Why can't women be deacons in the church?

[godisgood77]

Why does one need to be ordained to help the Church?

I don’t think that anyone is saying that they need to be ordained to help the Church. There are many, many ways to help the Church.

However, it’s entirely possible that the best way for an individual to help the Church is to be ordained.

 

[Gingersnaps4]

A deaconess would not be ordained. She would be a deaconess, not a female deacon. Still, I’m not sure what role she would need to serve, now that baptisms aren’t done in the nude. I think it would just serve to further blur the lines in the minds of people with regard to the “modern church”. They won’t understand that a deaconess is not a female deacon, and that deacons can become priests, and that priests literally Act in persona Christi during mass. Nothing good would come of it. There are innumerable ways to serve the church besides this.

 

[tafan2]

Why? Do we have a shortage of deacons? By that I mean, people who can administer the sacraments and perform liturgical functions proper to a deacon?

If one is arguing for female deacons, I suppose one is coming at it from one of two points of view:

1. it’s not fair to women. Fine, I can understand that argument, and it boils down to theology
2. The Church needs female deacons. Barring a shortage, I would argue this is clericalism, s8nce I do not see a shortage.

 

[godisgood77]

Do we have a shortage of deacons?

Yes, there is a shortage of people to minister and deliver the sacraments to the people.

I believe there is also a shortage of feminine leadership in the Church as well. Many deacons serve as business managers and key leaders in a parish community. You can argue that one does need to be a deacon to do that… which is of course true, but it certainly doesn’t hurt.

I’ll put the question back to you… Why not; besides being a change - which isn’t really a convincing argument?

 

[tafan2]

You can argue that one does need to be a deacon to do that… which is of course true, but it certainly doesn’t hurt.

It certainly does hurt. In this diocese, and I doubt it is the exception, deacons are not allowed to be paid employees of their assigned parish. It has long been the policy if my parents diocese also, as my uncle is a deacon there. And that rule is strictly enforced.

I strongly suspect Bishop’s would quickly and quietly end these rules once we had female deacons.

 

[tafan2]

Yes, there is a shortage of people to minister and deliver the sacraments to the people.

As to the sacraments Deacons perform, baptisms and weddings, I see no evidence of that at all. None.

And let me again add, this is very risky business from a standpoint of achieving communion with the EO and OO. I do not believe anyone advocating for female deacons will be satisfied with some type of minor orders. And “developing” our doctrine to allow for true female deacons will likely place the RC in the role of the CoE when they started ordaining women. We will have completely and likely permanently ended hopes of achieving communion.

 

[godisgood77]

I strongly suspect Bishop’s would quickly and quietly end these rules once we had female deacons.

Already the case in my diocese and it is a good thing

As to the sacraments Deacons perform, baptisms and weddings, I see no evidence of that at all. None.

I do.

Plus I hope that deacons are given permission to administer last rights and extreme unction/anointing of the sick. In extreme cases, confession too.

Another benefit is that deacons can give homilies… it would be a good to have women in that role

 

[tafan2]

You know of examples of people having to delay weddings and baptisms fdue to a lack of deacons? Call me a skeptic.

As to annointing of the sick, if that happens, why would we have a shortage. I was visiting my mother in the hospital a few months back in a diocese with a shortage of priests. No one had arranged for her to have this sacrament. One phone call to the local parish, had a priest in her room in under an hour. Now this is anedoctal, but I have never had a problem arranging an Annointing if the Sick before. So if we added deacons in this role, do you think we would have a shortage of ministers for this sacrament? I do not.

 

[tafan2]

I agree with you. But I also believe that those who are advocating for a female deaconate will not be satisfied with anything less than major orders. So far I have seen no theological argument on their part against the view that all Holy Orders are reserved to men. Since the idea of ordaining female deacons goes against 2000 years of universal practice in both the East and the west, the argument cannot simply be that they are right and we are wrong, which sums up the extent of their theological reasoning as presented so far (assuming one discounts their revisionist history).

OTOH, one can see the possibility that JP II left the door slightly cracked to give them a chance to make a case. I have not seen it.

 

[BlueMaxx]

It is not just about “theological reasoning”…it is the way our Lord Jesus Christ set things up…He is the one who set in motion this fact. It is His Church, He made the rules…to go against them is to say Christ made the wrong decision by only allowing men. It is not possible.
Deacons fall under the order of the ordained, period.

