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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 March 2013
The hope that marked the closing of Vatican II has faded regarding women, who are still restricted from power and authority in the Church. While ordination remains a pressing question, two related questions, those related to married clergy and lay involvement in authority and power, reflect upon the first and on each other. Yet, since power and authority are legally restricted to ordained persons, and given the present objections to women priests, it would seem necessary and possible to restore the female diaconate in order to allow women greater formal and official participation in the Church.
1 As quoted by Paul, John II, Apostolic Letter Mulieris Dignitatem (15 August 1988), no. 1.Google Scholar
2 VOTF, the Boston-based group formed in response to scandals in the Archdiocese of Boston, aims to reform Church structure; LCWR is the principal association of leaders of women's religious communities in the United States; CTA defines itself as a national coalition of Catholics working for peace and justice in the Catholic Church and beyond.
3 In 1997, the number of parish lay ministers paid for at least 20 hours a week was 29,146, an increase of 35% since 1992. At that time, 82% of parish lay ministers were women. See Murnion, Philip J. and DeLambo, David, Parishes and Parish Ministers: A Study of Parish Lay Ministers (New York: National Pastoral Life Center, 1999).Google Scholar More recent statistics count 30,632 parish lay ministers paid for at least 20 hours per week, of whom 80% are women (of whom 16% are women religious) (DeLambo, David, Lay Parish Ministers: A Study of Emerging Parish Leadership [New York: National Pastoral Life Center, 2005], 44Google Scholar).
4 The Vatican's yearbook for 2002, Annuario Pontificio per l'Anno 2002 (CittaÌ del Vaticano: Tipografia Poliglotta Vaticana, 2004)Google Scholar, noted 30,087 permanent deacons world wide in both the Eastern and Latin Catholic Churches.
5 The exception would be Syro-Malabar Catholic, Syrian Catholic and Coptic Catholic (except converts from Orthodoxy) priests, who must be celibate. Typically, Eastern Catholic priest-candidates for the United States and Australia must be celibate, (cf. Pius, Pope XI, Decree Cum data fuerit [1 March 1929]Google Scholar), although in the twenty-first century there have been a few married men ordained priests by Byzantine, Ukrainian, Romanian, and Melkite bishops in the United States, and by Ukrainian bishops in Canada. See note 9, below.
6 Following the close of the Second Vatican Council, Pope Paul VI created the Synod of Bishops in 1965 to bring together the world's bishops for discussions of Church issues.
7 CORPUS (Corps of Reserved Priests United for Service), the national association for an inclusive priesthood, is one of the older Catholic reform groups in the United States, founded in 1974; CITI Ministries (“Celibacy is the Issue”) was founded in 1992, and supports “Rent-A-Priest.” CITI provides legal certification of priestly status, which allows priest-members to perform marriage ceremonies under civil authority, and sells a variety of items, including bumper stickers: “39 Popes Were Married,” and “Married Priests Promote Family Values.”
8 FutureChurch states that it is a coalition of parish-based Catholics which works to preserve the Eucharist by advocating for opening ordination to all the baptized. See http://www.futurechurch.org (accessed 22 September 2007).
9 Married Eastern Catholic priests ordained outside North America are well accepted. See King, Roxanne, “Married Byzantine Priest to Serve as Administrator of Downtown Parish,” Denver Catholic Register, June 4, 2003.Google Scholar In 1994, Ukrainian Bishop Basil Filevich of Saskatchewan, Canada ordained married candidate Ivan Nahachewsky to priesthood; in 1996 Melkite Catholic Bishop John Elya ordained married Protodeacon André St. Germain to priesthood in Methuen, Massachusetts. See Bole, William, “A Quiet Revolution,” http://www.catholic.net/RCC/Periodicals/Igpress/CWR/CWR0397/USA.html (accessed May 7, 2007).Google Scholar In 1999 the Vatican approved the Particular Law for the Byzantine-Ruthenian Church in the USA, which governs the Ruthenian Catholic Archdiocese of Pittsburgh and Dioceses of Passaic, Parma, and Van Nuys. Canon 758.3 of the Particular Law provides for married US priest candidates to be approved by Rome on a case-by-case basis.
