Female deacons?

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I just started going to Mass a year ago and yesterday went to a certain parish for the first time. Near the end joined the line for Communion which I don’t take being non Catholic, just fold my arms to get a blessing. The other line led to the priest who gave the homily, however in my line there appeared to be a female deacon giving out Communion and providing my usual blessing. Been listening to Catholic radio and watching EWTN for well over 10 years so very familiar with Catholic theology and have never heard of women doing this in the RC Church, is this new?
 
She would be someone called an Extraodinary Minister of Communion, someone trained and commissioned to help administer Holy Communion, both during Mass and also in hospitals and nursing homes or people’s own homes if they are housebound. Not a deacon.
 
Blessings
I was up on girls for altar servers. This is new but w priest shortages some parishes had nuns running the Parrish. The priests would visit to say mass.
Perchance, w not enough men, the deacon role is including women to give them broader gifts to give the parishoners?
Communion services and gospel readings(?). No confessions or Consecration of Eucharist.
We can google, I guess. Or one of our priests can jump in.
God is alive. If we don’t praise Him, the rocks will cry out to praise Him.
If men don’t answer calls, will God use those who do come forward.?
In Christ’s love
Tweedlealice
 
Anonymous1970 said:
however in my line there appeared to be a female deacon giving out Communion and providing my usual blessing. Been listening to Catholic radio and watching EWTN for well over 10 years so very familiar with Catholic theolog
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What about her made you think she was a deacon? Was she wearing a stole? Was it because she was distributing Holy Communion and gave you a blessing? There could have been something irregular or illicit going on but I think paperwight has it right.

Welcome to CAF and to the Church. I hope you find a home here.
 
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I made the mistake, when I was an EMHC to make the sign of the cross on babies’ foreheads, etc.

The laity has no such ability or authority to extend an Apostolic blessing - that is reserved to the ordained clergy. Little teaching leads to lots of confusion.
 
The fact that she was giving Communion made me think she was a deacon even though I know there are no female deacons in the Church, hence the confusion. There were a few gentleman in priestly or deacon attire, one of them was near the priest during the consecration of the Eucharist so it’s not like they were short handed. This parish is also in an extremely liberal area of California so wasn’t too surprised. Paperwight’s reply cleared this up, I’ve never heard of that position until now.
 
I have never heard of ministrants being girls and girl/womangiving communion
 
What country do you live in? It’s very common here in the U.S.
And permitted, as Deacon Jeff notes.
 
Was the lady giving out Holy Communion wearing vestments?

The woman will almost certainly have been a lay person who is acting in the role of Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion (an EMHC).

But I do think there is a danger at times of almost ‘clericalisation’ of the laity with the raising up of lay functions at time (in my opinion).
 
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I am wondering if the deaconess role is resurrected in the Roman Catholic church, will they model it after current Lutheran usage? I personally know a Lutheran deaconess. Her role is very limited. She only distributes the communion host to shut-ins, visits the sick, and works with widows. She is a liasion between the busy pastor and his congregation. She does not wear vestments but a kind of uniform: skirt and blazer with a badge.
 
Why would a person need to be made a deaconess in order to do that? Surely those functions could already be carried out by a layperson?

In terms of going down the route of deaconesses, that is how it started out on the Anglican church, and where has that road led them to? Women priests and now women bishops.

Deaconesses are not necessary in order for the Church to effectively carry out its functions, so why even go down that road?
 
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In the modern Church, there are no female deacons. In the early Church, however, there were female ‘deacons’. Paul mentions one of these female deacons, Pheobe, in his letter to the Romans in Chapter 16 as the one to whom he had entrusted the letter to. ‘Deacon’ in the early church simply meant ‘helper’ or ‘minister’ and assisted the Bishop (and by extension, priests) in tasks within the diocese he, himself couldn’t perform. One of these tasks was the Baptism of women, as it was done in the nude in those times. From my research, this seems to simply be a title of ministry for the female deacons, not a signal of the ordination conferred by the Bishop as seen in the Acts of the Apostles. They were commissioned, but did not receive the ordination through the laying on of hands. Pope Francis recently established a commission to study the issue of women deacons so that he might have an accurate account of the historical situation to see if these women were actually ordained and, if so, what impact that fact would have on the current Church’s stance on male-only ordination of deacons. Personally, from my research, I don’t think that the Church’s stance would change, but I admit that I am not an expert on the topic and will leave the decisions to the scholars, theologians and the Magisterium.
 
This is not an ordained position but requires:

“must complete a master’s degree in theology along with four units of clinical pastoral education”

I think a Catholic lay person helping in ministry should be required this minimum, also. The ones I have encountered do not even have a heart for service.
 
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If by “helping in ministry” you mean EMHC’s or Readers, I think requiring a Master’s Degree is a bit steep. To what ministries were you referring?
 
The deaconess role is a very limited one and would not replace other laity roles. The lady I know is more like a counselor, serving a distinct caring role for seniors, shut-ins and widows. She has a very Christ-like servants heart, besides being very smart. She said deaconess’ are a rarity. She compared them to having a parish nun. I have never seen a parish nun except when I was very young.
 
They should not be giving blessings either. On Giving Blessings During the Communion Rite
While the intention of blessing the child may be good, it should be made clear to all that the priest’s blessing at the conclusion of Mass includes everyone, and that there should not be separate blessings for any person during the Communion rite.
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The article states that this in now under study and might change but for the present this is the way it is.
 
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Now realizing it wasn’t the usual blessing I get from a priest, she just said, “peace be with you.”
 
Anonymous1970 said:
Now realizing it wasn’t the usual blessing I get from a priest, she just said, “peace be with you.”
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Which isn’t a blessing.

I think the issue is that people present themselves in the Communion line to an EMHC with their arms crossed expecting a blessing. What is the EMHC to do? Just blank them and wait for them to go away? Saying something like, “Peace be with you” would seem to be a polite way to deal with the situation.

I think that if people were encouraged not to join the Communion line and stay in their pews if they are not receiving Communion (rather than come up for a blessing) it would solve these sorts of issues.
 
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