Calling women as deacons is at least worth talking about
Phyllis Zagano
The early Church had a problem. As it grew, the apostles could not attend to all its ministries. As Pope Francis said, when speaking to assembled bishops in Philadelphia, last September, the apostles essentially ‘invented’ the diaconate. The beginnings of the diaconate related in the Acts of the Apostles include an important fact: the apostles (not Jesus) called the first seven to service of the nascent Church.
At the time, there was dissention among the Greek-speaking and Hebrew-speaking new followers of Christ, specifically about the distribution of food to their widows. The apostles said they needed to devote themselves to prayer and preaching, and asked for nominations from the members of the Church for people to serve in functions we now call diaconal.
Scripture records the names of the first seven chosen for the task, and scholars argue they were all men: Stephen, Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas and Nicolas. That both makes sense and it does not. The problem was ministry to women, and in those times as in many other times, even today, the direct ministry by men to women (without any assisting woman minister) was scandalous. But that is what we have. What is most important, as Francis noted, is that the diaconate is a creation of the Church.
Women in the diaconate?
So what? Well, what the Church has created the Church can amend, and what the Church has done, the Church can do again. And the Church – for many centuries – ordained women to the diaconate.
There is no scandal in women deacons. In fact, the diaconate is and actually always has been a separate ministry that preceded the priesthood. Deacons are not priests. The diaconate always was and today still is totally separate from priesthood. Being a deacon does not mean one is automatically eligible to become a priest.
The earliest ministries of the women who were deacons were directed at women and children: women deacons assisted in the baptisms of women (no man could anoint a woman); women deacons catechised women and children; women deacons kept order in the women’s part of the assembly and guarded the women’s doorway; women deacons visited ill women and often anointed them in their illnesses.
As Church practice became more formalised, male and female deacons were ordained inside the sanctuary by the bishop. The bishop used the same liturgical formulae for both — including the epiclesis, or invocation of the Holy Spirit — and the women were known as ordained deacons, just as were the men. In various times and places and as language developed, many of the women ordained to the diaconate came to be known as ‘deaconesses’.
To complicate matters, in some times and places the wives of male deacons — including women not ordained – were also called ‘deaconesses’. Even so, there is sufficient historical evidence — literary and historical works, liturgies, even tombstones — to support the by now well-known understanding that women served clerical roles with similar rights and restrictions as other deacons.
Women deacons in Scripture
The fact of women deacons in the early Church explains the curious reference to “the women also” within Paul’s listing of requirements for deacons: “respectable men whose word can be trusted, moderate in the amount of wine they drink and with no squalid greed for money”. (1 Timothy 3:8) In the middle of deacons’ qualifications, Paul gives the requirements for women deacons, who “in the same way… must be respectable, not gossips but sober and quite reliable”. (1 Timothy 3:11)
The only woman in Scripture with the title ‘deacon’ is Phoebe, “a deacon of the Church in Cenchreae.” (Romans 16:1-2), and even though there is sufficient evidence to support women deacons, many people still resist restoring women to this ancient ministry.
Virtually all scholars agree that there were women called deacons (later, deaconesses) who performed ministry, but there is significant disagreement as to whether they were sacramentally ordained. To deny that the women ordained as deacons were sacramentally ordained calls into question both the ordinations of the male deacons and the ordaining bishops’ actual intent.
Ordaining women deacons
If the women deacons of history were sacramentally ordained, there seems no restriction to returning to that practice. Therefore, theological in-fighting in recent years tends to fall into two camps:
1) women were sacramentally ordained as deacons;
2) women were not sacramentally ordained as deacons.
Those who say women were sacramentally ordained point to the liturgies actually used by bishops to ordain women, and particularly to the epiclesis, as well as to the women deacons’ assigned duties, especially those that touched the sacred. No early Church bishop — East or West — would allow sacred functions to be performed by someone not ordained.
Those who say women were not sacramentally ordained dismiss the liturgical evidence as inconclusive and note that women deacons’ assigned duties were primarily to women and children. For example, because women may not have preached to the assembly then, they reason, women cannot preach to the assembly today.
Further, they argue that women deacons were not ‘real’ deacons, but rather a fourth non-ordained, non-clerical semi-order especially for women. Some even argue that there were no women deacons at all, that the women whose tombstones call them deacons were really the wives of male deacons.
