Will There Ever Be Female Deacons in the Catholic Church?

[gelsbern]

I just thought I’d throw out there for those weighing historical criteria that ordination does not equal conferral of holy orders. The Eastern Orthodox who are reviving the office of deaconess like to point out that in the ancient rite the word for their institution really is “ordained.” But if you look at historic Latin orders, clerics were ordained to orders below the diaconate without receiving the sacrament of holy orders. The minor orders and subdiaconate were sacramentals, even though subdeacons were truly “ordained.”

So, long story short, the ordination of women to a particular office in an ancient ecclesiastical account doesn’t mean there is a possibility of ordaining female deacons.

You are correct. Unfortunately people’s understanding of definitions has changed. In the early church, it was understood, that the ordaining of a deaconess, was not the same as the ordaining of a deacon, but today, it would cause too much confusion because our modern society views men and women in the same and equal and ignores the differences. The post just above your post is an example of this. The word deacon (masculine), meant servant, whereas deacon and deaconess are are also titles. So Phoebe being a deacon (masculine term) meant she was simply a servant of the church. She was a deaconess yes, but as a deaconess, she was a servant (deacon) of the church.

It gets confusing, and unfortunately many people grasp at straws in many things to try to cause doubt in others. An example would be the reference to Christ’s brothers and sisters. Look at how many try to deny the perpetual virginity of Mary, just from a single line in Scripture.

 

[Charybdis]

I just looked at my bible and in the Romans 16:1 verse it says “servant” not deacon…

 

[Vox_Borealis]

I just looked at my bible and in the Romans 16:1 verse it says “servant” not deacon…

That’s because you are using an english translation. The greek clearly says deacon, in the masculine (accusative case) “diakonon.” The Latin translation of the Greek is a bit fuzzier, saying that Phoebe is “in ministerio” (in ministry, translated in my version of the bible as her being a “minister.”)

Thus, there is really no debate that Phoebe is called ‘deacon’ in Romans. The debate is, rather, what exactly ‘deacon’ meant at that early stage–was it one of the holy orders (which would mean ordained women in the early church), or did it mean something more like helper, administrator, etc.? The Church of course argues that such references to deacons (men or women) in the letters of Paul generally do not refer to holy orders.