10 There are as many as 100 “Catholic” churches, ranging from the American Catholic Church to the Universal Christian Catholic Church. Some claim valid succession through Union of Utrecht Old Catholic Churches, or through other lines. Some ordain women. Their clergy, on requesting admission to the Catholic Church, are admitted as lay persons.
11 The growing Roman Catholic Womenpriest movement is reflective of this situation. Some persons ordained by this movement have joined communions that call themselves Catholic but which are not in communion with Rome and have married male priests. The first U.S. ordination ceremonies for the Roman Catholic Woman Priest movement took place in Pittsburgh on July 31, 2006. A second round of North American ordinations (14 deacons, including two men, and 9 priests) took place in 2007 in Quebec, Toronto, New York, Santa Barbara, Portland, and Minneapolis. See http://www.romancatholicwomenpriests.org/events.htm (accessed July 28, 2007).
12 For example, James F. David, a former Roman Catholic priest, and his wife, Marie S. David, an ordained priest of Roman Catholic Womanpriest, have faculties from the Ecumenical Catholic Diocese of the Americas (Bishop Peter Paul Brennan) and run a retreat center on Cape Cod. Peter Paul Brennan has twice been ordained priest (Old Roman Catholic Church in North America, African Orthodox Church) and five times been ordained bishop (African Orthodox Church, Long Island; African Orthodox Church, Brooklyn; Ecumenical Catholic Diocese of the Americas, Los Angeles; Iglesia Ortodoxa Católica Apostólica, Los Angeles; and is also Primate of the Order of Corporate Reunion (Queens, NY). Most recently, he was among the four men ordained as bishop by Archbishop Milingo in 2006.
13 This specific point, and the more general point of the general inability of some celibate priests to relate maturely to women, is discussed in a number of works. See, for example, Doyle, Thomas P., Sipe, A.W.R., and Wall, Patrick, Sex, Priests, and Secret Codes (Los Angeles: Volt Press, 2006)Google Scholar; Schoenherr, Richard A., Goodbye Father: The Celibate Male Priesthood and the Future of the Catholic Church, ed. Yamane, David (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
14 Canons 492 and 537 govern the diocesan and parochial finance councils, respectively.
15 “With the exception of a comma, the final wording of para.1 in (what eventually became) canon 129 is exactly the wording that Cardinal Ratzinger had previously proposed” (McDonough, Elizabeth, “Jurisdiction Exercised by Non-Ordained Members in Religious Institutes,” Canon Law Society of America Proceedings 58 (1996), 292–307Google Scholar, at 294 n.4). McDonough refers to Cardinal Ratzinger's animadversiones and suggested text of 22 December 1980 as published in Pontificium Consilium De Legum Textibus Interpretandis, Acta et Documenta Pontificiae Commissionis Codici Iuris Canonici Recognoscendo, Congregatio Plenaria, 20–29 October 1981Google Scholar ([Civitas Vaticana:] Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1991), 38–45.
16 In 1980 the Holy See created a Pastoral Provision for receiving former Episcopal priests in the United States, in some case with their congregations. Only in the seven Anglican Use congregations (five in Texas, on each in Massachusetts and South Carolina) does the former Episcopal priest act as “pastor.” Since 1983 approximately 80 former Episcopal priests have been ordained as Catholic priests; most are married. See Pope Paul VI, Encyclical letter Sacerdotalis coelebatis (24 June 1967), no. 42. A few former Protestant ministers are also married Roman Catholic priests, in the United States and elsewhere, but accurate statistics are difficult to come by. There are 600 former Anglican Catholic priests in the United Kingdom (150 married) and a few in Spain. See Longenecker, Dwight, ‘The Anglican Right” Crisis Magazine, 13 June 2007, http://www.crisismagazine.com/june2007/longenecker.htmGoogle Scholar (accessed 28 July 2007).
