Speaking to around 900 members of the International Union of Superiors General today, representing half a million religious sisters from 80 countries, the Pope was asked if he would establish “an official commission” to study the question of women deacons. These are priests who cannot celebrate Mass but can lead prayer services, offer the sacrament of baptism and manage parishes as pastoral administrators in the absence of priests.
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“Many experts believe that women should also be able to serve in this role, since there is ample evidence of female deacons in the first centuries, including one named Phoebe who is cited by Saint Paul in his letter to the Romans”, the release from the Vatican press office said.
During a question-and-answer session, Francis was asked why the church excludes women from serving as deacons and why not put together a commission to study the question about reinstating female deacons. During a 75-minute conversation with the sisters, the pope did not indicate that the church’s longstanding prohibition on ordaining women priests will change.
Inland Catholics had mixed views Thursday on the announcement that Pope Francis is willing to create a panel to study whether women can be deacons in the Church.
Thavis noted that a 2002 study by a Vatican commission “was kind of seen as closing the door to women deacons at that time”.
The successful Irish singer Sinéad O’Connor is among many women who have been ordained as priests by bishops outside the Church, incurring automatic excommunication as a result.
Campbell said she worries that Francis’s sometimes-admiring language about women can at times seem confining.
“Let’s not forget, however, that 99% of the work of mercy that the Church does passes through the heart, the intelligence and the organisational capacities of women”. Since the 1960s, “mature married men” have been allowed to serve as permanent deacons-people who wish to take a vow to serve the Church, but who do not wish to ascend to the priesthood. But sometimes he has then gone his own way, as if using the exercise to inform himself but also as cover to make the gentle developments he wants without rocking the church’s foundations.
He said he will create a commission to study the possibility of ordaining women as deacons. “This news fills me with vast joy”.
“I doubt much will come of it”, Scaraffia said.
The newest advocate for women empowerment just might be the Catholic Church. “I mean by that argument you could say all priests must be 33 year old males from the Middle East”, remarks Cummings.
While warning that “the devil enters through one’s pocket”, Pope Francis also urged the superiors to choose their treasurers well, be suspicious of “friends” who promise to invest and increase their money and to ensure that their evangelical poverty is a life of simplicity, not misery. “I see no problem with a woman being a leader in the church”.
Local Catholics backed allowing women to be deacons.
Francis has often championed the special qualities of the female sex, saying in December 2014: “Women are like strawberries on a cake-you always need more of them”.
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“In the early church, it was quite clear that there were men and women deacons”, said Ms. Zagano, a senior research associate-in-residence and adjunct professor of religion at Hofstra University in NY.
