Vatican’s Doctrinal Chief Says Now Not The Time For Female Deacons
The Vatican’s doctrinal summit opened this week with one issue deemed to be out of bounds: female deacons.
Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernandez, the Vatican’s prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, said on Wednesday that the church was not “rushing” on the issue.
Fernandez informed the gathering in Rome — the final session of what’s known as the Synod on Synodality — that a study group is still exploring how women can be involved in the church.
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“The opportunity for a deepening remains open, but in the mind of the Holy Father, there are other issues still to be deepened and resolved before rushing to speak of a possible diaconate for some women,” Fernandez said. “Otherwise, the diaconate becomes a kind of consolation for some women, and the most decisive question of the participation of women in the church remains unanswered.”
Following last year’s opening session of the synod, Pope Francis set up 10 theological study groups to look more deeply on a myriad of issues — some of them doctrinally controversial — regarding opening the diaconate to women, the election of bishops and how to minister to LGBTQ Catholics.
In his report, Fernandez said “there is still no room for a positive decision by the magisterium regarding the access of women to the diaconate, understood as a degree of the sacrament of holy orders.”
But, he added, the dicastery recommended that the next step would be “to analyze in-depth the lives of some women who — in both the early and recent history of the church — have exercised genuine authority and power in support of the church’s mission.”
Pope Francis has previously said, on multiple occasions, that the door on making women priests is closed and that female deacons are also very unlikely to happen.
The synod — made up of bishops, priests and laypeople — features more than 400 participants. The session, which concludes on Oct. 27, has 368 voting delegates (272 of whom are bishops) and another 96 who are not. Among the 96 nonbishops, about half are women.
In opening the synod this week, the pope reminded the delegates that the whole point of the gathering was to hear different voices within the church.
“Never can a bishop, or any other Christian, think of himself ‘without others,’” he said. “Just as no one is saved alone, the proclamation of salvation needs everyone and requires that everyone be heard.”
He added: “Differing forms of a collegial and synodal exercise of the episcopal ministry (in the church) … will need to be identified in due course, always respecting the deposit of faith and the living tradition, and always responding to what the Spirit asks of the churches at this particular time and in the different contexts in which they live.”
For those who think the synod is invalid because it doesn’t exclusively feature clergyman or solely the College of Cardinals, the pontiff said, “It points to the form that the exercise of episcopal authority is called to take in a Church that is conscious of being essentially relational and therefore synodal.”
Some bishops have said that the synod may be “schismatic” in nature. In response, the pope said “harmony is essential” throughout this process and to avoid “pitting the hierarchy against the lay faithful.”
Clemente Lisi is the executive editor of Religion Unplugged. He previously served as deputy head of news at the New York Daily News and a longtime reporter at The New York Post. Follow him on X @ClementeLisi.