17 From The Official Catholic Directory 2006 (New Providence, NJ: P.J. Kenedy & Sons, 2006) and Statistical Yearbook of the Church 2004 ([Civitas Vaticana]: Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 2004); population estimated as of 30 June 2002.
18 At the 2005 Synod of Bishops, the organization FutureChurch presented a petition with 35,000 signatures asking for discussion of married priests and women deacons. Of the 314 members and observers of the Synod, 14 were women auditors who had no voice in the Synod.
19 “Definitive” applied to divinely revealed doctrine is distinct from “definitive” applied to official church teaching that must be held, including infallible statements. However, as James Provost points out, “The canons do try to provide a protection against a creeping infallibilism: ‘No doctrine is understood to be infallibly defined unless it is clearly established as such’ (Canon 749 §3). They also require a ‘definitive act’ for the pope to declare something infallibly. Definitive teaching, in the code, is another way of saying that a teaching has been declared infallibly even in the tenenda category” (Provost, James H., “Safeguarding the Faith,” America, August 1, 1998, 12Google Scholar).
20 Canon 749.3: “No doctrine is understood as defined infallibly unless this is manifestly evident.” See Catholic Theological Society of America, “Tradition and the Ordination of Women” (June 1997), Origins 27, no. 5 (June 19, 1997), 75–79.Google Scholar
21 See Zagano, Phyllis, “The Revisionist History of Benedict XVI,” Harvard Divinity Bulletin 34, no. 2 (Spring 2006), 72–77, at 74.Google Scholar
22 International Theological Commission, From Diakonia of Christ to the Diakonia of the Apostles (Chicago: Hillenbrand Books, 2006).Google Scholar
23 Mulieris dignitatem, no 27: “In the history of the Church, even from earliest times, there were side-by-side with men a number of women, for whom the response of the Bride to the Bridegroom's redemptive love acquired full expressive force. First we see those women who had personally encountered Christ and followed him. After his departure, together with the Apostles, they ‘devoted themselves to prayer’ in the Upper Room in Jerusalem until the day of Pentecost. On that day the Holy Spirit spoke through ‘the sons and daughters’ of the People of God, thus fulfilling the words of the prophet Joel (cf. Acts 2: 17). These women, and others afterwards, played an active and important role in the life of the early Church, in building up from its foundations the first Christian community—and subsequent communities—through their own charisms and their varied service. The apostolic writings note their names, such as Phoebe, ‘a deaconess of the Church at Cenchreae’ (cf. Rom 16:1), Prisca with her husband Aquila (cf. 2 Tim 4:19), Euodia and Syntyche (cf. Phil 4:2), Mary, Tryphaena, Persis, and Tryphosa (cf. Rom 16:6, 12). Saint Paul speaks of their ‘hard work’ for Christ, and this hard work indicates the various fields of the Church's apostolic service, beginning with the ‘domestic Church’. For in the latter, ‘sincere faith’ passes from the mother to her children and grandchildren, as was the case in the house of Timothy (cf. 2 Tim 1:5).” Other translators of Rom. 16:1 call Phoebe a deacon, not a deaconess, of the Church at Cenchreae.
