The commission will be composed of “six women and six men from academic institutions around the world”, including Phyllis Zagano, an American Catholic scholar based in NY and lecturer on contemporary spirituality and women’s issues in the church, the statement said.
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Deacons are ordained ministers but rank below priests within the hierarchy of the church.
In May, the Pope joked that he felt like a goalie fielding shots – with women calling him out, asking why they can’t preach at Mass or be ordained as deacons.
The move follows a pledge made by the Pope in May during a question-and-answer session with members of female religious orders in which he said a commission would study the possibility of women entering the Catholic clergy.
A U.S.-based organization dedicated to achieving the ordination of women as priests cautiously hailed Tuesday’s development. Some historians point out there were female deacons in the early church.
In announcing the panel, the Pope said he wanted specific study into the female diaconate “in the earliest times of the church”.
Professor of theology and ministry at Boston College, Father James Bretzke, said the pope had “shown he is very much his own person”.
Zagano is one of the most prominent holders of this position, which opens a wide door to arguments for women’s ordination to the priesthood.
Some Catholic women, particularly in the United States, have called for greater roles for women in the church, CNN reports. I believe yes. Can women be ordained as deacons?
The Church did away with female deacons in later centuries. Pope John Paul II wrote decisively, in a 1994 apostolic letter, that “the Church has no authority whatsoever” to ordain women to the priesthood, noting that Jesus picked men to serve as his Twelve Apostles. Pope Francis appointed Menke to the International Theological Commission in 2014.
Men studying to be priests were still ordained as deacons during the following years but only provisionally on their pathway to the priesthood. Women deserve to be brought more fully into the decision-making of the church.
At the audience, one sister asked why the Church does not include women in the permanent diaconate. “This view is not likely to dampen growing worldwide enthusiasm for women deacons”.
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The decision, he said, “belongs to the magisterium to pronounce with authority on the question”.