The reason the evidence – especially the historical evidence – seems sometimes to contradict itself is that different territories had distinct cultures and languages, and every bishop had his own determinations of how he wished the people of his diocese to be ministered to. So, while one culture or territory or bishop might have welcomed women deacons, another might not.
So it is today. Naysayers have argued that women who want to be ordained are seeking power – a curious statement if it indicates that all who seek ordination are power-hungry – and also that women cannot image Christ.
The latter statement is grave and seriously misinformed. Catholicism teaches that persons are ordained to be and to serve “in the image of Christ”. While women cannot image Jesus, living and being in the image of Christ is a wholly different concept. In fact, we are all made in the image and likeness of God, and we all are called to image Christ.
Deacons are not priests
However, the negative arguments continue. There is the misunderstanding that ordination to the diaconate marks “a milestone in priestly formation”. Quite frankly, it does not. Diaconal ordination is to the one order of deacons. In the Latin or Western Church, men who are in formation for priesthood are ordained as deacons up to one year before they receive priestly ordination. Prior to serving as priests, they serve as deacons.
The diaconate, a full and separate order, lives again now. There are more than 42,000 ordained male deacons worldwide, most of whom are married men.
Fully one-half of Ireland’s dioceses list contact telephone numbers for persons interested in the diaconate, and many have formed, trained and ordained deacons since 2006, when the Irish Bishops’ Conference requested permission of Rome to ordain permanent deacons.
Why deacons?
Why have permanent deacons? The Vatican’s Congregations for Clergy and for Education, in explaining the reasoning for restoring the diaconate as a permanent ministry, gave three reasons:
- a desire to enrich the Church with the functions of the diaconate, which otherwise, in many regions, could only be exercised with great difficulty;
- the intention of strengthening with the grace of diaconal ordination those who already exercise many of the functions of the diaconate;
- a concern to provide regions where there was a shortage of clergy, with sacred ministers.
The functions of the diaconate
The impetus off the Second Vatican Council to expand clerical ministry with the specific functions of the diaconate was in part directed by the shortage of trained ministers in various parts of the globe. That shortage continues, and is increasing in dire proportions in the Americas and in Europe.
Some still argue that “more priests” is the only answer and various suggestions about restoring a broader married priesthood in the Latin Church have surfaced with increasing regularity as an answer to the shortage.
Yet with or without married priests, the Church still needs the functions of the diaconate. The shorthand description of diaconal duties is ministry of the Word, the liturgy and charity. These can be thought of as self-reflecting duties, each supporting the other. The deacon’s personal dedication to the Word of God in Scripture is symbolically represented in the fact that the deacon proclaims the Gospel at Mass. The deacon often preaches.
What does the deacon preach about? The deacon is charged with the Church’s charity. So visiting the sick and imprisoned, providing food and clothing for those in need, overseeing the church’s funds, are all diaconal duties. When the deacon preaches the Word of God, it is the merciful ministry of charity that is the focus.
While people in developed nations have enjoyed these ministries as part of priestly duties, the fathers of Vatican II in their wisdom both noted that missionary territories suffered a lack of diaconal ministry. Now, as the Irish bishops have pointed out in The Permanent Diaconate – National Directory and Norms for Ireland on the Formation of Deacons, Ireland is a region where these ministries can “only be exercised with great difficulty”.
Grace of diaconal ordination
One of the principal reasons for restoring the diaconate as a permanent vocation was to bring the grace and charism of holy orders to individuals who were already exercising diaconal ministry. Again, it is important to recall that deacons are not priests.
The difference between diaconal orders and priestly (and episcopal) orders is just that: deacons are ordained to the ministry, not unto the priesthood. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (1554) points out the difference, and in 2009 Pope Benedict XVI modified canon law to reflect the clear distinction between priestly and diaconal ordinations (Canons 1008-1009). We see as well the major symbolic distinction in their ordination liturgies: only priests and bishops are anointed in their sacred ordinations.
Can women be ordained as deacons? Most scholars say ‘yes’. The most recent document from Rome, the 2002 study document from the Vatican’s International Theological Commission, concluded that while the women deacons of history served in somewhat different roles, the clear distinction “between the ministries of the bishop and the priests on the one hand and the diaconal ministry on the other, is strongly underlined by ecclesial tradition, especially in the teaching of the Magisterium”. That is, tradition and the Magisterium demonstrate the separation between the diaconate and the sacerdotal ministries.
