Leadership positions within the Church are important, a pre-International Women's Day gathering near the Vatican said.

"It's so important that the Catholic Church be engaged in this issue, not just internally but also externally given the contribution they make in the education sphere and the health care sphere" says Chiara Porro, Australia's ambassador to the Holy See.

Porro agrees the Vatican has taken significant steps forward during her four years in Rome. Catholic women have been appointed to many high-ranking Vatican positions.

There are now 40 women ambassadors to the Vatican - and they often talk about the issue of women's influence.

"We come all over the world. We support each other, we share ideas, we network" she says.

Porro works closely with the International Union of Superiors General.

Besides highlighting their work, especially with the poor, the Union also works with women of other faiths, she says.

Interfaith effort

Last week the Australian, French and Netherlands embassies sponsored and attended a "Women Sowing Seeds of Peace and Cultivating Encounter" conference.

Attendees were Christian, Jewish, Buddhist and Hindu female faith leaders.

"When we talk about interfaith dialogue, when we talk about religious leaders coming together. We find that a lot of the religions around the world are led by men, so it's really important to bring female faith leaders together" Porro says.

One day at the conference was set aside for women theologians, experts and leaders to discuss female leadership. Here, ordained missionary and theologian Maeve Louise Heaney questioned Catholic theology that attempts to "essentialise" women.

"They speak of complementarity and name the contribution of women as essentially different to that of men, pitching love, spirituality and nurturing against authority, leadership and intellect."

Catholics should reconsider their idea of God and the Holy Spirit as neither male nor female.

Survey

A 2022 Catholic Women Speak survey of 17,200 women in 104 countries found two-thirds of Catholic women support "radical reform".

Almost 30 percent said they would consider leaving the Church if women aren't given more prominence.

Heaney is encouraged by the Synod on Synodality which will hold its second session at the Vatican in October. The Vatican is already discussing allowing women to be ordained as deacons, she says.

"What if we allowed spaces for women to preach? Under the authority of the bishop, in collaboration with the parish priest, with the proper formation like all the rest of the ministry. You might find that the issue of priesthood changes in colour if we have different kinds of leadership."

Patience needed

While many women want change and while Catholic charity Caritas is urging its 162 affiliated Catholic charities to create spaces for women's leadership dialogue, Pope Francis is not on board.

He continues to use language that reinforces the role of women as mothers and caregivers.

"The Church is female" he says. Women have a "unique capacity for compassion" that allows them "to bring love where love is lacking, and humanity where human beings are searching to find their true identity."

• Religion News Service

That sums up the synod and the state of the Catholic Church's attitude toward change.

In October, hundreds of bishops, joined by lay men and women, priests, deacons, religious sisters and brothers met for nearly a month in Rome for the Synod on Synodality.

At its end, the synod released a synthesis report brimming with the hope and the promise that the church would be a more listening church.

Some 54 women voted at the synod. Back home, women are still ignored.

Why?

It is not because women quote the Second Vatican Council at parish council meetings. It is because too many bishops and pastors ignore parish councils.

It is not because women of the world do not write to their pastors and bishops. It is because without large checks, their letters are ignored.

The Synod on Synodality was groundbreaking in part because it was more about learning to listen.

It was more about the process than about results. Its aim was to get the whole church on board with a new way of relating, of having "conversations in the Spirit," where listening and prayer feed discernment and decision-making.

Even now, the project faces roadblocks. At their November meeting this week in Baltimore, U.S. bishops heard presentations by Brownsville, Texas, Bishop Daniel Flores, who has led the two-year national synod process so far.

His brother bishops did not look interested.

To be fair, some bishops in some dioceses, in the U.S. and other parts of the world, are on board with Pope Francis' attempt to encourage the church to accept the reforms of Vatican II, to listen to the people of God.

Too many bishops are having none of it

The synod recognized the church's global infection with narcissistic clericalism.

It said fine things about women in leadership and the care of other marginalized people. Yet the synod remains a secret in many places. Its good words don't reach the people in the pews.

Ask about synodality in any parish, and you might hear "Oh, we don't do that here." You are equally likely to hear "When I" sermons ("When I was in seminary," "When I was in another parish"), and not about the Gospel.

Folks who were excited by Francis' openness and pastoral message just shake their heads.

The women who want to contribute, who want to belong, are more than dispirited.

They have had it.

And they are no longer walking toward the door — they are running, bringing their husbands, children and chequebooks with them.

In the Diocese of Brooklyn, it was recently discovered that Mass attendance had dropped 40 percent since 2017.

It is the same in too many places.

The reason the church is wobbling is not a lack of piety.

It is because women are ignored.

Their complaints only reach as far as the storied circular file.

What do women complain about?

Women complain about bad sermons, as discussed. Autocratic pastors. And the big one: pederasty.