24 Fiorenza, Francis Schüssler, “From Theologian to Pope: A personal view back, past the public portrayals,” Harvard Divinity Bulletin 33, no. 2 (Autumn 2005), http://www.hds.harvard.edu/news/bulletin_mag/articles/33–2_fiorenza.html (accessed 22 September 2007).Google Scholar
25 See, for example, Gryson, Roger, Le ministère des femmes dans L'Église ancienne, Recherches et synthèses, Section d'histoire 4 (Gembloux: J. Duculot, 1972)Google Scholar; ET: The Ministry of Women in the Early Church, trans. Laporte, Jean and Hall, Mary Louise (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1976)Google Scholar; Martimort, Aimé Georges, Les Diaconesses: Essai Historique, Bibliotheca “Ephemerides liturgicae,” Subsidia, 24 (Rome: C.L.V. Edizioni Liturgiche, 1982)Google Scholar; ET: Deaconesses: An Historical Study, trans. Whitehead, K. D. (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1986)Google Scholar; Zagano, Phyllis, Holy Saturday: An Argument for the Restoration of the Female Diaconate in the Catholic Church (New York: Crossroad, 2000)Google Scholar; Eisen, Ute, Amsträgerinnen im frühen Christentum: Epigraphische und literarische Studien, Forschungen zur Kirchen- und Dogmengeschichte, Bd. 61 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ET: Women Officeholders in Early Christianity: Epigraphical and Literary Studies, trans. Maloney, Linda M. (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2000)Google Scholar; Madigan, Kevin and Osiek, Carolyn, Ordained Women in the Catholic Church: A Documentary History (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 2005).Google Scholar
26 The Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church of Greece voted in October 2004 to restore the monastic female diaconate, although there was discussion about a ministerial female diaconate. See “Archbishop Christodoulos to Postpone Vatican Visit,” http://www.hri.org/news/greek/ana/2004/04-10-09.ana.html#14 (accessed 22 September 2007), referencing Kathimerini English Daily, October 9, 2004 (Athens News Agency English-language section of October 9). See also Zagano, Phyllis, “Grant Her Your Spirit: The Restoration of the Female Diaconate in the Orthodox Church of Greece,” America, February 7, 2005, 18–21.Google Scholar
27 This admittedly weak argument is proposed for women priests by Wijngaards, John, Women Deacons in the Early Church: Historical Texts and Early Debates (Crossroad, 2006).Google Scholar Some Union of Utrecht Old Catholic Churches ordain both women deacons and women priests. The Armenian Apostolic Church and the Orthodox Church of Greece allow only the ordination of women deacons.
28 Canon 517.2: “If, because of a lack of priests, the diocesan bishop has decided that participation in the exercise of the pastoral care of a parish is to be entrusted to a deacon, to another person who is not a priest, or to a community of persons, he is to appoint some priest who, provided with the powers and faculties of a pastor, is to direct the pastoral care.”
29 A Mexican Franciscan bishop now working in Peru evidenced the same attitude in private conversation. He said he had no problem in ordaining married men to priesthood or women to the diaconate.
30 “Installation” after 1983 applies only to the ministries of acolyte and lector. Since 1983, the ordinary means by which a person enters the clerical state is through ordination to the diaconate.
31 “An important issue for women is how to have a voice in the governance of the Church to which they belong and which they serve with love and generosity. This can be achieved in at least two ways that are consistent with church teaching: through consultation and through cooperation in the exercise of authority” (National Conference of Catholic Bishops, Strengthening the Bonds of Peace: A Pastoral Reflection on Women in the Church and in Society [Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1995]Google Scholar, also at http://www.usccb.org/laity/women/bondsofpeace.shtml [accessed September 25, 2007]). The footnote to this section references Canon 129. Susan Muto of Duquesne University was the principal writer of the document. The ad hoc committee for the pastoral letter was headed by Bishop Joseph L. Imesch of Joliet, Illinois; the committee head for the statement was Bishop John Snyder, then Bishop of St. Augustine. A strong member of the committee was Cardinal William J. Levada, now head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
32 Canon 129: “1. Those who have received sacred orders are qualified, according to the norm of the prescripts of the law, for the power of governance, which exists in the Church by divine institution and is also called the power of jurisdiction. 2. Lay members of the Christian faithful can cooperate in the exercise of this same power according to the norm of law.”
