Women deacons

[hdedwards]

I was just wondering if in the Catholic Church women are allowed to become deacons and if not what other vocations are available besides sisterhood

 

[Brendan]

I was just wondering if in the Catholic Church women are allowed to become deacons and if not what other vocations are available besides sisterhood

No, women are not permitted to become Deacons (and never have been Deacons in the concept of Holy Orders)

Women may participate in the vocations of religious life, married life or as a secular single person.

All of those roles have the example of wonderful saints for women to emulate in their journey toward Heaven (which is the only real Goal of humanity).

 

[Cloisters]

Don’t forget Consecrated Virgins.

Blessings,
Cloisters

 

[puzzleannie]

the most common vocation undertaken by Catholic woman is marriage, as wife and mother.

 

[rwoehmke]

Some of the Eastern Churches had what they called Deaconesses until a couple hundred years ago. Some are bringing the role back. The catch is that if one looks at this role it amounted to being what we in the Western Church would call an un-cloistered Nun. Certainly a role in the Western Church that is still available albeit under a different title than Deaconess. Whether these Deaconesses were “ordained” in the same sense as a man is not totally clear.

 

[dulcissima]

Some of the Eastern Churches had what they called Deaconesses until a couple hundred years ago. Some are bringing the role back. The catch is that if one looks at this role it amounted to being what we in the Western Church would call an un-cloistered Nun. Certainly a role in the Western Church that is still available albeit under a different title than Deaconess. Whether these Deaconesses were “ordained” in the same sense as a man is not totally clear.

Someone in my Bible study had mentioned that in our area when married men were studying to be deacons, that their wives would attend classes with them so that they could share in their ministry. She referred to the wives as deaconesses. I know at our parish the deacon and his wife teach RCIA and baptismal preparation classes together. Still, that doesn’t make her an actual deacon since she can’t baptize or marry anyone. I do wonder though if this is the practice everywhere or an invention of my archdiocese.

 

[Titus]

It is extremely bad to call the wives of deacons deaconesses. Deaconesses were an unordained ministry which supported adult baptism of women when this was commonly by immersion. Therefore we have no need of them today. They never received Holy Orders. Otherwise the Holy Father John Paul II would have been in error when he declared that the Church had no authority to ordain women- and that is impossible.

 

[Sir_Knight]

she can’t baptize or marry anyone.

She CAN baptize as per CCC 1284.

 

[Struggling]

Well, JPII stated that Sacerdotal Orders (priestly orders) were impossible to confer on women.

Deacons don’t act In Persona Christi, so the arguments against it MIGHT not apply. In fact, some of the symbolic reasons that women absolutely cant become priests, might actually on the flipside support them in the diaconate.

Whether the deaconesses of the past were truly ordained is historically unclear. Your answer to that question is obviously going to depend on whether you believe they absolutely can’t be ordained sacramentally (in which case “deaconesses” were not a sacrament), or if you believe that they might be able to be deacons (in which case you are likely to believe that at least some of the deaconesses of the past were truly sacramentally ordained).

It would be unwise at this time, however, to even look into the question officially. It is best to leave theoretically possibilities unlooked into for now and enforce stern rules about an all male clergy for at least another generation or two (and that is being optimistic). Because it is a slippery slope…and if women were to be ordained deacons…given the current climate, it would just confuse a vastly uncatechized laity as to why they couldnt also become priests, and some woman would see it as a sign of “giving in” etc…

 

[stbruno]

All Sacraments are meetings with Christ.

Deacons baptize and deacons witness sacramental marriages. So they do act in the Persona of Christ.

As far as deacons and wives in our diocese. When a deacon candidate is married, wives do participate in the academics. For our diocese it is 4 years.Many deacons do share ministries with their wives after ordination but they also have their own individual ministries.

There is no cookie cutter pattern of how deacons and wives minister. However, most deacons wives participate in some kind of ministry within the church.

 

[Detroit_Sue]

the most common vocation undertaken by Catholic woman is marriage, as wife and mother.

Isn’t it amazing how many people, especially women, do not see marriage and motherhood as a vocation?

 

[revejj2000]

Deaconesses = Women Deacons

This is a false statement.

Deaconesses are women who provided assistant in the early Church at the Easter Vigil for those women catechumens being baptized. It was for modesty reasons that deaconesses where there. Deaconesses also perfomed roles of a sacristan and/or an uncloistered sister.

Women Deacons give the indication that women perform the roles that are reserved for male deacons. This is not possible. Deacons and Deaconesses had distinct roles in the Church that were not interchangeable according to the lack of one or the other.

 

[awalt]

Women can also hold many positions of responsibility in the Diocese/Archdiocese, and at least in ours women can serve as Pastoral Life Directors, a position where they are the lay pastor of a church and responsible for everything except conferring sacraments, syaing Mass, etc. (ie all the admin and management stuff).

 

[Brendan]

…at least in ours women can serve as Pastoral Life Directors,

In the Archdiocese of Detroit, that position is restricted to Deacons.

So every parish will be under that administration of someone who has the Grace of Holy Orders.

 

[Woodstock]

Someone in my Bible study had mentioned that in our area when married men were studying to be deacons, that their wives would attend classes with them so that they could share in their ministry. She referred to the wives as deaconesses.

It is considered a sort of vocational calling in the east to be the wife of a priest or of a deacon. The translation for a priest’s wife’s title is Priestess, Priest’s Wife, or Mother depending on the language. A deacon’s wife is called Deaconess or the same title as the priest’s wife, depending on the language. The title is applied to her in the same way Father is applied to priests.

In the western tradition, they would be called Deacon’s Wife or Priest’s Wife (for those RC priests with wives).

 

[decn2b]

. Whether these Deaconesses were “ordained” in the same sense as a man is not totally clear.