If truth be told, women do not trust unmarried men with their children.

Worldwide, in diocese after diocese, new revelations continue. Still.

Many bishops and pastors understand this.

Francis certainly does, but he is constrained by clerics who dig their heels into a past many of them never knew.

More and more young (and older) priests pine for the 1950s, when priests wore lace and women knew their place. That imagining does not include synodality.

Will the synod effort work?

Francis' opening to women in church management is promising. Where women are in the chancery, there is more opportunity for women's voices to be heard. No doubt, a few more women there could help.

Getting women into the sacristy is trickier.

While it seems most synod members agreed about restoring women to the ordained diaconate as a recognition of the baptismal equality of all, some stalwarts argued it was against Tradition.

Still, others saw the spectre of a "Western gender ideology" seeking to confuse the roles of men and women.

So, they asked for a review of the research. Again.

Women know the obvious: Women were ordained as deacons.

There will never be complete agreement on the facts of history, anthropology and theology. Women have said this over and over.

If there is absolute evidence that women cannot be restored to the ordained diaconate, it should be presented, and a decision made.

The women have finished speaking about it.

• Phyllis Zagano is an author at Religion News Service. 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.

The synthesis report summarises synodal discussions about how a synodal Church's ministries and structures can give a wider role for laity which is more in line with the vision of Vatican II.

Big issues discussed at the synod were identified in its two-year lead-up, and besides reporting on the past month, the report also lays the foundation for the second part of the Synod scheduled for October 2024.

At the time of CathNews publication, the report was only available in Italian!

• Note: The report is now available in English as a PDF document.

The synthesis report

The synthesis report outlines key proposals discussed between some 450 participants from around the world.

It covers off areas of convergence, matters for consideration and proposals that are expected to set the stage for further debate throughout the year ahead of next year's assembly.

For the first time ever at a Synod of Bishops, voting members included lay women, laymen and other non-bishops.

Voting on the document was taken paragraph by paragraph on Saturday.

A two-thirds majority vote threshold was set for passing each paragraph.

Although the report makes 81 proposals, many are open-ended or general.

Further theological or canonical study, evaluation or consideration is called for at least 20 times.

Yes and No votes

More than 80 proposals were approved in the synod vote.

These include establishing a new "baptismal ministry of listening and accompaniment," initiating discernment processes for decentralising the Church and giving lectors a preaching ministry.

The most 'no' votes - accounting for about a fifth of the delegates - were given to two primary paragraphs addressing the possibility of women deacons.

One passed by a vote of 277-69; the other by 279-67.

"That means that the resistance [to women's leadership] is not so great as people have thought" the Vatican's Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich said.

A paragraph addressing the question of clerical celibacy also received substantial No votes, but passed at 291-55.

Women

The synthesis report does not call immediately for the ordination of women as deacons. Nor does it mention calls for priestly ordination for women.

It does include however, a "clear request" from the assembly that women's contributions "would be recognised and valued, and that their pastoral leadership increased in all areas."

The synthesis report also questions how the Church can include more women in existing ministries.

"If new ministries are required, who should discern these, at what levels and in what ways?" it asks.

The Church must address employment injustices and unfair remuneration for women in the church "especially for women in consecrated life."

Liturgical text and church document reviews will ensure language is considerate to both men and women and draws more widely on women's experience.

Archbishop Paul Martin and Fr James Martin SJ in their Synod group.

LGBTQ Catholics

The report seemed to largely glosses over the tensions that emerged over how the Church should respond to LGBTQ Catholics.

Jesuit Fr James Martin, editor of the LGBTQ Catholic publication Outreach, says he was "disappointed but not surprised" by the result for LGBTQ Catholics.

"There were widely diverging views on the topic," says Martin, who was a synod voting member.

"I wish however that some of those discussions, which were frank and open, had been captured in the final synthesis."

It is a point emphasised by Cardinal Blaise Cupich in a conversation with America Magazine.

No one should feel excluded and we have to get to know people, Cupich said.

However he admitted that while trying to pick up on what people said perhaps the document could have expressed the nuances a little better.

Cupich said there was explicit reference to LGBTQ issues in the groups he was in and the lack of explicit reference does not mean we're not going to return to it again next year.

He said there was greater discussion about LGBTQ issues than there was about polygamy, yet polygamy was named in the document.

Cardinal Mario Grech says the assembly felt a need to "respect everyone's pace" regarding LGBTQ questions.

"It doesn't mean if your voice is stronger it will prevail."

Clergy abuse

The synthesis report proposes creating further structures to prevent abuse.

These include the possibility of establishing a new body to review abuse cases that does not rely on bishops.

"The appropriateness of assigning the judicial task to another body, to be specified canonically, should be explored."

The report also recommends women receive formation "to enable them to be judges in all canonical processes."

