The new deacons with the ordaining Bishop Alan McGuckian SJ, Bishop Philip Boyce OCD, members of the formation staff of the Pontifical Irish College, Anthony’s brother, Father Joseph Briody, and the acolytes who served the Mass of ordination. Dear Editor, You asked on the front page of The Irish Catholic (21/04/2016): Is it time to consider a female diaconate? In her two-page argument for women deacons in Ireland, Phyllis Zagano stresses that the diaconate is “totally separate from priesthood”. Yet Cathal Barry, in his continuing series on the Catechism of the Catholic Church, says that the offices of episcopate, presbyterate and diaconate “are all three conferred by a sacramental act called ordination”. What is ordination if not a connection between the three orders?
As for the argument that women cannot image Christ, God the Father sent the second Person of the Blessed Trinity as His Son, not daughter (despite the significant role played at the time by priestesses in Roman, Greek and other major civilisations). Ms Zagano also refers to St Paul’s epistles to Timothy and to the Romans (I’m surprised she didn’t include Prisca, Aquila and Mary – Romans 16: 3 and 6 – as deaconesses!). But my Douai Bible quotes St Paul as telling Timothy (2: 12): “But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to use authority over the man…”
Either the Catechism and the Bible are right or Ms Zagano is.
Yours etc.,
Kieron Wood,
Rathfarnham, Dublin 16.