Whether there was a pair of unicorns on the ark is not totally clear. Therefore we must rely on the deposit of faith passed on through the church and the Historical account of salvation history to draw our conclusions pertaining to Women recieving holy orders. It is not likely that women recieved Holy Orders. There are too many instances that indicate otherwise. Specifically:

· The Twelve were exclusively male, and we must follow Christ’s manner of acting.

· The New Testament provides no guidance for the ordination of women.

· Sacred Tradition is interpreted as excluding the possibility of women’s ordination due to a lack of historic precedent and a number of authoritative, though not infallible statements indicating women should not be ordained.

· The bishop represents God the Father to the People of God, and all ordination to lower Orders are directed toward the episcopacy.

Is the current teaching part of the deposit of faith?

bible?
***As in all the congregations of the saints, women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church." 1 Corinthians 14:33-35 ***

 

[Andreas_Hofer]

Whether the deaconesses of the past were truly ordained is historically unclear. Your answer to that question is obviously going to depend on whether you believe they absolutely can’t be ordained sacramentally (in which case “deaconesses” were not a sacrament), or if you believe that they might be able to be deacons (in which case you are likely to believe that at least some of the deaconesses of the past were truly sacramentally ordained).

There is a third possiblity that most people overlook in discussions about deaconesses (and without myself seeing the whole historical record on the issue I still think it’s probably the correct one from what I’ve read): deaconesses could have been truly ordained even though they did not receive the Sacrament of *Holy Orders. *One need look only as far as the nearest traditional order for an example of this; subdeacons are ordained to that ministry, but their ordination does not confer a sacrament like ordination to the diaconate and above. We’ve been doing that long enough that I see no reason to assume there was a point in time at which ordination only referred to Holy Orders.

 

[Ron_Conte]

Women cannot currently receive the Sacrament of Ordination, nor can they be deacons or deaconesses in any true sense of the word. The Church has no licit office of deaconess, ordained or otherwise, available today.

It is considered an open question as to whether or not women can be ordained as deacons. My opinion is that the Church has the authority to ordain women as deacons, but not as priests or bishops, if the Church should so choose.

It is not at all true that the wife of an ordained male deacon has a role of deaconess by virtue of being married to a deacon, nor is it true that she shares in his ministry by virtue of that marriage. There is no support at all for this concept in Tradition or Scripture or the theology of the Sacraments.

It is not possible for a deaconess to be truly ordained and yet not receive the Sacrament of Holy Orders. That suggestion is absurd.

Ron Conte

 

[Andreas_Hofer]

It is not possible for a deaconess to be truly ordained and yet not receive the Sacrament of Holy Orders. That suggestion is absurd.

Ron Conte

Do you deny the true ordination of subdeacons?

Although several medieval theologians regarded minor orders as sacramental, this view is no longer held, for the fundamental reason that minor orders, also the subdiaconate, are not of Divine or Apostolic origin.
newadvent.org/cathen/10332b.htm

Wernz (op. cit. infra, No. 158) says: “Since ordinations below the deaconship are most probably not true sacraments, but rather sacramentals they do not imprint the true sacramental character, hence if they are conferred validly, they give a power of order instituted solely by human law and circumscribed by its limits.”
newadvent.org/cathen/14320a.htm

Ordination is a word we use in different ways. The rite is clearly for the ordination of a subdeacon, even though we don’t believe this to be the same sort of ordination as that which confers the Sacrament of Orders. Just as clearly, though, the ancient texts that institute deaconesses into their ministry have a rite for the ordination of a deaconess - the Greek word is the one for ordination, not just laying on of hands. This distinction is touched upon in this paragraph of the Catholic Encyclopedia:

From Scripture we learn that the Apostles appointed others by an external rite (imposition of hands), conferring inward grace. The fact that grace is ascribed immediately to the external rite, shows that Christ must have thus ordained. The fact that cheirontonein, cheirotonia, which meant electing by show of hands, had acquired the technical meaning of ordination by imposition of hands before the middle of the third century, shows that appointment to the various orders was made by that external rite. We read of the deacons, how the Apostles “praying, imposed hands upon them” (Acts 6:6). In II Tim., i, 6 St. Paul reminds Timothy that he was made a bishop by the imposition of St. Paul’s hands (cf. 1 Timothy 4:4), and Timothy is exhorted to appoint presbyters by the same rite (1 Timothy 5:22; cf. Acts 13:3; 14:22). In Clem., “Hom.”, III, lxxii, we read of the appointment of Zachæus as bishop by the imposition of Peter’s hands. The word is used in its technical meaning by Clement of Alexandria (“Strom.”, VI, xiii, cvi; cf. “Const. Apost.”, II, viii, 36). “A priest lays on hands, but does not ordain” (cheirothetei ou cheirotonei) “Didasc. Syr.”, IV; III, 10, 11, 20; Cornelius, “Ad Fabianum” in Euseb., “Hist. Eccl.”, VI, xliii.
newadvent.org/cathen/11279a.htm

Given that it is possible for ordination to “give a power of order instituted solely by human law and circumscribed by its limits,” what is so absurd about given a particular and circumscribed order to women?

 

[Fr_Ambrose]

Some of the Eastern Churches had what they called Deaconesses until a couple hundred years ago. Some are bringing the role back. The catch is that if one looks at this role it amounted to being what we in the Western Church would call an un-cloistered Nun. Certainly a role in the Western Church that is still available albeit under a different title than Deaconess. Whether these Deaconesses were “ordained” in the same sense as a man is not totally clear.

Yes, ordained. There are two threads in the Eastern Christianity subforum with good information.

**Orthodoxy Votes for Women’s Ordination **
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=36756

**Deaconesses Encouraged by Greek Orthodox Synod **
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=20474