Other key proposals

In a move signalling shift within the Catholic Church, the synod's final document outlines several key proposals aimed at fostering inclusivity and unity among its diverse communities. Among the recommendations:

• The development of "new paradigms" for pastoral engagement with Indigenous communities, emphasizing a collaborative journey rather than actions imposed upon them
• The formation of a "permanent council" comprising leaders from Eastern Rite Catholic Churches, tasked with advising the pope on challenges facing these communities
• An expanded invitation to delegates from other Christian denominations for the October 2024 assembly, in a bid to foster ecumenical dialogue
• A strong expression of desire from the assembly for the Catholic Church and other Christian denominations to establish a common date for the celebration of Easter

Source

• NCR Online
• Catholic News Agency
• America Magazine

Neither has an answer. There is only silence.

I re-entered Catholicism with some trepidation, overpowered by a longing I could not name.

Intellectually, I understood that what had exiled me in the 1980s had not changed. Popes come and go but misogyny remains entrenched.

I came back anyway, drawn by light through stained glass, by beautiful and inspiring music, by pews filled with goodhearted people who reflected our city neighbourhoods, not just in ethnicity and colour but in shades of gender, sexuality, physical abilities and gifts.

In the decades of my absence it seemed the church had gotten much right.

But not the whole gender equity thing.

On that the hierarchy remains frozen. Intransigent. Unyielding. Unhearing.

I entered in the autumn months, among displays of departed loved ones commemorated through the month of the dead. And I returned amid conversation which harkened some movement on the issue of women's equal dignity and participation.

A deacon proposed reviving the dialogue around female deacons.

I attended a preliminary meeting but soon became uncomfortable with both the inadequacy and inequity.

Why such incremental change? Why not full and immediate recognition of women's equality? Why do we continue to placate, to cater to embedded misogyny within a church to which we look for inspiration, enlightenment?

From that initial meeting sprang a coalition of women who asked these questions aloud.

At the time it felt liberating, exhilarating. A flurry of activities and meetings unfolded; plans were proposed and refined. Then COVID-19 hit and we retreated to our screens.

Over time and distance further shifts occurred.

A merger of parishes distinct in outlooks and practices, a new pastor charismatic and unyielding in his opposition to our goals.

Our group statements and announcements were censored, no longer welcome in the parish bulletin. We were encouraged not to be "disruptive" to parish unity.

And over time our voices muted, demands softened to polite entreaties. The focus became education, not action.

We sponsored presentations on the historical role of women in the church. This was more palatable, more easily digested by those uncomfortable with change.

With the overturning of Roe v. Wade, pro-life announcements crept into our liturgies, enjoying full access to the bulletin.

Despite the overwhelming opposition to the Supreme Court ruling by Catholics and non-Catholics alike, despite its tragic and highly publicised impact on women's lives, no one raised objections.

In the name of conciliation and non-offense, the women's group softened its rhetoric.

Once again we discuss the possibility of female deacons. Someday. Somewhere down the historical road. Read more

• Geraldine Gorman is a clinical professor at the College of Nursing, University of Illinois Chicago. She also practices as a hospice nurse with Unity Hospice. She lives on the North Side of Chicago and is the mother of three, grandmother of two.

From when I was seven years old, I longed to commit my life in ordained ministry, and expressed this to my Archbishop at age 11. He responded, "There are many other things that women can do in the Church."

Well, I am now 37, and have sincerely tried.

I have been privileged to become a Sister of Mercy, youth ministry co-ordinator, pastoral worker, pastoral associate and chaplain.

My whole employed life has been in the church, at the grassroots, on the margins.

However, ordination - which would allow women to serve in the ministry - is our official recognition and authorisation of this as a stable lifelong calling.

This would allow us to perform weddings, funerals and baptisms, which have been shown to serve the most valued role for churches in Australian society.

Last week, bishops and representatives of the Australian Catholic Church concluded over four years of consultations in the highest form of church assembly with legislative authority: a Plenary Council.

At a time when the census shows that Catholics have decreased from 22.6 per cent to 20 per cent of the Australian population, the Council was to renew us in following Jesus, to reach out with hope, spirituality, ethics and justice inspired by faith.

The 277 members listened to hundreds of thousands of Australians before voting on motions for a final document.

What started well turned into a crisis.

On Wednesday, the two motions relating to "Witnessing to the Equal Dignity of Women and Men" did not receive a qualified majority from the bishops, whose votes count. Soon, worldwide news reported that more than 60 members stood up in shock.

The whole Council stalled.

At that point I was starting to question my own humanity and the value of my baptism. Others I spoke to were pained, bruised and disillusioned.

One of the most controversial motions, it seems, was the potential ordination of women to the diaconate.

Across the Christian world, there has been a revival of permanent deacons, to complement bishops and priests in ordained ministry. Here, women deacons exist in the Anglican and Uniting Church, among others.

