Australian R.Catholics 'open' to women deacons

I was pretty shocked by this... The RCs in Australia held their synod a few weeks ago, and there was an unexpectedly strong push for women deacons; the first proposal was rejected, but a revised proposal was indeed accepted by the whole Synodwas given a thumbs up; sad...




https://www.twitter.com/ctrlamb/status/1545328488303165440
https://www.twitter.com/ctrlamb/status/1545340078179946502


Some articles covering this

https://www.smh.com.au/national/why...n-deacons-feels-personal-20220710-p5b0gk.html
https://www.smh.com.au/national/cat...giving-hope-to-reformers-20220710-p5b0hh.html




https://www.twitter.com/dearmisskate/status/1549012752408215553

 

Would this be an ordained position?

 

they don’t make the distinction, so it seems so

 

It unfortunately did not pass.
https://www.catholicweekly.com.au/vote-on-women-throws-plenary-into-crisis/

 

I think the Roman Catholic church ought to ordain women deacons, but in my experience if they did we might have quite a few fewer people swimming the Thames in Australia.

I attend an Anglo-Catholic parish and there are quite a few people I know who made the flip from Roman Catholicism to Anglicanism due to WO.

 

Not surprising though. The RC church was slow in eventually abolising slavery within itself too.
.

 

that is the first motion, not the second motion

the first motion was even more radical, while the second motion was more muted while still affirming basically the same thing

the statements and news headlines in my OP reflect the final motion

 

Therein lies the paradox of Anglo-Catholicism

 

Radical?

 

Anyone imagine that women might object to being "implemented"? What a choice of words!

 

There is no doubt that deaconesses were a known position within the pre-conciliar Church, and indeed there is some attestation of it in Scripture, in the Pauline corpus.

Romans 16:1
I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church at Cenchreae,​

The question that gets debated is whether the notion of deaconess is simply the feminine declension of the masculine deacon, or is an entirely separate purpose and unrelated to the threefold ministry of Bishop, Priest and Deacon which we receive as Holy Orders.

Given that the specific charism of the diaconate is service, it is hard to see how you could argue from reason that women may not be ordained to the sacred office.

For those who wish to argue against the admission of women to the diaconate, the strongest case will be in the received tradition, and for us as Anglicans as expressed in the Book of Common Prayer.

Yet even here one needs to tread with a little care. The opening of the service in BCP has the Archdean say:

REVEREND Father in God, I present unto you these persons present, to be admitted Deacons.
​

Realistically it is in the preface where the question of gender is more specified, however, others will argue that the was simply the generic use of the masculine to encompass all people, as in the Nicene Creed where we say who for us men, and for our salvation came down from heaven.

I have no desire to promulgate modern errors, however, when it comes to the matter of women and the diaconate, there are some good reasons to think it may well not be a modern error.

I personally believe that the RCC will ordain women deacons before they embrace the notion of married priests on a large scale.

 

Be careful with that. Diakonos is simply a Greek word for "servant", "attendant", or "assistant" -- there's little evidence that it was considered an ordained, pastoral, or even formal office in the church hierarchy of the time. Deacons in the Anglican church fill a different role than in the early church. When Paul speaks of Phoebe as a "deacon" in Rom. 16:1 (diakonon) , most modern Bibles render this word as "servant" (much as doulos is usually rendered as "bondservant"). This indicates a voluntary service to the church, but not necessarily service in a church office.

My thinking is that Phoebe was indeed a "deacon" as reckoned at the time, but not in the sense that Anglicans use the term.

 

Exactly right. Nero in Romans 13:4.
"for he is God's deacon for your good"
"θεου γαρ διακονος εστιν σοι εις το αγαθον εαν"

 

Just as a resource to this discussion, you can consider a letter of Pliny the Younger to the Emperor Trajan. Obviously Pliny the Younger was writing in Latin rather than Greek, so he uses the Latin word "ministrae" to refer to the women in question. It's not clear that Pliny is calling them (or that the women are calling themselves) actual "deacons". In this case I think many of the English translations are just getting it wrong and should be translating the word as "servants".

 

My point about the received tradition.

 

Except in 1 Timothy 3...

 

Maybe, but I've always thought that early-church deacons were more in the vein of a sexton than clergy. Even non-clergy church jobs would require vetting (even our church bookkeeper is required to assent to our creeds and canons, for example).

 

My understanding is that, based in part on linguistic analysis, many modern scholars hold 1 Timothy to have been written some time in the 2nd century. If that’s the case, then it would not necessarily be evidence of what was done in the church in the 1st century, including the pre-70 CE period. We may already be seeing a description of later usage in 1 Timothy.

 

My goodness, St. Paul had such a long life!

 

It does not matter one iota what Austalian Catholics voted for or against. The decision to ordain women as deacons can come only from Rome. Pope John Paul II clearly ruled that women cannot be ordained. I understand this is generally accepted by the Roman Church as a definitive ruling on this matter of doctrine. I know some hoped Pope Francis would chnage the rule but, after the idea of female deacons was considered, he ruled that women could not be ordained as deacons.