The National Catholic Reporter and Catholic News Service were granted access, releasing a few signs that the pope is open to the idea of female deacons (or at least studying the idea more).
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The statement could signal openness to letting women serve in ordained ministry now reserved to men. Many liberal Catholics believe this sets a precedent for women to be more involved in the ministry.
“Personally, I think it’s something that will happen sooner or later”, Ruiz said.
Bridget Mary Meehan was excommunicated from the Catholic Church at the same time she became an ordained priest in 2009. “I think that’s what’s opening up, is the effort to look at the deeper truth”.
Ruiz said he “doesn’t see anything wrong” with allowing women to have the same decision-making positions in the church as men. It mentions “ample evidence” that there were female deacons in the early centuries of the church, including one named Phoebe mentioned in the Book of Romans. A 2014 Pew Research Center study showed 54 percent of Catholics nationwide are women.
The order of deacons was reinstituted in the Catholic Church after the reforms of the 1960s, and while deacons cannot celebrate the Eucharist like a priest, a deacon can preach at Mass, preside at weddings and funerals, and perform baptisms.
The conversation came around to a question by a nun who pointed out that women used to be deacons in the Catholic Church. Pope Francis said Thursday he agreed the matter should be given more careful consideration, telling hundreds of nuns from around the world that he himself always wondered about the role of deaconesses in the early church. Many women serve as scholars and spiritual directors and have certainly reflected deeply on Scripture.
“Right now, it’s such a shock”, said Medeiros, 74. While the ordination of women to the priesthood is a controversial issue, the diaconate for women does not have to be so. It reads as follows: “At a lower level of the hierarchy are to be found deacons, who receive the imposition of hands ‘not unto the priesthood, but unto the ministry.”‘ At an ordination to the diaconate only the bishop lays hands on the candidate, thus signifying the deacon’s special attachment to the bishop in the tasks of his “diakonia”. Prior to that, in the early centuries of the church, women were likely welcomed alongside men as deacons. “Maybe later on they probably will”. “It’s nothing new for us, but we’re delighted now that Pope Francis is going to open this up”.
Gerald Barnes, bishop of the Diocese of San Bernardino, declined comment on the announcement. Mother Ann Marie Karlovic, who is Prioress General of the congregation, said in a statement to The Tennessean that she was not present at the meeting and hesitant to comment on specific points.
Pope John Paul II claimed in his 1994 apostolic letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis that “the Church has no authority whatsoever” to ordain woman as priests, citing Jesus’ choosing of only men to serve as his twelve apostles.
Pope Francis on Thursday told an worldwide conference of nuns that he wants to create a commission to study the possibility of “reinstating” female deacons, a dramatic statement highlighting the historic role of women in the church, but one which left unclear what tangible changes Francis is open to making. He responded, “I accept; it would be useful for the church to clarify this question”. But he said he would ask the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to report back.
The pontiff suggested he would have a commission into women’s roles in the Church during a meeting at the Vatican overnight.
One woman asked about the possibility of an official commission to study the issue.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops says there are now more than 13,000 deacons in the United States.
“This is not only an idea whose time has come, but a reality recovered from history”, the Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest and author at America magazine, wrote on Facebook. “This news fills me with vast joy”.
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Campbell sees Francis as “kind of caught” between coming from a culture dominated by images of men as leaders, but also a person who has strong women friends and sees women as leaders.
