Forgive me if this is a duplicate post of this article.  I didn't see it in the topics.  Please note that I didn't write this and I am not responsible for the information in the article.  It is presented here un-edited (all bolds are in the original) for the membership's information.

Parishioner leads charge to break ground for women in church

Link:  http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-08-21/news/ct-met-women-deacons-20120821_1_female-deacons-female-priests-parishioner

Evanston mom could be among the first in centuries to be ordained a deacon in Catholic Church

August 21, 2012|By Manya A. Brachear, Chicago Tribune reporter


Lynne Mapes-Riordan, of Evanston, wants the chance to enter the Catholic Church’s deacon formation program. The church currently doesn’t allow female deacons, and Mapes-Riordan would be one of the first ordained since the 12th century. Standing with Mapes-Riordan at St. Nicholas Church in Evanston is the Rev. Casmir Damor. (Chuck Berman, Chicago Tribune)

Lynne Mapes-Riordan, of Evanston, hopes women will one day serve as Roman Catholic deacons. After 800 years, she could be one of the first.

Growing up, she never gave ordination a second thought. But then she learned that, unlike the church's verdict barring female priests, the question of female deacons has never been resolved.

That open question has led Mapes-Riordan, 49, and fellow parishioners at St. Nicholas Catholic Church in Evanston to seek an answer. If the church finds in favor of female deacons, she could become one of the first women ordained since the 12th century. After meeting last winter with members of the parish, including Mapes-Riordan, Chicago's Cardinal Francis George reportedly promised to raise the question in Rome during his visit earlier this year.

Scholars say female deacons wouldn't be a novel idea but the restoration of a tradition abandoned centuries ago.

The idea of female deacons "is being talked about very slowly," George said earlier this year during a forum at the Union League Club in response to a question about the future likelihood of female priests. "The diaconate is a more open question. At this place, at this time, it is not a possibility."

Mapes-Riordan, a lawyer, wife, mother of two and longtime parishioner at St. Nicholas, does not take a position on whether women should become priests. The church has made it clear that's not permitted. Ordaining women as deacons is not the same, she said.

"In a strange way, I don't see this being about women," Mapes-Riordan said during a recent interview inside St. Nicholas. "I see it as being about church and mission. We have this part of a puzzle, this piece, that I'm not going to say is missing, but we could have a fuller picture if this (letting women become deacons) was added. I don't see it as a women's issue. I see it as a matter for our church."

At a time when critics have accused Catholic Church leaders of declaring a war on women by restricting insurance coverage for contraceptives, rebuking American nuns and maintaining an all-male priesthood, a renewed discussion about ordaining women as deacons indicates high-profile church leaders such as George want to give women more opportunities for leadership.

"It's a message of hope. It's a way to stay within the boundaries of Catholic teachings and have women with real preaching authority within the system," said Phyllis Zagano, one of the American church's leading researchers on the subject of female deacons. "I think the bishops need to address this issue directly."

In the Catholic Church, there are three levels of ordained clergy: bishops, priests and deacons. Deacons can't say Mass, hear confessions or anoint the sick, but they can baptize, officiate at weddings or funerals and preach.

For St. Nicholas, a well-known progressive parish in the Chicago Archdiocese, nominating a deacon of any gender has been a breakthrough.

Since 1988, the parish has had only one deacon to help serve Latino worshippers. Laypeople -- both men and women -- have done most of what deacons typically do, including preach. The Rev. Robert Oldershaw, the parish's former longtime pastor who retired in 2006, admits he sometimes bent the rules. But he always told the faithful they should listen to what God is asking of them. When they felt called to preach, he honored that.

"I didn't have a real positive view of the diaconate simply because it was another way of separating the clerical establishment from the laity and men from women," Oldershaw said. "We've spent so much time separating the clergy from the laity, and yet we're called in our faith to be a community of equal disciples. So that was certainly my approach."

When the Rev. Bill Tkachuk took over in 2010, he intended to introduce the idea of deacons in his second year. But six months into his tenure, a male parishioner expressed interest.

Tkachuk knew that anything off-limits to women would be a hard sell at St. Nicholas. But he also knew that female deacons were more likely than female priests.

"It's a step toward truly acknowledging the leadership abilities that women have to bring to the church and bringing them into a church where they can be a larger part of the conversation," he said. "We need to find other ways to do that. It doesn't have to involve women priests.

"If there was a clear answer that it couldn't be done, that would have been said a long time ago."

A handful of scholars, including Zagano, argues that the diaconate of the early church included both men and women. In fact, they say Apostle Paul chose a female deacon, Phoebe, to deliver his most important epistle to the Romans, explaining the concept of salvation through Jesus Christ.

I noticed that this article suggests that women were ordained as deaconesses in the Catholic Church as late as the 1200s.  I found that interesting and would be interested in seeing what their evidence of that is.  It sounds more like Conciliar revisionist history.

If this issue isn't resolved in the Conciliar church, I think deaconesses will come sooner than I previously thought.  After a handful of years of deaconesses I'm sure the issue of priestesses will become "un-resolved" amongst the same scholars who found out deaconesses were ordained in the 1200s.

I knew there were female deacons in the Early Church, andn they were given roles of respect .  Mary Magdalene was one as well as Phoebe mentioned.    It will be interesting to see what, if anything, the church decides.  What did disturb me in the article was the fact that the Pastor had let lay preachers do homilies...not allowed and not right. We
 have a parish out here that welcomes anyone to eucharist and confession, Catholic or not.  Again, those things bother me.

