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Women as Deacons


I always thought that there would be the possibility of married priest within my lifetime. Actually there are. My sister in Minnesota had a married priest as her pastor who had a wife and children. He was previously a Lutheran minister who converted to the Catholic faith, and with a minimal amount of training and education he was allowed to become a priest, a married priest. Actually that is not so uncommon. Within the United States, there are several Anglican and Episcopal priests who converted to Catholicism and are allow to be priest in the Catholic faith. In addition, in the Eastern Rite Catholics, priests are allowed to be married if they are so when they are ordained. Actually the same goes for me. One of my classmates in diaconate training was unmarried when he was ordained so he was required to take the vow of celibacy. If for any reason my wife dies, I cannot remarry. We were always told, you better take good care your wife because she is the only one you will ever have. Because it already exists in certain situation, I foresee the Church will allow priest to be married in the future.

But women as priest? I don’t think I will ever see that. Women as ordained deacons? That is another story. This week on Tuesday, Pope Francis created a commission to study the possibility of ordaining women as deacons in the Roman Catholic Church. You may have read about the commission in the Cape Cod Times today. On Tuesday, he named 12 experts — six men and six women — to serve on the panel. One of the experts is Phyllis Zagano, a professor of religion at Hofstra University, New York and is the author of many books on women in the Catholic Church. She is a strong advocate for women deacons and has done extensive research on their historical significance. Her most noted book is “Holy Saturday: An Argument for the Restoration of the Female Diaconate in the Catholic Church.” In it, she has shown that history clearly demonstrates that women served as deacons in the early centuries of the Church. Writing for Harvard’s Divinity school last year, she said that the current practice of not ordaining women deacons is a “merely ecclesiastical law,” meaning it’s a regulation, not a doctrine. That is not to say that there will be stiff resistance from those who believe that this is the first step toward ordaining female priests and therefore resist allowing women to be ordained as deacons.

Establishing a commission does not mean that the possibility of ordaining women as deacons will happen. They are only an advisory board and the Pope does not have to follow their recommendations. But in the past week, I have heard much excitement about the possibilities that this commission can bring. Ordaining women as deacons does tie in to what Pope Francis has advocated for a more inclusive role for women in the Church. It will be interest to see what develops over the next few months (years?).

Deacon Greg Beckel

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