On 31 May 2015, the official website of the German bishops, katholisch.de, reported an interesting and revealing press event, at which a German theologian and the managing director of the International Diaconate Center (Internationales Diakoniezentrum, Rottenburg, Germany), Dr. Stefan Sander, has promoted the idea of women deacons. He is currently in Rome, said katholisch.de, because of “an international meeting.” Additionally, katholisch.de stated: “On Saturday [4 June], he [Sander] will – together with other experts – be received by Pope Francis [in a papal audience].”
The German branch of Vatican Radio, Radio Vatikan, published on 29 May its own report on an interview with Dr. Sander which is entitled: “The Church Needs Women as Deaconesses.”
This news also comes at the same time when The Tablet has reported that “campaigners for women’s ordination have had an unprecedented meeting with a Vatican representative.” As The Tablet states:
Campaigners calling for women priests are meeting in Rome this week where they have launched a poster campaign drawing attention to their cause and they will participate in their first ever official public demonstration.
Women’s Ordination Worldwide, which this year marks its 20th anniversary, wants to re-open dialogue in the Church in spite of Pope John Paul II’s ruling that the matter of female priests should not be discussed.
The British newspaper then continues, saying that these women had the special privilege of presenting posters pleading their cause, and even on Vatican grounds, namely in the garden of Castel Sant’ Angelo. They were also given the unexpected honor of meeting with an unnamed representative of the Vatican’s Secretary of State. The Tablet puts it, as follows:
Yesterday evening two of them [both of them “ordained” and subsequently excommunicated women] had an unprecedented meeting with an official from the Vatican Secretariat of State who agreed to give a petition to the Pope calling for the excommunications to be lifted, and who, according to the women, listened to “our heartfelt plea for women priests in our Church”. [….]
For the first time the group has been given official permission to hold a public demonstration in the gardens of Castel Sant’Angelo on Friday, the day that the Pope celebrates a Jubilee Mass for priests in St Peter’s Square. Members of the women’s ordination group have also been given tickets to attend the Mass.
On 3 June, Edward Pentin, the Rome Correspondent of the National Catholic Register, provided additional information on this event.
To return to Dr. Sander – and I will quote here from both above-mentioned reports, as published by katholisch.de and by Radio Vatikan. It is very probable that his timely concurrent presence in Rome is also, in some way, connected to this larger women’s campaign, because Sander now claims, according to katholisch.de, that “there is no dogmatic stipulation that would exclude women from the diaconate.” As Sander told Radio Vatikan: “A diaconal Church needs the deacon, and a diaconal Church needs the women!” He continues, by saying: “In my view, this Church also needs women as deaconesses.” It is here not yet clear, but soon will be, whether he is promoting the idea of sacramental orders for women deaconesses, as opposed to the distinctly non-sacramental role some believe certain women played in previous eras of the Church.
According to Radio Vatikan, Sander calls it a “great surprise that Pope Francis put this topic [of female deacons] up for further discussion and study. However, says Sander, it is not yet clear “how he [Francis] understands the women diaconate.” He adds: “Whether there shall be rather a blessing or whether there can be a sacramental office for women.” Here, Sander himself is now explicitly in favor of a sacramental diaconate for women, although he is skeptical that it would be easily or at all achieved, as Radio Vatikan reports.
What Sander now sees to be necessary, according to katholisch.de, is to have “both offices, each with its own special charism, just as the Second Vatican Council had made it [this dual office] possible. In this way – in opposition to what the current Prefect for the Faith, Cardinal Gerhard Müller, said in a study of the year 2004 – one does not necessarily need to constrain the diaconate to the role of being a ‘helper of the priestly ministry.’” The German also adds that deacons should not too closely imitate priests.
Sander sees, rather, the deacon and the priest as “two arms” of the bishop, and he proposes to “let them both exist next to one another,” more autonomously, and without organizing them hierarchically. As katholisch.de comments: “With it, he [Sander] put into question the current Catholic practice according to which the ordination of deacons is also [often] administered as a first step toward the priestly ordination.”
