The case of women deacons in the Roman Catholic Church

Jun 17, 2016

Dear Editor,
Your headline Commission to study female deacons in the Church of May 22 seems to imply that there are already in existence ordained female deacons in the Catholic Church and a commission is to be set up to study this.

On the contrary, on reading further, we see that His Holiness is going to create a commission to study the possibility of permitting women to be ordained as deacons to serve in the Church. He indicated this at a meeting with leaders of women’s congregations.

It is a doctrine of the Catholic Church that the ordination of women, as expressed in the current Code of Canon Law and the Catechism of the Catholic Church, that “Only a baptized man receives sacred ordination.” The Catholic Church teaches that this requirement is a matter of divine law (Divine law is any law that comes from the will of God in contrast to Man Made Law. The Treatise on Law by St Thomas of Aquinas states that divine law comes only from revelation or scripture, and is necessary for human salvation, and thus doctrinal.) The question of whether only males can receive ordination to the diaconate has not been ruled out by the Magisterium (i.e., the Pope, Roman curia and the bishops), although it is considered that there is a fundamental unity between deacons, priests, and bishops in the sacrament of Holy Orders, which is currently interpreted to mean that women cannot validly be ordained as deacons.

The commission that the Pope wants to set up to study women deacons in the Church is to answer the question of whether women could or should serve as deacons today. However, he was referring to the minor order of the subdiaconate, not the major diaconate that is an integral part of the sacrament of Holy Orders. The prospect of women receiving Holy Orders still is, and will remain, closed.

The ordained ministerial priesthood is for the holiness of the entire body of the faithful, and does not guarantee that the ordained minister goes to heaven. There is no “enhanced holiness” that comes about through ordination. Ordination is not a requirement for salvation; a priest can go to Hell just as easily as a layperson. Likewise, becoming a saint is equally open to men and women, lay or ordained. (e.g the Blessed Virgin Mary is venerated as the Queen of all Saints and female Saints have been declared Doctors of the Church )

In Genesis, we read that God created Man and then woman. Their roles were different.

As we celebrated the mystery of the Trinity, we learn that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, each of them is different from each other, but all three lead to one, complementing each other.

Let us be confident in the directions of the Holy Spirit, that he leads the Magisterium into all truth. He cannot be deceived nor deceive us.

Burnard Anthony
Faleel Subang Jaya