Survey: Religious superiors support possibility of women deacons

  • Thread starter Thread starter SuscipeMeDomine
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Don’t forget about the decline in family size after the pill and the increase in divorce!
 
Correlation does not equal causation. Are you a statistician?

I see a big decline just after the war (perhaps due to the loss of young men to the conflict, but that requires deeper analysis), and in the mid-60s. Just when those social changes I spoke of kicked in. In Quebec for instance, the “Quiet Revolution” when a Liberal government replaced a very conservative government two decades old, coincided in time exactly with Vatican II. The period of decline on your graph in fact contradicts your earlier graph. In the earlier graph you show the decline starting in the mid-70s, whereas the second one shows a sharp decline starting in 1965, well before when you claim CITT and altar girls started. In fact CITT started by indult in the US in '69 and was made official in '77

So sorry, your dog won’t hunt. Not only are the two graphs contradictory, your analysis is very superficial at best.

I also find it laughable that altar girls and CITT are keeping vocations away. The abbey I’m attached to is also struggling for vocations and it has no altar girls… it’s a men’s abbey, and they use non-ordained monks as acolytes. So it can’t be the altar girls. Communion is given as the communicant desires. In any event the level of reverence shown by the monks is exemplary regardless of how they receive. The liturgy (OF) is beautiful, in Gregorian chant (Latin Propers, Latin/Greek Gregorian ordinary, French plainchant for the prayers and readings). It’s exactly as SC desired the liturgy to become. Gregorian chant not only has pride of place, but the only musical place in the Mass: it’s used every day, also for the Divine Office (Lauds and Vespers, and hymns at the other hours which are in French)

In fact the monastery has to often reject vocations because they are really looking for a more traditionalist liturgy instead of becoming Benedictines which is far deeper than just the liturgy.

So again, there’s more going on than your (contradictory) graphs show.
mrsdizzyd said:
Don’t forget about the decline in family size after the pill and the increase in divorce!
Click to expand...
Very true, Quebec used to have large families (around 10 kids was the norm, I’ve heard of up to 20), and each family would try to give at least one vocation to the Church. Some families even more than one. Now the average family size in Quebec declined to below 2 kids per family.
 
Last edited:
Or perhaps the trends will reverse, and a new generation may find a calling to the priesthood more appealing. It seems to be true in localized pockets.

From what I’ve read, women deacons and priests are not possible in the Catholic Church.

Why do so many believe that allowing priests to marry would ease the priest shortage? Men are called to be priests and accept that calling; most men are not called to the priesthood, family or no. I personally can’t imagine how I could be a dutiful husband and father, and be a priest at the same time. I have enough trouble just trying to be a dad and husband!
 
dochawk said:
No, still not true 🙂

purporting to ordain females as deacons would not be a “return,” but rather an “innovation.”
Click to expand...
Historically inaccurate my friend. But we can agree to disagree.
dochawk said:
not “somewhat common”. While baptism was done by immersion while fully nude, it was the norm for deaconesses to perform female baptism.
Click to expand...
As you yourself just admitted, deaconesses are a historical reality within the church. Hence it would not be an “innovation.”
 
So getting back to the topic of the thread, why do you think religious superiors are so strongly in favor of ordaining women as deacons? Do they see it.as beneficial to their congregations? Good for the Church as a whole? Is it strictly a theological question and they’re not looking at the practicalities? Something else?
 
SuscipeMeDomine said:
why do you think religious superiors are so strongly in favor of ordaining women as deacons?
Click to expand...
I think the 300 or so respondents were predominantly from progressive orders. I don’t think they are representative of all religious superiors.
 
Why didn’t the other 400 presumably more traditional leaders respond?
 
According to the report, 50% response is about normal for any survey. I don’t know if the non-respondents were any different from the respondents.
 
MikeInVA said:
I personally can’t imagine how I could be a dutiful husband and father, and be a priest at the same time. I have enough trouble just trying to be a dad and husband!
Click to expand...
Well I’m married to a doctor, and I can’t imagine a priest is that much more difficult. When our kids were young, my wife did obstetrics, hospital and ER work, and worked as a scientist for a multinational and travelled domestically and overseas several times a year. I would certainly call that period of our lives “sporting” to say the least. Fortunately we had a good network of friends.

I also know of many folks with families with menial jobs who have to moonlight at a second job nights and weekends just to make ends meet, in today’s "shareholders first’ economy. I also know Protestant ministers, including my wife’s Anglican pastors, who have successfully raised families on a pastor’s stipend; fortunately their wives worked and brought in additional money.

So I don’t really see the problem of married priests as much worse than the rest of us. We already have married deacons who also hold down jobs; the Orthodox have married priests who hold down jobs as well. The real reasons appears to me to be living arrangements, paying an adequate salary to raise a family, etc., by the Church. Certainly it would be feasible for parochial vicars along the same lines as married deacons.
 
mrsdizzyd said:
I specifically said the female deacons of the early church were not clergy, so…?
Click to expand...
They weren’t “deacons”, either, nor were they called “deacons.”

They were deaconesses, which simply does not, in the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, mean “deacon.”

hawk
 
Hodos said:
Historically inaccurate my friend. But we can agree to disagree.
Click to expand...
No, not at all, because . . .
Hodos said:
As you yourself just admitted, deaconesses are a historical reality within the church. Hence it would not be an “innovation.”
Click to expand...
Yes. Deaconesses are a historical thing. Female deacons are not, and would be innovation.

A deaconess is no more a form of deacon than a lector or porter is.

hawk
 
I think it depends. I think it could be a useful office should it be implemented in a way that does not conflict with scripture and does not end up being an end run around the office of the episcopacy, similar to orders of nuns.
 
SuscipeMeDomine said:
Do they see it.as beneficial to their congregations? Good for the Church as a whole? Is it strictly a theological question and they’re not looking at the practicalities? Something else?
Click to expand...
I found answers to some of my own questions. From the study:
  • 68% of responding superiors believe the sacramental ordination of women as
    deacons would be “somewhat” or “very much” important for the Catholic Church.
  • 45%, believe this would be “somewhat” or “very much” important for their
    institute or society.
  • 76% believe the sacramental ordination of women (religious or not) as
    deacons would be beneficial to the Catholic Church’s mission.
  • Among superiors of women’s institutes or societies, few believe the sacramental ordination of women as deacons would bring more candidates to their institute or society. Four percent said “yes” they think this would happen, 17% said “maybe,” 18% did not know, and 61% said “no” they did not think this would happen. Eleven percent of superiors of men’s institutes said “yes” they think that the sacramental ordination of women would bring more candidates to women’s institutes or societies and 34% said “maybe.” Thirty percent did not
    know and 25% responded “no.”
Also, for what it’s worth, here’s the breakdown of respondents by their membership categories:

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)
 
All I know is that at one time, there were three priests at my parish. Despite the fact that our parish has grown in the number of practicing Catholics, we now have only one priest.
Most of the priests that occasionally visit and officiate at a Mass seem older in terms of age.
I can only address what I see. From where I am I do not seem trends reversing.
The priesthood is tough, but moreso for men who want to be priests, but who also want to marry and have a family.
I think that if anything, it would priests to better understand their congregations, if they experienced some of the same problems and temptations that married folks with children face.
I don’t know about the Church, but I do know that anything is “possible” when it comes to God. So, I do believe that women deacons and priests may one day be possible.
 
Of course it doesn’t; that’s the point!
 
Last edited:
It’s just common sense that those things would have an influence.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top