Evidence shows that women were ordained as deacons until the 12th century.

Strangely, however, we heard no reason why some voted against reinstituting this possibility. Women like me can only imagine why our participation might be unwelcome.

• Is it a fear of women, or our "impurity" that prevented us from serving on the sanctuary?
• Is it the 13th-century legal phrase: "the impediment of sex"?
• Or is it that there are many available lay ministries and we don't need to "clericalise women"?

That last one hits hard. What I already do appears very similar to the ministry of a deacon.

I am not asking for power, but to better serve people's spiritual needs, and to open more ministry pathways for future generations of Catholics. Continue reading

• Elizabeth Young is a Sister of Mercy she has a Master in Theology, and has ministered with youth, in prisons, detention centres, parishes and nursing homes. She is currently a pastoral worker and secondary school chaplain.

In Catholicism, the argument against ordaining women to any grade of order rests in the intimation that women cannot image Christ, the Risen Lord.

But in 2021, Pope Francis modified Canon Law to allow women to be formally installed as lectors and acolytes, each required for diaconal ordination.

In Orthodoxy, in 2017, five women were consecrated as deaconesses (or as subdeacons) in Kolwezi, Democratic Republic of Congo, by the Orthodox Patriarch of Alexandria. Other Church leaders eventually convinced the patriarch to suspend the practice in 2020.

Both facts — women lectors and acolytes in Catholicism and deaconesses or female subdeacons in Orthodoxy, point to the restoration of the tradition of women ordained as deacons.

Each brings to mind two events.

Some time ago, a colleague asked Bartholomew I, the Patriarch of Constantinople, about restoring women to the diaconate. His response was: "We don't want to get ahead of the Catholics on that."

Soon after, another woman reported the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Boston, Cardinal Sean O'Malley, was asked the same question.

"What about women deacons?" He responded: "We don't want to get ahead of the Orthodox on that."

Despite historical evidence, despite theological anthropology and the crying needs of the People of God, Catholicism and Orthodoxy seem wedded to the argument that women cannot be ordained to major orders.

Other ecumenical discussions aside, it appears the leadership of each tradition agrees that one thing is necessary to ensure the stability and order of religion: women must be kept away from the altar.

Except that each of two recent developments — women lectors and acolytes in Catholicism in 2021, and deaconesses (or female subdeacons) in Orthodoxy from 2017 to 2020-apparently promote altar service, if not ordination, for women.

Roman Catholicism

On January 10, 2021, the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, by the "motu proprio" Spiritus Domini and in response to a direct request made in the Final Document of the 2019 Synod on the Amazon, Pope Francis changed Canon 230 § 1 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law to allow women, as well as men, to be formally installed as lectors and acolytes.

The change is not insignificant. Although many commentators correctly point out that many women already perform the functions of these lay ministries, installing women in them is a relatively major step.

Formerly, each was a minor order and a stage in the now-abandoned Roman Catholic cursus honorum.

Solidified and codified in the thirteenth century, the cursus honorum or "course of honor" first led male candidates from tonsure through the minor orders of lector, porter, exorcist, and acolyte, and then through the major orders of sub-deacon, deacon, and priest.

In 1972, when Pope Paul VI suppressed the four minor orders and the major order of sub-deacon, he stated that the functions of these five orders would henceforth belong to the installed lay ministries of lector and acolyte.

The 1983 Code of Canon Law decreed that, should the bishop deem it necessary, any layperson could perform these functions, but only males could be so formally installed.

Formal installation into each of these ministries is required prior to diaconal ordination.

Does the formal installation of women as lectors and acolytes portend women deacons in the Roman Catholic Church?

To be clear, the question is about ordination (cheirotonia) to a major order, not "blessing" (cheirothesia) to a minor order.

For Rome, ordination to the subdiaconate was the ordination to a major order, as was and today is the diaconate. It is important to remember that ordinations of Roman Catholic subdeacons and deacons were to major orders.

The Subdiaconate and Deaconesses
In Orthodoxy, however, the sub-diaconate is the highest of the minor orders, ranked between the reader and the deacon.

There are interesting facts about the subdiaconate in the Eastern Churches.

First, when vested, the Eastern subdeacon wears the orarion, or stole, over the inner and outer cassocks and alb.

Second, the Eastern subdeacon has care of the altar, including of altar cloths and clergy vestments. For these latter purposes, the Eastern subdeacon has a specific blessing to touch the altar.

In the West, the now-suppressed subdiaconate comprised individuals who assisted the deacon while vested in an alb, with a maniple, cincture, and tunic.

Unlike in the East, the Western subdeacon did not wear a stole. In the West, the use of the maniple signified the major order of subdeacon.

Each Church's tradition of the subdiaconate may give hope to those seeking the restoration of the female diaconate.