The German theologian Sander then also refers to the Early Church and its establishment of the diaconate, which purportedly shows that new offices (even sacramental ones?) can be established “out of a sense of urgency.” Without further distinctions, Sander abstractly speaks of the deacons altogether as “messengers of Jesus Christ.”
During the papal audience which then took place on 4 June, the president of the International Diaconate Center himself, Professor Klaus Kiessling, also made an explicit reference in his speech in support of women deacons, just as Dr. Sander had done a few days earlier. As the Austrian Catholic website, kath.net, reports:
He [Kiessling] stressed especially his institute’s theological research concerning deaconry and the diaconate. According to Kiessling, it [this research] is at the same time also about the respect for the dignity of those women who ask to be admitted to this office.
We are witnessing here, it seems, a further equivocal addition to the already spreading confusion within the Catholic Church under the current pontificate. And once more, much of the confusion is being promoted by German theologians.
I don’t see the point in women wanting to be deaconesses. The circumstances where deaconesses existed in the early Church do not exist anymore. The following is a excerpt from the 2002 Vatican document “From the Diakonia of Christ to the Diakonia of the Apostles”, here is the link:
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_con_cfaith_pro_05072004_diaconate_en.html
“Their (deaconesses) functions are summed up as follows: ‘The deaconess does not bless, and she does not fulfil any of the things that priests and deacons do, but she looks after the doors and attends the priests during the baptism of women, for the sake of decency’ (CA 8, 28, 6).”
We have religious sisters/nuns and Conscrated Virgins. The document above also says,
“When the practice of anointing the whole body at baptism was abandoned, deaconesses were simply consecrated virgins who had taken the vow of chastity.”
The ONLY reason this is coming to the forefront is to institute ordination of women as ‘Deacons’, and once they push this through, the Priesthood will be next.
Pope Francis is allowing the German theologians to shoot off their mouth because the German’s church got billions of dollars from the Church’s Tax.
Sorry folks, Francis is corrupt!
that actually makes sense why the most liberal bishops seem to be from germany
Deaconesses where not just consecrated virgins that too avow of chasity. I am a consecrated virgin living in the world per canon 604. We are consecrated to a life of perpetual virginity. The highest form of chastity. Of all the forms of consecrated life, it is the only one that cannot one cannot be rereleased from, religious can be released from vows but once consecrated, always consecrated. The deaconesses of antiquity were drawn from among the consecrated virgins and widows. (the Vatican is looking into bringing back the Rite of Consecration of a widow) They assisted at the baptism of women and also watched the doors into the side of the church for women. They also provided charity to poor women. These roles are either not need any longer or are provide (charity) by lay or religious. If the Church needs further assistance (nonsacramental role) we consecrated virgins are here. Look at Crisis mag. article by Jena Cooper who is also a consecrated virgin. The ones who are pushing for “female deacons” are wanting women to be ordained. an impossibility.
Great post, Maryann, and great article by Jena Cooper. I’m including the link to her article:
http://www.crisismagazine.com/2015/in-lieu-of-female-deacons-a-proposal
God bless guide and protect you always for your heroic witness
It looks like Francis next target to attack after his assault on the family is the priesthood. I bet the encyclical allowing female deacons has already been written. He will put on a good show to “study” and “consult” about this issue but we know he has already made his decision.
Excellent. That rings true.
He should be making female lay Cardinals instead. Lay Cardinals have a long history in the Church and are entirely within his purview.
Why? Which of the many problems the Church, and humanity faces will be solved by that? How will that save souls? The answers are: “none” and “it won’t.”
http://taylormarshall.com/2008/08/can-there-be-lay-cardinals.html
Nice try….
These guys are all destroyers. It’s not even subtle anymore, it’s glaringly and obviously true that these men are out to break down and destroy the Catholic faith as it has been understood for two millennia. What is the point of talking about it anymore.
There are two things that can fix this horrible mess.
1. Divine intervention (hope, hope!)
2. Courageous Bishops (this one’s not looking good thus far)
Divine intervention definitely. We are too far gone. Recall the Akita prophecy – fire will fall from the sky and wipe out a great portion of humanity. That can be nukes and meteorites. Coming soon. If anyone thinks that Russia will not re-ignite war-like communism, they are truly oblivious.
