Women in the Church

‘We have to work harder to develop a profound theology of the woman. Only by making this step will it be possible to better reflect on their function within the Church,’ he said. ‘The feminine genius is needed wherever we make important decisions.’

“One concern which has been raised is the theory that the female diaconate might provide a ‘slippery slope’ towards women priests.” (Photo: Icon of women deacons in the early Church)

The pope has solicited the development of a new theology of women, but time will tell what shape this discourse might take. It is no secret that there remains in the hierarchy a strong suspicion of anything that might look like feminism; it is essential that a forum is created in which the voices of Catholic women can be freely heard.

At the same time, there is a rich body of work in the theology of women, one that goes deeper than the idealisation of femininity, which the Church can study and draw from.

Over the past decades many Catholic women ‘ in the consecrated life and outside of it ‘ have expressed a growing sense of marginalisation within the Church, a feeling of being excluded from the hierarchy and authority in the magisterium. There are committed Catholic women who feel that their commitment to the Church is not fully reciprocated.

The Southern African Church, incidentally, has a better track-record in that respect than many other regions. Few Catholic universities, for example, are headed by a woman. St Augustine College of South Africa has just appointed a woman as its president, the second in its brief history.

The alienation many (though by no means all) Catholic women experience is sometimes expressed in calls for ordination of women to the priesthood.

Pope John Paul II in his 1994 apostolic letter Ordinatio sacerdotalis ruled out the possibility of women priests, declaring their inadmissibility to the priesthood a binding tradition.

While this has been hurtful to many women who feel a calling to the priesthood, neither Pope Francis nor his successors are likely to revisit this doctrine.

The challenge now is to discern how, in the words of Pope Francis, to ‘broaden the opportunities for a stronger presence of women in the Church’.

One such way, some suggest, resides in the revival of the female diaconate.

When the International Theological Commission investigated the question a decade or so ago, its conclusion was guarded, leaning towards the status quo.

The commission did not believe that the women deacons in the early Church, mentioned in Scripture (Romans 16:1-2; Timothy 3:11) and in ancients texts, exercised the same functions as their male counterparts. Not all theologians and historians share that verdict.

Crucially, however, the commission did not exclude the possibility of a female diaconate.

More recently, German Church leaders, including Cardinal Walter Kasper, this year proposed the notion of instituting a deaconess office which would, however, stop shy of ordination.

The idea was not universally acclaimed, neither by the supporters nor the opponents of the female diaconate, but it demonstrated that the issue itself is not beyond discussion, as that on women priests is.

One concern which has been raised is the theory that the female diaconate might provide a ‘slippery slope’ towards women priests. But this warning can be true only if one accepts that the permanent male diaconate has set the scene for the abolition of obligatory priestly celibacy.

In the meantime, there is no reason why dioceses and even the Roman curia should not include women, and other laity, in positions of influence, responsibility and, where canonically possible, authority, or why woman should not have broader representation in synods.

This surely would be in line with Pope Francis’ mind: ‘The challenge today is this: to think about the specific place of women also in those places where the authority of the Church is exercised for various areas of the Church.’

The discussion on how to accomplish this must begin now.