The events in the Democratic Republic of Congo and their aftermath point to significant advances in the quest for the restoration of the tradition of women deacons at least in Africa, and perhaps elsewhere in Orthodoxy.

The Congolese ceremonies, by the Patriarch of Alexandria and All Africa, seem to have been consecrations or blessings to the Orthodox minor order of subdeacon, as evidenced by their manner and location.

Specifically, the women received a laying on of hands at the throne, not at the altar during the liturgy.

Further, while ancient canons limit diaconal ordination of women to those above the age of forty, photographs of the ceremonies depict five women apparently under the age of forty.

Each woman holds a basin and ewer, items often carried by the subdeacon when taking blessed water to the people so they may bless themselves with it.

Both the photographs and the description of the ceremonies support an assumption that the new "deaconesses" were brought into the minor order of subdeacon, although the patriarch is thought to have intended diaconal ordinations.

In Catholicism, there is no discussion about restoring women to the subdiaconate, because it has been suppressed.

When viewed through the lens of Querida Amazonia, Pope Francis' response to the Final Document of the 2019 Amazon Synod, the restoration of women to the diaconate can seem far off.

However, Francis has pointedly stated that the two documents, the Synod's Final Document and his own Querida Amazonia, must be read in tandem. That is, the one does not replace the other.

At first glance, two paragraphs (102 and 103) of Querida Amazonia seem dismissive of the fact that women can and do image Christ, the Risen Lord.

When read against the backdrop of history's derisive commentary about the place of women in society and in the Church, these two paragraphs seem to present more of the same.

And the imago dei is distorted when Mariology is stressed over the teaching that we are all made in the image and likeness of God.

But what Francis wrote may not be so dismissive:

In a synodal Church, those women who in fact have a central part to play in Amazonian communities should have access to positions, including ecclesial services, that do not entail Holy Orders and that can better signify the role that is theirs.

Here it should be noted that these services entail stability, public recognition, and a commission from the bishop.

This would also allow women to have a real and effective impact on the organization, the most important decisions and the direction of communities while continuing to do so in a way that reflects their womanhood. (QA, 103)

Pope Francis may here be referring to a more pressing need in the Amazon: to regularize the service of women who are de facto Canon 517 § 2 Parish Life Coordinators.

Women, including women who do not have the vocation to the diaconate, are already managing parishes and other ecclesial groupings.

With or without ordination, they can receive and in fact deserve, as he says, "stability, public recognition and a commission from the bishop."

No matter how off-putting his remark about "womanhood," the paragraph does not eliminate the possibility of restoring women to the ordained diaconate.

In fact, responding to the Final Document of the Amazon Synod, Pope Francis acted quickly to modify Canon 230 § 1 to allow women to be installed as lectors and acolytes, which protocol replaced the four minor orders and the major order of subdeacon nearly fifty years ago.

The question arises: If women can now be admitted to installed lay ministries that replace these clerical states, including the major order of subdeacon, how can women now be restricted from joining the ordained diaconate, in which historical documents they have already served?

Arguments against ordaining women as deacons often claim "unicity of orders," calling to Inter insigniores (On the Question of Admission of Women to the Ministerial Priesthood) (15 October 1976).

That is because women cannot be ordained as priests, either can they be ordained as deacons.

In large part, this papally-approved declaration by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith depends upon the so-called "iconic argument" in its presentation against the ordination of women as priests.

The principal argument in Inter insigniores, however, is the argument from authority. Simply stated, the Church says it does not have the authority to ordain women as priests because Jesus's apostles were male.

The force of Inter insigniores and the subsequent Ordinatio sacerdotalis (1994) is underscored by the new Book Six of the Code of Canon Law, which goes into effect this December 8. One innovation in this new Book Six is Canon 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.

But neither Inter insigniores nor Ordinatio sacerdotalis mentions the diaconate. The assumption that there is some relation between the diaconate and the priesthood runs counter to magisterial and conciliar teachings, and canon law, all of which clearly distinguish the two.

While the law may seem to close all possibility of women being restored to the ordained diaconate in the West, the bishop who presented it in the for the Vatican Press Office said in response to a question: "If the teaching changes, the law will change."

As it is, this law is what is termed a "merely ecclesiastical law," such as the recently changed Canon 230 § 1 regarding lectors and acolytes.

(The Congregation for Divine Worship is apparently re-writing the installation liturgy to emphasize the baptismal connection to lay ministry, although in some countries women are already being prepared to be installed using the current liturgy, with the necessary adjustments to pronouns.)

Orthodox Churches

The situation in the East is more complicated, and perhaps more volatile.

The initiative taken by the Patriarch of Alexandria and All Africa to consecrate women caught the rest of Orthodoxy by surprise.

The patriarch appears to have based his decision to act unilaterally on the documents of the Holy and Great Council attended by twelve of the autocephalous Churches on Crete in 2016.

