Pope will have final say on the female diaconate

Vatican scholars reject case for deaconesses
BY CHRISTINA WHITE
A LEADING Church authority has ruled against the creation of a female diaconate, in spite of evidence that women deacons existed in the early Church.
The International Theological Commission (ITC) has said women deacons working in the ancient Church performed a different role to the ordained male diaconate.
It concluded that there was no "equivalence" and no justification for women to assume a similar role in the Church today.
The announcement from the ITC, which is answerable to the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. signals no weakening of the Church's resolve against ordaining women.
The word deacon means "service", a title which was alone not enough to establish a precise role for women, the commission said.
The ITC report, the result of an extensive theological study on the role and identity of permanent deacons, was discussed at a Vatican conference last week.
Fr Thomas Norris, a lecturer in dogmatic theology and a key member of the investigating group, said the Church's early practice did not support the case for female deaconesses. But the ITC left "unresolved" the question of whether women deacons would or could be allowed in the Church. "In that respect the issue was left still open," he said. "It will remain a matter for the Magisterium of the Church to decide."
He said: "You have to look at what deaconesses did in the ancient Church, what was their nature, their commissioning, and so on. What clearly emerged from all of that is that there's not a simple equivalence.
"You can't make a simple equivalence between what was called diaconate in relation to women in the ancient church and the diaconate of men."
He added that although the commission was "unanimous" in its findings, the debate on whether or not women should be deacons in the Catholic Church would continue.
But the commission's conclusions may prove a setback for people campaigning for a more prominent role for women within the institutional Church.
lanthe Pratt of Catholic Women's Ordination said the ITC had made a "wrong historical interpretation".
She said:"There is a lot of evidence of the work women deacons were doing in the early Church. I do not think the commission's findings are historically accurate.
"They are so worried about women extending their ministry in the Church that they have made a wrong historical inter
pretation. Even if women deacons worked apart, it doesn't mean to say they were not part of the ordained diaconate."
John Wijngaards, a theologian whose book No Women In Holy Orders? The Ancient Women Deacons is published this month, said there appeared to be confusion on what the ITC actually said and he called for its report to be published.
"The commission says the task of the female deacon was not equivalent but this proves nothing," said Mr Wijngaards, who left the priesthood partly because of the Church's refusal to ordain women.
"The task of someone can be different — what matters is whether or not someone is ordained in a particular state. A priest who is a secretary to an archbishop is ordained just as a parish priest is. It doesn't imply a difference in their status as ordained ministers."
He said ITC had argued over the status of a female diaconate, adding:"A sizeable number felt that these women did indeed have sacramental status. The majority of theologians who have studied these matters agree that these women were ordained to the same sacramental diaconate. They received an ordination rite identical to that of the men."
He said: 'The present Vatican policy is very much one of containment."