Could women ever be ordained as Deacons?

[LRThunder]

The question at hand is whether there is a divine law restriction that women cannot be ordained as deacons. The Church has not taught on this point yet, but once they do, it is true that the teaching can never change.

The Church might not have clarified on the point of ordination of deacons, but they shouldn’t need to. If women cannot be ordained to the priesthood or the episcopacy in the Catholic Church, it stands to reason they cannot be ordained as deacons either.

There is such a thing as common sense. Just because some groups are trying to find loopholes doesn’t mean the Church should have to clarify every teaching all the time.

Only men can receive the Sacrament of Holy Orders.

 

[Just_Lurking]

The Church might not have clarified on the point of ordination of deacons, but they shouldn’t need to. If women cannot be ordained to the priesthood or the episcopacy in the Catholic Church, it stands to reason they cannot be ordained as deacons either.

And if women were ordained in the early Church as deaconesses, it stands to reason they could still be ordained today.

The Church can clarify this point, or the Church can leave it as a matter of open theological investigation. At the present time, the Church has chosen to leave the matter open. All I wonder is why so many senior members here don’t seem to be able to respect the Church’s wisdom in this stance, and instead insist on pontificating their own personal point of view as to what “stands to reason”, as if the ITC were incapable of evaluating theological arguments without the senior members of Catholic Answers to show them the answer.

BTW, looking at the historical evidence with the purpose of trying to find reasons/excuses as to why deaconesses did not receive the sacrament of Holy Orders seems to be mostly a Catholic activity. The Eastern Orthodox view seems to be that it is obvious that they were ordained. Here is a quote found on Wikipedia from Orthodox Bishop Ware:

The order of deaconesses seems definitely to have been considered an “ordained” ministry during early centuries in at any rate the Christian East. … Some Orthodox writers regard deaconesses as having been a “lay” ministry. There are strong reasons for rejecting this view. In the Byzantine rite the liturgical office for the laying-on of hands for the deaconess is exactly parallel to that for the deacon; and so on the principle lex orandi, lex credendi — the Church’s worshipping practice is a sure indication of its faith — it follows that the deaconesses receives, as does the deacon, a genuine sacramental ordination: not just a χειροθεσια but a χειροτονια.

 

[scylla]

As a “senior member”, it should be said that this title really does mean anything. It just means that you have been posting on Catholic answers for a while. You will become a senior member soon if you continue posting at the pace you do, it shows no guarantee to fidelity or accuracy of responses.

Yet there is a reason that the Church hasn’t really taught definitively on this as it is common understanding. There is something called a sensus fidelium. A sense of faith which clearly shows what is right and wrong.

Ask my eight year old girl and as a faithful Catholic, she would think someone is nuts for thinking that a woman can become a deacon. Only when we become older can we corrupt our conciences that much, to even consider it.

The same with Priestly ordination, no faithful Priest would even consider it, and for almost 2000 years the faithful didn’t even need a pronouncement against it. Until recently, when so many people were unfaithful to the Church and had such malformed conciences that it needed to be said. The fall back position and possible first step by womens ordination advocates is the deaconate.

The best way to judge is with an informed conscience, the same will happen with the pronouncement on female deacons. Seek the most faithful people in the Church and you will see the answer to this. Seeking what is possibly permissible, loopholes or the most allowance will not reveal the answer. Even Bishops will commonly be wrong on issues, especially in the United States.

(I know, you object because it isn’t clearly laid out, it isn’t pronounced definitively and there are some groups pushing for this movement) Seek the most faithful, what would St Padre Pio say? What would Bl. Mother Theresa say? What did Jesus do when He chose Apostles. (yes I know they were Bishops)

But looking at the letter of the law we can seek what is permissible, but we should also seek to understand it based upon the sense of the faith, Tradition.

(the push for it comes from those who are rejecting the Church and Her teaching on many things) This should be a strong indicator of the sense of faith behind the thinking.

In Christ
Scylla

(there are orthodox who reject Purgatory, Indulgences, allow Divorce\re-marriage, we don’t follow the Orthodox)

 

[Fone_Bone_2001]

The OP came here with a simple question. The question asked about what the Church teaches regarding the possibility of ordaining women as deacons. What I am trying to do, since you ask, is to give the OP a correct answer to his question. BTW, the correct answer is that the Church’s magisterium has not pronounced, one way or the other, about such a possibility.

If I believed in conspiracy theories, I would have to wonder whether there was a conspiracy among the senior members at Catholic Answers to undertake a plan of disinformation about this question, doing anything and everything to make sure that the OP never finds out the Church’s true position.

Your part in this “conspiracy” consisted of impugning my correct answer and of giving the incorrect answer that the teaching in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis included all levels of Holy Orders. Other senior members took the tack of advancing private theological arguments as official Church teaching. All in all, I cannot find a single response from someone other than myself that did not serve to distract and mislead the OP from the correct answer to his question.