Complaints and applause for the patriarch's actions attempted to drown each other out.

The situation is confusing. While the ceremonies appear to have been consecrations to the subdiaconate, the women were called deaconesses.

There is a needle to be thread here. In some historical lists of orders, "deaconess" appears after subdeacon and before deacon.

Some argue this indicates the "deaconess," belongs to an order distinct from the deacon, and is member of a minor order. Some argue that "deaconess" was a major order.

No matter which, the deaconess (if indeed in a separate order) is on the cusp of both minor and major orders.

However, it was the widely known intent of the patriarch to ordain these women as deacons, not as subdeacons, although his plan was scotched by donors' threats to cut off financial support to the Patriarchate.

Even so, his repeated consecrations of women as "deaconesses" until 2020 solidified his intention to grant the women, whom he determined were already performing diaconal ministry, diaconal (and thereby clerical) status.

Whether as "subdeacons" or as "deaconesses" it seems the patriarch considered these women, these "deaconesses" to be in major orders.

It appears that forces outside Africa are deeply concerned about allowing women to be in major orders, or even in minor orders as subdeacons, perhaps because of the possibility of subdiaconal altar service.

The patriarch's greeting to a 2020 Zoom-hybrid conference on women in the diaconate in Thessaloniki indicated he had ended his practice of consecrating women as deaconesses.

No doubt, the combination of anger and money may cause other Orthodox bishops to hesitate before bringing women into the clerical caste in any grade of order.

But the ministry of women in Orthodoxy, or at least in Africa, underscores the fact that women perform significant tasks and duties proper to the subdiaconate and the diaconate.

In many places in Africa, for example, women assist in the baptism of women and girls, teach catechize, lead services where priests are not available, and proclaim the Gospel in church.

There is no talk about whether these are "womanly" tasks and duties. They are functions, yes, but they are now carried out, at least by a few, with the charism of consecrated mission and ministry.

Conclusions

In Querida Amazonia, Pope Francis calls for "itinerant missionary teams" (98) and "other forms of service and charisms that are proper to women and responsive to the specific needs of the peoples of the Amazon region at this moment in history." (102).

The Patriarch of Alexandria specifically consecrated his "deaconesses" as missionaries.

Combine this with the known facts of other ministries by Orthodox women in Africa and Catholic women in the Amazon, and we might see that the two traditions are not colliding, but rather moving in tandem.

While not necessarily directed at diaconal ordination these events, East and West, seem to belie the assumption that women cannot perform altar service, even as they demonstrate an ongoing resistance to women near the altar.

Western Church history documents claim that women are de facto unclean and cannot be near the sacred. Neither can a Western priest marry.

But the East does not so fully accept these arguments.

As its married priesthood demonstrates, the East does not completely subscribe to the concept that touching a woman renders a man unclean.

Such taboos, better inscribed in Western Church history, are the root of Pope Gelasius's Fifth Century criticism of women's altar service in what were most probably Eastern Church celebrations in Sicily in his time.

Even so, there is some movement toward recognizing women as able to represent Christ in both traditions.

The changes to Roman Catholic Canon Law formally allow women's altar service. The African consecrations of women, whether as the separate order of deaconess or to the order of subdeacon, may allow the same.

What is most interesting is that from the outside at least, it appears that one Church is not in front of the other.

In fact, it could appear that they are operating in tandem.

• Phyllis Zagano holds a research appointment at Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY and is the author of several works on women deacons, including Women: Icons of Christ (Paulist Press, 2020).
• This article was a talk given, via Zoom, to a November 21 seminar on women's ordination sponsored by the American Academy of Religion inSan Antonio, Texas.

But those new paths do not include the ordination of married men to the priesthood in the region.

The document, called "Querida Amazonia" (Beloved Amazon), is born from the discussions of over 180 bishops from all over the world who gathered at the Vatican last fall (Oct. 6-27) to address the social, environmental and spiritual needs of the indigenous people of the Amazon and their habitat.

During their meeting, bishops had suggested in their final document that the pope consider the ordination of tested married men to minister to the remote areas of the Amazon forest sprawled over nine Latin American countries.

Bishops had also voted to further discussions on female deacons, which would allow women to preach, distribute the Eucharist and officiate at weddings, baptisms and funerals.

Pope Francis' document doesn't make any mention of the ordination of married men nor of women, which is consistent with the efforts made by the Vatican to downplay expectations ahead of its publication.

In January, former Pope Benedict XVI published a book with Cardinal Robert Sarah, who heads the Vatican department for liturgy, making a case for the importance of celibacy in the priesthood.

"Querida Amazonia" is divided into four chapters, each corresponding to a "dream" of the pope on the social, cultural, ecological and ecclesial aspects of the Amazon. It includes numerous poems by indigenous people detailing the beauty — and destruction — of the Amazon.