The supervulcano under Yellowstone is doing increasingly odd things too.
Yes, I have been reading about that too! Definitely an angle I forgot about until your reminder.
This Pontificate is real cozy with anyone who is a modernist or who hates The Church…
Women are all over The Alter and it makes me sick! The only Mass that I can attend is The Novus Ordo and I’ll leave it at that. Some woman took a key, opened up the Tabernacle, took out Our Lord and disappeared behind The Altar.
Our Priest offered Confessions before each Mass and unfortunately, I missed it. Kept an eye on the light outside The Confessional and he was in there for maybe three minutes. No one showed up. I hurried up so I could Confess. Too late.
Just venting. I do pray for him. It must be hard for priests nowadays. The Devil is in the mood.
A much too common observation: Why would any boy, any young man, attend to the call for the priesthood when the tempo and rhythm of his parish is already so “womanish”?
Or has that been planned all along: “paragraph M, point 7” on some cabal’s way forward, a much thumbed German Manifesto ?
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The way of all flesh, I suppose, the way things are going. Typical. All he dust-up and stirred up mud surrounding the (way too long) Family Synod has not cultivated a season of caution. Its’ all forward and vanguaqrdism.
The women deacon issue – as it was with communion of the divorced & remarried – is only a Trojan Horse for other issues and subterranean agenda: the boundary-less, fence-less priesthood, the fluidity of all and sundry. The present fashion for sexual fluidity (in short, the living out of Queer Theory) is bot the impetus here and the goal. The pressure placed upon the Vatican must be enormous: from Brussels, from the UN, from the uncontrollable and unaccountable NGOs.
But, then, on the other hand, this papacy seems to inhale its oxygen from such polluted skies..
Too much has happened. I don;t see any recovery – not in my lifetime!
Maybe the World Woodstock Day, er, I mean Youth Day in Poland might for once be a somewhat good thing. From what I have gathered, they have done a better job of remaining somewhat faithful to Catholicism. Maybe Pope Marx will be rebuked by some bishops there regarding the evils of communism.
Today the call is for women deacons. Then it will be a call for ‘equality’ i.e. priesthood.
bingo
A footnote after two synods, and Kaperites get to play make-believe
Hence I’m looking forward to #ALConf next june 29 in Rome.
1) Do the extraordinary mercy guys get to unexcommunicate? If so, what happens when one of these ordained women readmitted?
2) how does the women deaconate not enter into the sacramental transgenderism of Steve’s article the other day? Was the Holy Ghost, writing through Paul, just a confused and mediaeval fuddy- duddy who’s outmoded thinking needs to be brought up to speed with enlightened modern morality?
“In my view, this Church also needs women as deaconesses.”.. who cares about your view..how much garbage are faithful German Catholics and the rest of us being fed.
He is the False Prophet
A friend prays every day: “Dear God, we beg You, but an end to the confusion and destruction that this pontificate is inflicting on Your Church.”
The Nazis were less of a pain than these German dolts.
All part of the plan to permit women priests.
Short of formally declaring himself a “Protestant” in fact (if not already in practice), it has now become crystal clear that there is no level of scandal that PF is incapable of pronouncing or doing. That means absolutely nothing as in zip, zero, nada. Everything is open to change….Except telling the Truth.
We must realize that PF is a chastisement from God. Mary has lowered her protective mantal.
Get used to it but resist it. We sheep also must realize that there are no shepherds with any authority or gravitas willing to take on this “Protestant Pope”. The poison of modernism flows through the veins of all the shepherds to one degree or the other. Their testosterone levels have been depleted and their estrogen levels are out of control.
Bishop Athanasius has provided the most push back but not nearly enough.
We must Pray for him as well as Pope Francis.
May the Lord in His Mercy swiftly end this fiasco of a pontificate.
Castel Sant’Angelo and it’s surrounding park are NOT part of the Vatican but of the Italian state.