Now, I don’t believe in conspiracy theories, but I do have to wonder what it is about this question that causes the senior members of Catholic Answers to so doubt the wisdom of their own Church’s decision to leave the question of the possibility of the ordination of women to the diaconate as a matter of open theological investigation.

Lurking, there are plenty of us here who really are interested in official Church teaching, as opposed to personal theological opinions.

Thank you for being so diligent in making the Church’s official teaching (or, in this case, lack thereof) clear in this discussion.

We really do appreciate it. You are not alone.

And to everyone else: stop treating Lurking as if he’s secretly trying to subversively infiltrate orthodox Catholicism with heretical opinions; in case all of you haven’t noticed, he (she?) has not given his/her opinion on the matter.

For all we know, Lurking believes that it is impossible for women to be ordained to the permanent diaconate. All he’s/she’s said in this discussion is that the Magisterium has not authoritatively settled the issue of whether or not it is possible for women to be ordained deacons.

 

[Fone_Bone_2001]

It is my belief that many of those who are pushing that women can be ordained deacons are attempting a run around the rule against priestesses. After all, once they get ordained as deacons there will be an outcry that if they can receive the sacrament of Holy Orders at this level then there is no reason why they shouldn’t be able to receive at the other two levels because it is one sacrament afterall.

I personally agree with the Church in not considering the possibility of ordaining women to the diaconate, so don’t think that I’m pushing a secret agenda here.

That said, I don’t think there would be such an outcry; at least, not an effective one. The Church has already authoritatively ruled that women cannot be ordained as priests or bishops, so if they started ordaining them as deacons, that would prove that the sacramental character of the priesthood is different enough from that of the diaconate to invalidate the “one Sacrament” argument.

In other words, it wouldn’t make sense for people to say, “Hey, this proves they can receive Holy Orders! So that means they can be priests, too!” because the Church has already ruled that they cannot be priests.

Would people still say that? Probably. But no orthodox Catholic would, so how would things be any different than they are now?

 

[scylla]

I agree, from a strictly legal sense there does seem to be no prohibition against ordaining women if it is a different ordination that that done with men, and not a step onto Priesthood and the Episcopate. I believe Just Lurking has been very clear and is correct on that specific point.

Now concerning the faith we should as I said before take into the motivation behind the movement, (which is based upon an elevation of self above God), traditional understanding, the faithful understanding and the symbolic meaning behind ordination.

We should seek to best serve God and do the most for God, not just what is allowable. This is also why it is inappropriate for me to go into Church as a man with a top hat on, yet there is no real prohibition against it. It is a symbolic rejection of the sancticty of the Church and an elevation of my desire above humility. In the same way and even more serious in rejection of submitting to God is the desire behind women’s ordination.

We can speak about the prohibition as a strictly legal scenario, as the ITC would do, yet separated from obedience to Christ this can be misleading to people and insulting to God. I have said many times before and again I will say that we should seek maximum obedience to God and not just what maybe we can do according to the law.

In Christ
Scylla

 

[Fone_Bone_2001]

I agree, from a strictly legal sense there does seem to be no prohibition against ordaining women if it is a different ordination that that done with men, and not a step onto Priesthood and the Episcopate. I believe Just Lurking has been very clear and is correct on that specific point.

Now concerning the faith we should as I said before take into the motivation behind the movement, (which is based upon an elevation of self above God), traditional understanding, the faithful understanding and the symbolic meaning behind ordination.

We should seek to best serve God and do the most for God, not just what is allowable. This is also why it is inappropriate for me to go into Church as a man with a top hat on, yet there is no real prohibition against it. It is a symbolic rejection of the sancticty of the Church and an elevation of my desire above humility. In the same way and even more serious in rejection of submitting to God is the desire behind women’s ordination.

We can speak about the prohibition as a strictly legal scenario, as the ITC would do, yet separated from obedience to Christ this can be misleading to people and insulting to God. I have said many times before and again I will say that we should seek maximum obedience to God and not just what maybe we can do according to the law.

In Christ
Scylla

Well said, Scylla. I agree.

Throughout this discussion, there seems to have been some suspicion that anyone defending the position that the Magisterium has not authoritatively settled the matter is somehow in favor of considering the ordination of women to the diaconate, which is of course, not true.

I think it is good to point out that just because the Magisterium has not chosen to settle the matter authoritatively at this time, that does not make it possible for women to be ordained deacons. We cannot assume that it is possible just because it hasn’t been settled.

For all we know, the Magisterium might pronounce authoritatively tomorrow that it is just as impossible for women to be ordained deacons as it is for them to be ordained priests, and even if they don’t, the decision of the hierarchy not to consider the possibility right now should certainly be respected by the faithful.

 

[Just_Lurking]

Lurking, there are plenty of us here who really are interested in official Church teaching, as opposed to personal theological opinions.

Thank you for being so diligent in making the Church’s official teaching (or, in this case, lack thereof) clear in this discussion.

We really do appreciate it. You are not alone.

Thank you very much for this comment! It provided great encouragement to me in my efforts.