Therefore, the Vatican commission concluded, the restoration of women to the ordained diaconate is not resolved, but left to further consideration: “It pertains to the ministry of discernment which the Lord established in his Church to pronounce authoritatively on this question.”
In fact, there are no higher-level official statements in modern times against women deacons, who are mentioned in the canons of early ecumenical councils and many early documents, in addition to the surviving liturgies once used to ordain the women to the diaconate.
Interestingly, in the 12th and 13th Centuries, a number of Popes wrote to the bishops of Porto in Portugal giving them permission to ordain women deacons. As late as the mid-18th Century, Pope Benedict XIV formally approved the canon laws of the Maronite Church – the only Eastern Church never to break from Rome – that detailed the work of women deacons and stated that bishops could ordain women to diaconal service both inside and outside monasteries.
Provide… sacred ministers
It is true that in most cases women deacons did not perform the same functions as did male deacons. Yet, if women deacons solely ministered to women and children in the past, how does that affect the present? Who provides that ministry to women and children today as a direct extension of the ministry of the diocesan bishop? The Irish bishops’ directory notes that one of the reasons to restore the permanent diaconate in Ireland is to provide sacred ministers where there is a shortage of clergy. Certainly, Ireland suffers a worsening shortage of sacred ministers. Are women not worthy of sacred ministers?
At the turn of the 20th Century a number of bishops, especially in German-speaking countries, began to train women for the diaconate. Their actions alarmed at least three now-retired cardinals who headed Vatican offices. They published a brief ‘notification’ — a low-level Vatican document — that basically said they did not want to ordain women as deacons.
Later, another Vatican office published a document calling the sacred ordination of women a serious crime. Some wonder if this — as every Vatican document — uses the term ‘sacred ordination’ only to mean priestly and episcopal ordination.
That would mean it did not affect the tradition of ordaining women as deacons. In any event, despite the mounds of evidence to the contrary, some prelates even today say there are ‘theological’ reasons against ordaining women as deacons, although when pressed to state these reasons they simply say “because it is against the law”.
In fact, it is against the law to ordain a woman — deacon, priest or bishop — but the theological support for women deacons outweighs later opinions about the female diaconate. In fact, the theological reasons for not ordaining women as priests or bishops actually support the notion of women deacons.
The main reason given for not ordaining women as deacons is that Jesus’ choice of male apostles restricts the Church to choose only male candidates for priesthood and the episcopacy. So be it.
Women cannot be priests. But Jesus did not select the people whom the Church views as the first deacons, nor (as noted earlier) is anyone in Scripture actually called a deacon beyond Phoebe. So the unbroken tradition of the Church in ordaining women as deacons could naturally be reclaimed today in the Catholic Church.
Unbroken tradition?
When most people think about the Catholic Church, they focus on the Roman, or Latin Church. While there are women deacons historically recorded in the West, the East, especially the Churches of Orthodoxy, has a deeper and continuing tradition.
The Catholic Church formally recognises the validity of the sacraments and orders of Orthodox Churches. In modern times, the Orthodox Church of Greece at its 2004 synod approved the ordinations of monastic women deacons, and there was discussion about women ordained for diaconal service outside the monasteries. The Armenian Apostolic Church never abandoned its practice of ordaining women as deacons. And, as noted above, the Maronite Church — one of the 22 or 23 Eastern Catholic Churches in full communion with Rome – reaffirmed the practice of ordaining women as deacons as recently as the 18th Century.
Where does all this leave the Catholic Church today? The first question any local Church needs to decide is whether it needs deacons at all. The Church in Ireland seems to have decided that it does, although it appears not all bishops in the country find a need for deacons. If they do not want deacons, they need not call them forth for service in their dioceses. But, could the Church in Ireland determine it needs the diaconal ministry of women as well as of men?
Pope Francis not long ago, effectively told bishops’ conferences around the world if they wanted something, they should ask for it. Women deacons could bring the Church in Ireland to a new beginning. It is at least worth talking about.
*Dr Phyllis Zagano is senior research associate-in-residence at Hofstra University, Hempstead, New York, USA and a leading expert on ministry by women. Her latest book, Women Deacons? Essays with Answers, includes newly translated writings by Philippe Delhaye, Yves Congar, and Corrado Marucci on women deacons.
