Pope Francis either intentionally or inadvertently opened up a very interesting discussion on the topic of the possibility of women deacons during a question and answer session following his recent meeting with an assembly of leaders of women’s religious orders in Rome. At this gathering of more than 900 sisters Pope Francis said that he wanted to “increase the number of women in decision-making positions in the church.” This led to one of the attendees asking him if the church could study the possibility of allowing women to serve as deacons in the future. He responded in his off the cuff manner, “Why not?”
He went on to say, “Constituting an official commission that might study the question? I believe yes. It would do good for the church to clarify this point. I am in agreement.”
“I accept,” the pope added later in the discussion, “It seems useful to me to have a commission that would clarify this well.” He mused that he had once asked one of his “good, wise professors” who had done some research on this issue to clarify the role of those women deacons in the early church. “What were these female deacons? Did they have ordination or no?” he recalled asking.
To say the least, this proposal was not hailed by all in the leadership or rank and file in the church! And the man who will be charged with this study, Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Muller, a German theologian who heads the church’s doctrinal office, has held in the past that the church cannot ordain women. Lucetta Scaraffia, who works for the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, does not think the majority of bishops in the world would look too kindly on the prospect of women deacons. “I doubt much will come of it,” Ms. Scaraffia said. “I think the pope would like to open discussion, but there is strong resistance” to the ordination of women to any rank in the church.
Nonetheless, it is an interesting study. In Romans 16: 1-2 Saint Paul speaks of one of the early church leaders, Phoebe, and in many of the translations of the Bible says, “I commend to you our sister, Phoebe, a deaconess of the church of Cenchreae, that you may receive her in the Lord as befits the saints, and help her in whatever she may require from you, for she has been a helper of many and of myself as well.”
Women are ordained deacons in some churches of Orthodoxy, mostly to serve in the monasteries of women or to attend to women during the sacrament of baptism. There also seems to be evidence in the church of the West that some form of women deacons served the church over the centuries. The First Council of Nicaea (325) spoke of deaconesses but said they “do not receive any imposition of hands, so they are in all respects to be numbered among the laity.” However, at the Council of Chalcedon (451) it was decreed, “A woman shall not receive the laying on of hands as a deaconess under 40 years of age, and then only after a searching examination.”
Well, it should be interesting to see what this commission has to say about the question of woman deacons in the end.
Father Joseph D. Wallace is director, Ecumenical and Inter-religious Affairs, Diocese of Camden.
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