33 Derogations would also be necessary to install women as acolytes and as lectors. See Canon Law Society of America, The Canonical Implications of Ordaining Women to the Permanent Diaconate (Washington, DC, 1995).Google Scholar
34 Notificazione delle Congregazioni per la Dottrina della Fede, per il Culto Divino e la Disciplina dei Sacramenti, per il Clero, http://212.77.1.245/news_services/bulletin/news/9669.php?index=9669&po_date=17.09.2001&lang=ge (accessed 22 September 2007): “1. Da taluni Paesi sono pervenute ai nostri Dicasteri alcune segnalazioni di programmazione e di svolgimento di corsi, direttamente o indirettamente finalizzati all'ordinazione diaconale delle donne. Si vengono così, a determinare aspettative carenti di salda fondatezza dottrinale e che possono generare, pertanto, disorientamento pastorale. 2. Poiché l'ordinamento ecclesiale non prevede la possibilità di una tale ordinazione, non è lecito porre in atto iniziative che, in qualche modo, mirino a preparare candidate all'Ordine diaconale. 3. L'autentica promozione della donna nella Chiesa, in conformità al costante Magistero ecclesiastico, con speciale riferimento a quello di Sua Santità Giovanni Paolo II, apre altre ampie prospettive di servizio e di collaborazione. 4. Le Congregazioni sottoscritte—nell'ambito delle proprie competenze—si rivolgono, pertanto, ai singoli Ordinari affinché vogliano spiegare ai propri fedeli ed applicare diligentemente la suindicata direttiva. Questa Notificazione è stata approvata dal Santo Padre, il 14 settembre 2001. Dal Vaticano, 17 settembre 2001.” Each signer voted in the 2005 Papal conclave: Cardinals Joseph Ratzinger (Doctrine of the Faith, now Benedict XVI), Jorge Arturo Medina Estévez (Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, now retired), and Darío Castrillón Hoyos (Clergy, and President of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei).
35 My translation. The ITC's original text reads: “Pour ce qui est de l'ordination des femmes au diaconat, il convient de noter que deux indications importantes émergent de ce qui a été exposé jusqu'ici: 1) les deaconesses dont il est fait mention dans la Tradition de l'Église ancienne—selonce que suggèrentlerite d'institutionetles functions exercées— ne sont pas purement et simplement assimilables aux diacres: 2) l'unité du sacrament de l'ordre, dans la claire distinction entre les ministères de l'évêque et des presbyters d'une part et le ministère diaconal d'autre part, est fortement souligné par la Tradition ecclésiale, surtout dans la doctrine du Concile Vatican II et l'enseignement postconciliare du Magistère. À la lumière de ces éléments mis en évidence par la présente recherche historico-théologique, il reviendra au ministère de discernement que le Seigneur a établi dans son Église de se pronouncer avec autorité sur la question” (“Le Diaconat: Évolution et perspectives,” La documentation catholique, no. 23 (19 January 2003): 58–107, at 107; cf. the Italian version, “Il Diaconato: Evoluzione e Prospettive,” La Civiltà Cattolica (2003), no. 1: 253–336). The Commission maintains the singular “order” found in Catéchisme de l'Église catholique. The English of the Code of Canon Law (cc. 1008–1054) uses “orders,” and the Catechism of the Catholic Church (chap. 3, art. 6) uses “holy orders.”
36 See Zagano, Phyllis, “Catholic Women Deacons: Present Tense,” Worship 77:5 (September 2003): 386–408.Google Scholar
37 See Zagano, Phyllis, “Grant Her Your Spirit: The Restoration of the Female Diaconate in the Orthodox Church of Greece,” America, February 7, 2005, 18–21.Google Scholar
38 Founded in 1960, the Standing Conference of the Canonical Orthodox Bishops in the Americas (SCOBA), brings together nine canonical hierarchs of Orthodox jurisdictions in the Americas: those of the Albanian Orthodox Diocese of America, Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America, Bulgarian Eastern Orthodox Church, Carpatho Russian Orthodox Diocese in the USA, Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, Orthodox Church in America, Orthodox Archdiocese In America and Canada, Serbian Orthodox Church in the USA, and Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the USA. Its offices are in New York.
39 Among the leaders of this group is FitzGerald, Kyriaki K., whose Women Deacons in the Orthodox Church: Called to Holiness and Ministry (Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 1998)Google Scholar is the definitive work on the topic in English.
40 Some of these issues are considered in Zagano, Phyllis, “Women Religious, Women Deacons?” Review for Religious 60 (2001): 230–44.Google Scholar
41 Rarely, usually in mission territories, lay persons by rescript are granted authority to baptize.