1577 "Only a baptized man ( vir ) validly receives sacred ordination."66 The Lord Jesus chose men ( viri ) to form the college of the twelve apostles, and the apostles did the same when they chose collaborators to succeed them in their ministry.67 The college of bishops, with whom the priests are united in the priesthood, makes the college of the twelve an ever-present and ever-active reality until Christ’s return. The Church recognizes herself to be bound by this choice made by the Lord himself. For this reason the ordination of women is not possible.68

1578 No one has a right to receive the sacrament of Holy Orders.

 

[VanitasVanitatum]

Why not; besides being a change - which isn’t really a convincing argument?

Why not is not a convincing argument either.

 

[Margaret_Ann]

Great post.

 

[Tolle_Lege]

St. Paul is clear that women are not to teach. Therefore it is not their role to give homilies or preach at Mass. It is inappropriate to have a woman teaching grown men about the faith in a liturgical setting.

 

[twf]

I’m not sure if that Eastern practice applies to lay people? I’ve heard that nuns will confess to their abbess, and then the priest comes over to say the prayer of absolution… but I didn’t realize it was an option for Orthodox laity?

 

[twf]

There are EC jurisdictions with deaconesses? I know the Greek Orthodox do…

 

[twf]

Eastern deaconesses, whether in antiquity or in the present, would not preach. I’m pretty sure women can’t even serve as readers in the East.

 

[pnewton]

If a pope were to claim such power and authority it would be an abuse of his office, and any such claim would be invalid.

As this has not been a defined dogma, it would not invalidate one’s papacy. Unless, you can show where this dogma has been defined by the Church, which no one has yet been able to do.

I know that Saint John Paul only defined as dogma that men cannot be priests. I also know that the synod to consider this topic made no changes to allow women to be deacons. What the future holds is speculative, but it is not dogma, or physics, that is being addressed.

I agree with you. But I also believe that those who are advocating for a female deaconate will not be satisfied with anything less than major orders. So far I have seen no theological argument on their part against the view that all Holy Orders are reserved to men

I agree as well. Perhaps this might be defined someday and end licit discussion, or perhaps some arrangement short of ordination to major orders might be made. I cannot think of any role offhand that a deacon performs that would by theological necessity be reserved to the ordained.

 

[pnewton]

St. Paul is clear that women are not to teach.

He said women are to be silent in the Church. Yet it is understood that this discipline can and has been changed. Likewise women can teach, as many lay ministries from women have their ministry approved. Two disciplines can’t be added together to make some doctrine.

 

[stpurl]

It helps if one knows the context in which he addressed that particular church. Obviously women in church were not perfectly silent; they participated in prayer and song just like the men. And as for ‘teaching’, I’m pretty sure St. Paul meant in the context of ‘proselytizing’. There were Gentile and Jewish women who, I had read, came into the gatherings and disrupted the services in trying to ‘shut down’ Christian teachings, and St. Paul didn’t want the Christian women to get into rebuttals etc.

Everybody likes to make out St. Paul as this ‘anti-wimmen’ kind of "Let’s keep the men firmly in charge’ guy who took the beautiful “all are equal” message of Jesus and firmly stamped “MEN ONLY” onto it, but St. Paul was a Roman citizen. Rome may have had the whole "Paterfamilias’ thing but for a Roman citizen of his time, the average woman had a pretty high rep. The average Jewish woman too may not have had the kind of ‘court sanctions’ that women have today but she was, re Proverbs, seen as a helpmate more often than a chattel. He also studied with and had high respect for the Rabbi Gamaliel, whose own teachings were inclined to favor women in many ways.

It is not really so much that ‘teachings change’ --with the idea that “men bad then, get better now” but that with careful study, we see that teachings can develop.

It’s more like, “The teachings are still the same, but our understanding of WHY it was said and what it might have meant might change.” For example, some people back in the 17th century might have taken it to mean ‘women not capable’ because that whole century, with societal upheavals in Europe and an imperfect understanding of 1st century Rome and Judea --brought about often by Protestants ‘reading Scripture by themselves’ and understanding words to mean ‘then’ what they meant in AD 1630 or so–didn’t get the full context or story. Fast forward about 400 years and with more information available and less inclination to insist that one’s ‘vernacular’ Bible words and attitudes are the same as those of AD 2019, and we ‘get’ that St. Paul was NOT ‘dissing women’ at all.

 

[tafan2]

I cannot think of any role offhand that a deacon performs that would by theological necessity be reserved to the ordained

Perhaps not absolutely necessary, but that does not mean there are not theological arguments for them to be performed by the ordained in normal circumstances. The Church does not arbitrarily say only the ordained can preach the gospel.at mass, or perform weddings, or baptisms. Yes, in extreme circumstances anyone can baptize and the Church can designate lay people to perform weddings, but there are reasons why it is not the norm.