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Posted on 05/12/2016 2:05:27 PM PDT by NYer
First, today I saw a piece at Breitbart that Pope Francis popularity has dropped. HERE
That said, I have received links to various articles saying that the Pope has considered establishing a commission to study the issue of the ordination of woman as deaconesses…. (aka deaconettes -it’s easier to pronounce).
Studying is one thing and doing is another.
That said, I saw something telling in the Fishwrap account (aka National Schismatic Reporter).
The pope responded that he had spoken about the matter once some years ago with a “good, wise professor” who had studied the use of female deacons in the early centuries of the church. Francis said it remained unclear to him what role such deacons had.
“What were these female deacons?” the pontiff recalled asking the professor. “Did they have ordination or no?”
“It was a bit obscure,” said Francis. “What was the role of the deaconess in that time?”
“Constituting an official commission that might study the question?” the pontiff asked aloud. “I believe yes. It would do good for the church to clarify this point. I am in agreement. I will speak to do something like this.”
“I accept,” the pope said later. “It seems useful to me to have a commission that would clarify this well.”
First, I haven’t seen news that a commission exists. Maybe I missed something.
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Next, this also means that the Pope has not been talking to the people who are in favor of the ordination of women! He hasn’t been paying attention to the advocates of deaconettes. Instead, he has been talking to those who find the question obscure and muddy.
Of course that is what this issue is: obscure and muddy. It is not at all likely that greater clarity will be gained from such a commission. Were there more out there to know… in serious, scholarly sources, that is… someone would have written it. Also, those with whom Francis speaks would have been able to point to it. Such a commission won’t consider half-baked propaganda, after all.
Meanwhile, the serious scholarship that exists says: they were not ordained in a sacramental sense, as deacons were and are. Also, not every idea that the Church tried was a good one: many were dropped – like deaconettes. Moreover, nothing about this will happen for quite a while, I suspect.
Read Deaconesses: An Historical Study by Aime G Martimort. UK HERE
I might write more on this later, but for now that’s enough. Right now this is much ado about nothing.
There’s no need for a study. The subject has been exhaustively studied already. Have you still not figured out how this man works?
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On the other hand, there are men in the church who are reflexively anti-women when it has nothing to do with affirming sound doctrine. I remember some yutz on a FR thread who was having a cow over "radical feminism's" position that women are generally the best choice to be mothers. Get a grip, already!
In the early Church, deaconesses were almost all widows or unmarried women “of an age”. They were not (and are not) ordained in the same sense that priests and male deacons are, rather they were “consecrated” somewhat like readers and altar boys are. Their role was very limited, mostly to ministering to women because cultural taboos of the time forbade priests and male from touching women. Some local Orthodox Churches today do have deaconesses, mostly the Slavic Churches, though Greece reinstituted the order in 2011. The women, always unmarried, serve so far as I know only in women’s monasteries, usually isolated ones at that. They can perform certain sacramental functions like anointing the sick nuns and giving communion which has already been consecrated to nuns. They also may have some administrative role under the gerondas. I have been told that in Russia some work in women’s hospitals, I assume in the same roles.
There are very few of these deaconesses; none here in No. America, none in the ME, No. Africa or among the Ethiopians so far as I know.
Given the mindset of the modern Latin Church and of the Western laity, I trust you folks will stay far, far away from this.
Yeah, it can be a pretty weird environment!
Dave Armstrong responded to the news yesterday with a fairly in depth look back at the role of the deaconess in the early church.
With regard to the duration of the order of deaconesses we note that when adult baptism became uncommon, this institution, which seems primarily to have been devised for the needs of women catechumens, gradually waned and in the end died out altogether. In the time of Justinian (d. 565) the deaconesses still held a position of importance. At the church of St. Sophia in Constantinople the staff consisted of sixty priests, one hundred deacons, forty deaconesses, and ninety subdeacons; . . .We cannot be sure that any formal recognition of deaconesses as an institution of consecrated women aiding the clergy is to be found in the New Testament. There is indeed the mention of Phebe (Romans 16:1), who is called diakonos but this may simply mean, as the Vulgate renders it, that she was “in the ministry [i.e. service] of the Church”, without implying any official status. Again, it is not improbable that the “widows” who are spoken of at large in 1 Timothy 5:3-10, may really have been deaconesses, but here again we have nothing conclusive. . . . In any case there can be no question that before the middle of the fourth century women were permitted to exercise certain definite functions in the Church and were known by the special name of diakonoi or diakonissai.
The universal prevalence of baptism by immersion and the anointing of the whole body which preceded it, rendered it a matter of propriety that in this ceremony the functions of the deacons should be discharged by women. The Didascalia Apostolorum (III, 12; see Funk, Didascalia, etc., I, 208) explicitly direct that the deaconesses are to perform this function. It is probable that this was the starting point for the intervention of women in many other ritual observances even in the sanctuary. The Apostolic Constitutions expressly attribute to them the duty of guarding the doors and maintaining order amongst those of their own sex in the church, and they also (II, c. 26) assign to them the office of acting as intermediaries between the clergy and the women of the congregation; . . .
Are Deaconesses Inconceivable? No. - More detailed history with corresponding links at the site.
tax-chick - though not related to this topic, I wanted to share the following beautiful procession in Spain with a statue of Our Lady of Fatima. LINK. Since you speak Spanish, perhaps you can share an English translation of the lyrics.
Cool! The accent is a little difficult, but it’s something like, Our Lady of the Sea, this is why we turn to you, lady who arrived from heaven ... with great power that we couldn’t have imagined, help those who leave dry land (terra firma) ... help the people of the sea ... we sing and pray to you ...
It’s a festival asking the protection of the Blessed Mother on the sailors and the ships of the area.
Thank you so much! Knew you could figure it out. Towards the end of the video, they deliver the statue to La Cappella del Nuentes (sp?) and La Senora del Carmen. From what I have been able to glean, tis is Our Lady of Mount Carmel. There are many festivals around the world in her honor and I found one in Mexico which is right on the water. There is another in Montevideo, Paraguay. Wherever it took place, it was just beautiful. Love the translation.
You’re welcome. Yes, it’s Our Lady of Mount Carmel. You can tell because the image is holding the Brown Scapular. I didn’t get a good look at the name of the chapel: first it was blocked by the statue, and then the camera moved!
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