In the last few years there has been a surge in the demand for female deacons(or deaconesses) and surprisingly not just in the Catholic Church. I’ve read articles about certain Eastern and Oriental Orthodox jurisdictions that are experimenting with it. Liberal Protestant movements have been doing this for a long time and it has yielded anything but positive results.
Recently Pope Francis in Querida Amazonia gave a pretty explicit condemnation of the recent push for a female diaconate. Pope Francis writes:
Such a reductionism would lead us to believe that women would be granted a greater status and participation in the Church only if they were admitted to Holy Orders. But that approach would in fact narrow our vision; it would lead us to clericalize women, diminish the great value of what they have already accomplished, and subtly make their indispensable contribution less effective.
– Paragraph 100
In a synodal Church, those women who in fact have a central part to play in Amazonian communities should have access to positions, including ecclesial services, that do not entail Holy Orders and that can better signify the role that is theirs.
– Paragraph 103
I was glad to read that in the document. Of course the proponents of this madness aren’t going to stop. They’ve had a setback but evil doesn’t sleep.
Now, what grounds do the promoters of female deacons stand on? Why they go to the early church of course. They are correct; there were female deacons in the early Church.
In Timothy Ware’s book The Orthodox Church, he talks about deaconesses in the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople.
In the year 612, on the staff of the Church of Holy Wisdom, there were 80 priests, 150 deacons, 40 deaconesses, 70 subdeacons, 160 readers, 25 cantors, and 100 doorkeepers:
– Timothy Ware, The Orthodox Church, page 258
In the ancient Church women served as female deacons; and although in the west these deaconesses seem usually to have been regarded as a ‘lay’ rather than an ‘ordained’ ministry, in the Christian east they were blessed with the same prayers and according to exactly the same rite as male deacons, so there are sound reasons to place them on the same sacramental level.
– Timothy Ware, The Orthodox Church, page 285
So the early church had female deacons and in some cases it was legitimate sacramental ordination. I’m a traditional Catholic. Why don’t I want to bring back this tradition? Well, I’ve noticed a pattern among Catholics who try to promote female deacons. They’re not traditional Catholics. They’re not attending TLM parishes or SSPX chapels. They’re on the liberal fringes. They only want to tap into this tradition because it can satisfy one of their modernist tendencies. They could care less about the tradition. They don’t want to bring back the Good Friday prayer for the conversion of the Jews, public penances, all night vigils and similar traditions that have died out. Only something that’s pro-feminism.
Don’t be deceived by this movement. It doesn’t care about the little tradition it can quote. It cares about feminism and destroying the faith of Jesus Christ. Thanks again Pope Francis!
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