Designer clerical wear for women in the Church of England. | Photo courtesy of Jonathan Self.
In an interview with Italy’s La Repubblica, Cardinal Walter Kasper discusses Pope Francis’ intention to form a commission to study the issue of “female deacons”:
“There is going to be a fierce debate, I think. On this issue, the Church is split down the middle,” German Cardinal Walter Kasper said in an interview with Italy’s La Repubblica.
Kasper’s comments came a day after Francis said he would set up a commission to study the possibility of having women serving as deacons, ordained members of the clergy who can carry out many of the duties of priests.
Kasper, one of the most influential liberal voices in Catholicism, said Francis wanted the issues aired after years of demands for women to have a greater role in the Church hierarchy.
“I personally don’t have a clear position but I am always open to and ready for innovation,” Kasper said, adding it was impossible to predict the outcome of the review.
“If you look at what has happened in the past, it would lead you to say no (to female deacons). But anything is possible.”
Whenever the winds of change are blowing, it seems we can count on Kasper to be in the mix.
Yesterday, I can’t count the number of people who sent me the story about the female deacon issue and asked me what I thought. I’ve read a the whole transcript of that part of his address. Francis treats of the problem fairly accurately as I understand it, describing the non-ordained role of “deaconnesses” in the early Church, which dealt with propriety and modesty in cases like full immersion baptism rather than any sacramental or preaching role. It does appear that the question was pre-planned — not many people would have a fairly obscure reference to the Council of Chalcedon ready to go off the top of their head, not even a pope — so that’s a consideration. Why include that question if you don’t want to open a door?
“You have to realize that [Francis] is aiming at reform that is irreversible. If one day he should sense that he’s running out of time and doesn’t have enough time to do what the Spirit is asking him, you can be sure he will speed up.”
Ultimately, I don’t expect much movement on female deacons. They’ll dredge it up and look at it all over again, and very little will come of it, despite the excitement of Fr. James Martin and company.
What will happen, though, is the continued battering down of any certainty that the Catholic faith is divinely revealed and immutable. The sense of constant change, perpetual flux, in something that is supposed to be unyieldingly stable is a huge problem. Cardinal Kasper may be “always open to and ready for innovation”; he may like to think that “anything is possible” — but most of the faithful are not and do not.
There is a curious unmaking of some of the more important accomplishments in the pontificate of John Paul II happening here. First, the synods on family which then produce an exhortation that snubs and all but replaces his Familiaris Consortio. Now, a commision to revisit what was so well established in JPII’s Ordinatio Sacerdotalis that it is referred to as “infallible.” You’ll see a particular syntax around the Catholic web about this “not being a question of opening a door; there is no door.” (EDIT: In response to an objection in the comments, I concede here that I am mistaken about OS. It treats of the all-male priesthood, but not the diaconate. Nonetheless, Canon 1024 does prohibit women’s ordination, and there is no evidence that women were “ordained” deacons in the sense of the ordination conferred as a part of the sacrament of Holy Orders. The “ordinations” of women that did happen, such as they were, were sacramentals not sacraments, and dealt with roles proper to the now-abolished minor orders. I hope to publish a piece treating of this more in the near future.)
And yet, here we are.
It is difficult for me to conjure up an explanation other than a permanent state of rupture and confusion. The satirical Catholic website, Eye of the Tiber, handles the issue masterfully…but it somehow falls just short of comedy when it’s actually the way people feel.
The upshot of never-ending upheaval is nothing less than the crushing of faith and hope, the subsequent diminution of charity, and the loss of countless souls to despair.
I wonder if Pope Francis and his friends, always excited about novelty, ever contemplate that fact — or the terrifying accountability they will have before Our Lord.
Steve Skojec is the Founding Publisher of OnePeterFive.com. He received his BA in Communications and Theology from Franciscan University of Steubenville in 2001. His commentary has appeared in The New York Times, USA Today, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, Crisis Magazine, EWTN, Huffington Post Live, The Fox News Channel, Foreign Policy, and the BBC. Steve and his wife Jamie have eight children. You can find more of his writing at his Substack, The Skojec File.
Awaiting the conservative Catholics to issue their bland Jimmy Akin defense.
Note that the Minor Orders were not themselves abolished (impossible under the Anathema of Canon 2, of Trent Session XXIII). Ministeria Quaedam itself is quite specific in saying: “What up to now were called minor orders are henceforth to be called ministries” which makes it a semantics issue.
As Kasper says, it would split the Church. No Holy Father wants to be remembered as the one that caused a massive schism. That said, it’s happened before and it will happen again. All we can do is pray, keep the faith, and endure.
None are required to, even if it’s most convenient for many/most. While most of all of us here prefer the TLM, the Novus Ordo has always been considered valid except by sedes and the like. While SSPX will distinguish between validity and licitness, that’s hardly the same thing.
If we acknowledge the new Mass as valid but lacking in reverence and perhaps theologically… deficient, those should be addressed to the degree possible. The biggest fix in the new Missal is curtailing ambiguity (“some suitable” place/prayer, etc). Be clear and mandate that the Roman Canon will be used on a Solemnity, EP2 on a Feria, etc. Mandate the sermon to be from the ambo, for example. Abolish any musical instrument but the organ. Encourage bishops to order ad orientem celebration and the replacement of tabernacles to the main altar. Replace the bows with genuflections by all. Require bishops to institute lectors and acolytes and the GIRM as it is handles most of the rest of the issues of laics. While it makes a certain amount of sense for vernacular propers, ideally, Latin would return for at least the unchanging parts. The NO in that form which would be hard to distinguish by casual laymen.
The reforms themselves were done so rapidly and with such disregard for the laity, they wounded so many souls and should not be emulated in fixing the mess they left us with. For whatever reason, many faithful Catholics who don’t know what they don’t know are happy with the Mass they have, much as the faithful in the early 1960’s were. A wholesale imposition would endanger many souls and push more than a few towards either schism or heresy.
The absolute limit it could ever go is the Eastern model (if married before ordination, but certainly not after) and then there would need more than a few disciplinary changes and changes in legislation.
Practically, very few parish rectories are capable of supporting children, though that is hardly a concern for those pushing for this. Then one ponders what would happen when civil divorce became an issue.
Laics can always vote with their feet… and tithe. Hard to see it ever getting into certain diocese (Lincoln), much less the traditional niches… eventually the dearth of vocations from the… permissive diocese will continue to dry up.