by Phyllis Zagano
Published by the Crossroad Publishing Company, 481 Eighth Avenue, Suite 1550,
New York, NY 10001. 192 pages. ISBN 0-8245-1832-2. List price $16.95. Orders:
(212) 868-1801 or fax (212) 868-2171 or
email.
This
book contains a lot of interesting material and should be in the library of
everyone studying the ordination of women to the diaconate in the Catholic
Church.
The
author presents a strong case for the Church to strengthen the ministry of
women by restoring the diaconate of women. “The restoration of the female
diaconate is necessary for the continuation of the apostolic life and ministry
of the Roman Catholic Church.”
There
is much in this book that I agree with, but it also contains some serious flaws
in its argumentation. I will briefly comment on three.
1. The
author discusses at length the debate in the Catholic Church on the ordination
of women to the priesthood. She reports that the Vatican has steadfastly argued
its impossibility since it would run counter to the very will of Jesus Christ.
Though the author correctly sums up the arguments on both sides, she is
ambiguous as to her own conclusions. She seems to finally accept the
Church’s position against women priests as final and irreversible (p.63).
2. To
overcome Roman intransigence, the author tries to dissociate the priesthood and
the diaconate. The author contends that the Church’s resoluteness in not
ordaining women to priesthood actually supports the ability of women to be
ordained deacons, since one of the greatest arguments against women’s
diaconal ordination is the notion that women therefore may be ordained priests.
To argue that ordaining women deacons means that women may be ordained priests,
she points out, is to argue against the express teachings of the Pope. Such is
therefore irrelevant to the possibility of women deacons.
This
argument, however, does not stand up to scrutiny. First of all, as a theologian
she should be concerned with what is true or not, rather than what is
convenient. More importantly, try as she may, she cannot make her argument for
a radical separation of the diaconate and the priesthood stand. For
the Council of Trent defined that there is
within the sacrament of Holy Orders ‘a hierarchy by divine ordination
instituted, consisting of bishops, priests, and deacons’.
3. The
author is confused when discussing the past ordination of women deacons. She
presents the historical evidence of women deacons in the early Church and early
Middle Ages, but suggests that their ordination or nonordination reflected the
development of sacramental theology of the time. That is, if women
deacons—who like men received the imposition of hands by the bishop with
the recitation of the ordination prayer—were not ordained, then neither
were men deacons, she says. “The majority of scholars agree that women
were ordained and ordained in the present understanding of orders” (p.
98). So far so good. But the conclusion is surely that, since the diaconate of
the men is recognised by the Church as part of Holy Orders, so must that of the
women. How then can she say that the question of their past sacramentality is
irrelevant to the question whether women in the contemporary Church may be
ordained to the diaconate?
The
author does reveal a forceful ecumenical argument in support of ordaining women
deacons. While Church authority has often suggested that ordaining women would
be detrimental to ecumenical concerns, she points out that the Church fully
recognizes the apostolic succession and the sacramental validity of the
Armenian Apostolic Church, which never fully discontinued ordaining women
deacons and in fact ordains women deacons today. Two popes, Paul VI and John
Paul II, have signed such agreements with the Armenian Apostolic Church and
implicitly recognize the fact of validly ordained women deacons.
Surely, this points again at sacramentally ordained women deacons,
in present-day terms?
It is
a pity that this valuable book was so uncomfortable squeezed into an approach
aimed at escaping the theological censorship of the Vatican. The introduction
of the diaconate for women could, indeed, be a first pastoral step for the
Church. Theologically, however, the diaconate and the priesthood are firmly
tied together. Yes, women should be ordained deacons, but substantially for the
same reasons that women should also be ordained priests.
John Wijngaards
Table of Contents of ‘Holy Saturday’
Prologue
Part One: PREPARING THE ARGUMENT.
The Church must formalize the ministry of women.
Part Two: THE ARGUMENT
The restoration of the female diaconate is necessary for the continuance of
the apostolic life and ministry of the Roman Catholic Church.
- Men and women
are ontologically equal.
- The Church has
given reasons why women, although ontologically equal to men, may not be
ordained to priesthood.
- The judgment
that women cannot be ordained priests does not apply to the question of whether
women can be ordained deacons.
- Women are and
have been called to the diaconate.
- There are
stronger arguments from scripture, history, tradition, and theology that women
may be ordained deacons than that women may not be ordained
deacons.
- Women have
continually served the Church in diaconal ministry, whether ordained to such
service or not.
- The ordained
ministry of service by women is necessary to the Church, that is, to both the
People of God and the Hierarchy.
Part Three: CONCLUSIONS
The ordination of women to the diaconate is possible.
Index
Phyllis Zagano is founding co-chair of the Roman
Catholic Studies Group of the American Academy of Religion. She has taught
philosophy, theology, literature, and communications at a number of colleges
and universities on the East Coast, including Fordham University, Boston
University, and St. Francis College.
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