The papal document encourages Catholics and all people of goodwill to protect the environment, accompany the diaspora of indigenous peoples and stand up against injustice and reckless exploitation.

During colonization, the people of the Amazon forest "were considered more an obstacle needing to be eliminated than as human beings with the same dignity as others and possessed of their own acquired rights," Francis wrote.

"The businesses, national or international, which harm the Amazon and fail to respect the right of the original peoples," he wrote, "should be called for what they are: injustice and crime."

"Colonization has left tremendous wounds in the Amazon, the pope said, but colonization continues today even though it is "changed, disguised."

"The interest of a few powerful industries should not be considered more important than the good of the Amazon region or humanity as a whole," he warned.

Francis admitted that while missionaries were among the few who stood up to defend the rights of the Amazon and its peoples, the Catholic Church also bears its responsibility and its members were "part of a network of corruption."

"I express my shame and once more I humbly ask forgiveness, not only for the offences of the Church herself, but for the crimes committed against the native peoples during the so-called conquest of America as well as for the terrible crimes that followed throughout the history of the Amazon region," he said.

In a section addressing forms of ministry, the pope called for "a specific and courageous response" to the shortage of priests in the Amazon.

Though ordaining married men is out of the question, at least in this document, the pope encouraged bishops to take matters into their own hands.

"This urgent need leads me to urge all bishops, especially those in Latin America, not only to promote prayer for priestly vocations, but also to be more generous in encouraging those who display a missionary vocation to opt for the Amazon region," he wrote, putting an emphasis on the need to overhaul priestly formation.

A large role is played and continues to be played by "mature and lay leaders," who must be promoted and encouraged by the Catholic clergy, Francis wrote. Women especially, he said, "have kept the Church alive in those places through their remarkable devotion and deep faith."

But ordaining women as deacons, he said, could be harmful.

"It would lead us to clericalize women, diminish the great value of what they have already accomplished, and subtly make their indispensable contribution less effective," he said.

Instead, he said that women should have positions of authority within the church "that do not entail Holy Orders and that can better signify the role that is theirs."

As a starting point, Francis referred to Mary as a source of inspiration for furthering the role of women.

"Perhaps it is time to review the lay ministries already existing in the Church, return to their foundations and update them by reading them in the light of current reality and the inspiration of the Spirit, and at the same time to create other new stable ministries with public recognition and a commission from the bishop," Cardinal Michael Czerny said in an interview published by the Vatican alongside the papal document. Czerny was a special secretary to the synod of bishops on the Amazon.

Francis called for a fruitful dialogue between the indigenous peoples of the Amazon and the Catholic Church in order to give the church "new faces with Amazonian features."

The culture, traditions and history of the tribes living in the Amazon must be protected and respected, without "unfair generalizations, simplistic arguments and conclusions drawn only from the basis of our own mindset and experiences," he said.

Indigenous people should not be insulated from a respectful dialogue, Francis wrote, just as the Catholic Church should allow the gospel to be permeated by the customs and culture of the peoples living in the Amazon.

"The Pope asks that the voice of the elderly be heard and that the values present in the original communities be recognized," Czerny said. "Indigenous peoples teach us to be sober, content with little, and to sense the need to be immersed in a communal way of living our lives."

The bishops had asked the pope to consider the possibility of an Amazonian Rite, which in the Catholic tradition would have its own bishops and specific liturgies while still being in communion with the Catholic Church.

Francis encouraged "native forms of expression in song, rituals, gestures and symbols" but made no mention of a specific rite or a commission created to consider it.

Francis also seemed to passingly address the Pachamama debacle, when vandals broke into a church in Rome at the height of the synod, dumped a wooden carving of an Amazonian fertility goddess into the Tiber River and posted it on YouTube.

The vandals justified their actions at the time, stating that they were angered by a ceremony in the Vatican gardens where indigenous people knelt before the statues before the pontiff.

"It is possible to take up an indigenous symbol in some way, without necessarily considering it as idolatry," the pope wrote. "A myth charged with spiritual meaning can be used to advantage and not always considered a pagan error."

The pope's final words amid highly divisive times within and beyond the Catholic Church are to promote dialogue "at a higher level, where each group can join the other in a new reality, while remaining faithful to itself."

• Claire Giangrave is Vatican Correspondent for Religion News Service.
• First published in RNS. Republished with permission.
• Image YouTube

The 12-members will study how things were in the early times of the Church.

This will involve finding out how women served as deacons in the early church.

Questions include "were their duties similar to those performed by male deacons" and if so, "were they part of the church's sacramental identity"?

The Second Vatican Council restored permanent deacons' role. They may be married or celibate.

In the US, for instance, there are many permanent deacons, who help staff Catholic parishes.

