptising women.

This was when the practice of Baptism at the time called for full immersion of the person's naked body in water.

But Francis said it remained unclear to him what role such deacons had, so he agreed with the sisters that it would be a good idea to set up a commission to look at the issue.

Vatican spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi, SJ, later said Pope Francis did not say in his remarks that he intends to introduce the ordination of women deacons and even less the ordination of women as priests.

Many historians have said that there is abundant evidence that women served as deacons in the early centuries of the Church.

According to a report in UK Catholic Herald, Francis told the congregational leaders he would get the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to tell him if there had been studies on the matter.

In 2001, the International Theological Commission, which advises the CDF, issued a document which concluded that female deacons in history were not "purely and simply" equivalent to permanent deacons.

The commission spoke of the unity of the Sacrament of Holy Orders.

But it also mentioned a clear distinction between the ministries of the bishop and the priests on the one hand and the diaconal ministry on the other.

At the meeting with congregational leaders, Pope Francis said women could not preach at Mass because the priest is serving "in persona Christi" and should therefore give the homily.

He promised that the Congregation for Divine Worship would send the congregational leaders a full explanation of this.

Sources

• The Tablet
• National Catholic Reporter
• Catholic Herald
• Vatican Radio
• Image: Catholic Sun

In an interview with aleteia.org, Cardinal Robert Sarah said intercommunion between Catholics and other Christians is not a matter of following one's conscience.

Rather, intercommunion between Christians not united in faith and doctrine would promote profanation, he said.

His comments came a few weeks after Pope Francis spoke to a Lutheran woman with a Catholic spouse, after she expressed her regret they could not receive Catholic Communion together.

The Pope said that while he didn't dare to give her permission to receive Catholic Communion because it was not his competence, he said she should "talk to the Lord and go forward" from there.

The Pope emphasised the fact that if Christians have the same Baptism, they must walk together.

Speaking to aleteia.org, Cardinal Sarah said that many priests have told him they give Communion to everyone.

The cardinal said this is "nonsense".

"Sometimes, an Anglican who is very far away from his church for a very long period of time and who desires to receive Communion, can participate in Mass and receive Communion in the Catholic Church, where there is no sin, and he is properly married," the cardinal said.

"Because they believe in the Eucharist, even if in the Anglican church is it not actually the Eucharist because there is no priesthood.

"But it is rare and would happen under very exceptional circumstances.

"This is something extraordinary and not ordinary."

Cardinal Sarah continued: "But a Catholic cannot receive communion in the Anglican church, because there is no Communion; there is only bread."

"The bread is not consecrated, because the priest is not a priest.

"With the break of Henry VIII with the Catholic Church, priestly orders in the Anglican Church became null and void.

"So the consecration isn't valid, and therefore it's not the Eucharist."

Sources

• Aleteia.org
• National Catholic Reporter
• Image: Rorate Caeli

University of Canberra chaplain Fr Paul McGavin explained his criteria in a 2000-word article in L'Espresso.

He started by stating that ordination does not change a man.

"He has access to the authority and grace of Holy Orders. Whether or not these are enacted in important measure depends upon the human qualities that are present in the one who is ordained," he wrote.

Therefore selection criteria need to focus on human qualities and the way that grace is manifested in those human qualities.

Fr McGavin wrote that it is from this perspective that his 12 criteria are put forward.

In summary, firstly, a candidate must be a manly man, confident in his own masculinity.

Second, he must be a man of integrity who can be trusted.

Third, he must be a man of principle, insisting on due process and natural justice, proceeding canonically rather than arbitrarily.

Fourth, fear of God is important.

Fifth, he must be inclusive. "Has he as a priest pastor worked to build a community where diverse people find a place and a welcome. . . . Has he shown himself as a man of acute listening skills so that he hears deeply what is being said to him?"

Sixth, he must be a man of prayer, so that people encounter a man who "practises the presence of God".

Seventh, is he humble in a robust way? If he is not, "the Church will have a man who is wilful and who abuses his position, is threatened by others, who puts down others and who thinks himself to be what he is not".

Eighth, he must love beauty, and be a man who "communicates the beauty of God from small and lowly things through to exalted things".

Ninth, he must have a history of proven intellectual accomplishment.

Tenth, practical implementation capacities are important.

Eleventh, he must be able to decide what not to do.

Twelfth, the Church needs men of deep love who try to imitate Christ, and don't just do their own thing.

Sources

• L'Espresso
• Image: Goulburn Post