They cannot celebrate Mass, forgive sins or anoint the sick. They can preach, baptize and witness weddings.

Transitional deacons' position is different. Theirs is a step in the process before ordination to the priesthood.

Women are not allowed to work as ordained clergy in the Catholic Church.

Archbishop Francisco Ladaria Ferrer, Secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was asked about the Commission's purpose.

At the time he was giving an address at the Marchigiano Theological Institute of Ancona.

"This study doesn't pretend to have an ecumenical scope," he said.

"The desire is to give the Holy Father some elements of judgment and nothing more.

"The Pope has said that 'this aspect should be studied, especially in the early times of the Church.'"

The Commission is headed by Spanish Jesuit and Archbishop Luis Francisco Ladaria Ferrer.

Ferrer is secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and secretary general of its International Theological Commission.

Besides Ferrer, the Commission includes six men and six women.

They have a mix of both lay and religious backgrounds.

Ferrer's International Theological Commission last examined the issue in 2002.

Its conclusion was that the ordaining women to the Diaconate is "up to the ministry of discernment that the Lord has left the Church."

The Pope has asked the Jesuits to find ways to better integrate discernment into its teaching at seminaries.

Source

• Zenit
• MASS LIVE
• Newsday
• Image: Herald

The 12-member panel of scholars will study the question of whether women were ordained as deacons in the early church, and whether they could be ordained in the Catholic Church today.

If female deacons were to be ordained, it would be an historic step.

The commission will be led by Archbishop Luis Francisco Ladaria, a Jesuit who serves as the second-in-command of the Vatican's doctrinal congregation.

The formal name given to the group is "Study Commission on the Women's Diaconate." The commission's members include experts in patristic theology, ecclesiology, and spirituality.

Among noted names are: Franciscan Sr. Mary Melone, who heads Rome's Pontifical University Antonianum, and Phyllis Zagano, a senior research associate-in-residence at Hofstra University in New York.

Zagano says she feels "like I've won the Academy Award" to have been chosen.

The panel includes a second American, Fr. Robert Dodaro, president of the Augustinianum University in Rome, a priest widely viewed as a conservative.

Deacons are ordained ministers who can preach or preside over weddings and funerals but cannot celebrate Mass.

As recounted in the New Testament, the role of the deacon was created by the Apostles so that they could deploy ministers specifically dedicated to doing charitable works and thus free themselves to focus on preaching.

In the Catholic tradition, the role of deacon was eventually subsumed into the priesthood and hierarchy, until the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s revived the diaconate as an ordained order open to "mature" men over 35, who can be married.

Details about when the commission panel will meet and when its report and recommendations are due are still to be announced.

Source

• Religious News Service
• National Catholic Reporter
• Image: Pixabay

The five-person panel met as part of the "Open to the Door to Dialogue" conference held in Rome earlier this month.

Last month, Pope Francis said he would create a commission to study the history of female deacons in the Catholic Church.

Panel member Fr Tony Flannery from Ireland said if women are ordained as deacons, parishioners will no longer distinguish between males and females performing liturgies on the altar.

He said this would be a big step forward.

But US panel member Jamie Manson said the establishment of women deacons "runs the risk of being a compromise that ends up trapping women in a role in which they will continue to be subservient to men, particularly in service to priests".

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Bishop Leo O'Reilly of Kilmore has urged his colleagues to arrange a commission to this end.

Bishop O'Reilly also wants such a commission to study the possibility of female deacons.

He will raise the idea at the next meeting of the Irish bishops in October.

"I think the other bishops would be open to the idea of a discussion and we are reaching a situation where we have to look at all the options possible," he said.

Bishop O'Reilly told The Irish Catholic that his proposal was in response to Pope Francis.

"Pope Francis has encouraged individual bishops and bishops' conferences to be creative in looking at ways to do ministry in the future, so I think we have to consider all options," he said.

Bishop O'Reilly's proposal comes in the wake of a 10-month "listening" process in his diocese.

This saw a diocesan assembly and a new diocesan pastoral plan to tackle the challenges facing the Church, including a declining number of priests.

As an example of what could be done, Bishop O'Reilly pointed to a commission in Brazil studying the possibility of ordaining married men in response to the shortage of priests.

Mandatory celibacy for priests in the Latin rite of the Catholic Church is a matter of law and tradition, not doctrine or dogma.

Church authorities have at times given permission for married clerics of other Christian traditions who become Catholic to be ordained as priests.

Currently, the Catholic Church permits only men to be ordained as deacons.

A 2002 study by the International Theological Commission concluded that the role of female deacons in the early Church cannot be considered equivalent to that of ordained male deacons.

It also concluded that the permanent diaconate belongs to the sacrament of orders, which the Church believes is limited to men alone.

Sources

• The Irish Catholic
• The Catholic Herald
• Image: Irish Times