Back around 2004 when Rome and the Orthodox met at one of their "dialogue" meetings or conferences or whatever they call them, the topic of deaconesses came up.  Both sides agreed they needed to address the issue.  

It's been eight years.

I cannot believe no one is qualifed or courageous enough to speak about it.

Pertinent information from the Catholic Encyclopedia article, Holy Orders:

Every baptized male can validly receive ordination. Though in former times there were several semi-clerical ranks of women in the Church (see DEACONESSES), they were not admitted to orders properly so called and had no spiritual power.

the NewOrder went through restructuring.  You can find Restructuring under google. All the dioceses went through restructuring about 2 years ago.  Anyway it means that New Order churches must set up groups and financially take care of their own church/school.  If they can't they fold!  Right now some states dioceses have been told to reduce churches by 20%, like Detroit, MI and others like Boston and such. Priest may and will be expected to take on 3 churches.  It is mentioned that priest are expected to resign(?) go figure and so, the idea of deaconesses to take over is not far fetched.  there is a 5 year plan set up for the restructuring.  In my opinion, be a traditionalist, this is like the French revolution only this is another way to close up the catholic churches.  When this happens, maybe we will see more religious statues and such on ebay.  We shall see what happens.

I am not sure how long the practice of female deaconesses lasted.  The East may have maintained the idea longer than the West.  

The Gnostic offshoots (with their various ideologies of sɛҳuąƖ indulgence vs. repression) had woman priests.  They are often cited by feminist theologians and the priestess movement.  Ironically, they weren't even Catholic.

When you look at the history of the "deaconess", you find that they did not serve in any liturgical roles.  What they did do could more accurately described as what nuns have done for centuries.  It seems that the problem is not that there were "female deacons" or "deaconesses" but that the word we now associate with that role, i.e., "nun", was not yet in use or, at least, not in use in the way we now use it.

The word "nun" has roots that originally meant the vestal virgins or priestesses.  Thus, until those pagan religions were essentially destroyed, the Catholics would not have wanted to apply the term to their own women, thus, they may very well have used "deaconess".

Concerning what Rome thinks, the CDF head Muller mulls over the matter of deaconesses in the future here, saying that the judgment that it is impossible pertains to the ordinary and universal magisterium.

Q: Is the diaconate a sacrament in its own right?

Müller: The Church teaches clearly that the sacrament of orders is one of the seven sacraments of the Church; as the full exercise in the Holy Spirit of the mission, unique in its origin, of the apostles of Christ, exercised in its fullness by the bishop. According to its degree of specificity, the differentiated participation in it is called pres byterate or diaconate.

Q: Is it possible to separate the diaconate of women from the priesthood of women?

Müller: No — because of the unity of the sacrament of orders, which has been underlined in the deliberations of the Theological Commission; it cannot be measured with a different yardstick. Then it would be a real discrimination of woman if she is considered as apt for the diaconate, but not for the pres byterate or episcopacy.

The unity of the sacrament would be torn at its root if, the diaconate as ministry of service, was opposed to the pres byterate as ministry of government, and from this would be deduced that woman, as opposed to man, has a greater affinity to serve and because of this would be apt for the diaconate but not for the pres byterate.

However, the apostolic ministry all together is a service in the three degrees in which it is exercised.

The Church does not ordain women, not because they are lacking some spiritual gift or natural talent, but because — as in the sacrament of marriage — the sɛҳuąƖ difference and of the relation between man and woman contains in itself a symbolism that presents and represents in itself a prior condition to express the salvific dimension of the relation of Christ and the Church.

If the deacon, with the bishop and pres byter, starting from the radical unity of the three degrees of the orders, acts from Christ, head and Spouse of the Church, in favor of the Church, it is obvious that only a man can represent this relation of Christ with the Church.

And in reverse, it is equally obvious that God could only take his human nature from a woman and, because of this, womankind has in the order of grace — because of the internal reference of nature and grace — an unmistakable, fundamental, and in no way merely accidental importance.

Q: Are there binding doctrinal declarations regarding the question of the feminine diaconate?

Müller: The liturgical and theological tradition of the Church uses unanimous language. It is a binding and irreversible teaching of the Church on this matter, which is guaranteed by the ordinary and general magisterium of the Church, but which can be confirmed again with greater authority if the doctrinal tradition of the Church continues to be presented in an adulterated manner, for the purpose of forcing the evolution of a specific direction.

I am amazed at the lack of historical knowledge of some, and the absence of the meaning of faith; if it wasn´t like this, they would know that it has never been possible and never will be to place the Church, precisely, in the central ambit of her doctrine and liturgy, in contradiction with sacred Scripture and her own
Tradition.

Q: What happens when a validly ordained bishop, outside the communion of the Church, ordains a woman as deaconess?

Müller: Invisibly, that is, before God, nothing happens, because such an ordination is invalid. Visibly, that is, in the Church, if something [like this] happens, a Catholic bishop who carries out an irregular ordination incurs the penalty of excommunication.

Q: Could the Pope say that in the future women will receive the diaconate?

Müller: Contrary to what many think, the Pope is not the owner of the Church or absolute sovereign of her doctrine. He is only entrusted with safeguarding Revelation and its authentic interpretation.

Keeping the Church´s faith in mind, which is expressed in its dogmatic and liturgical practice, it is all together impossible for the Pope to intervene in the substance of the sacraments, to which the question of the legitimate receiving subject of the sacrament of orders essentially belongs.

Q: Are women completely excluded from participation in ecclesial services? Is there no place for women in the Church?

Müller: If we leave to one side a clerical reduction of the Church, the question is no longer asked in this way. In her vital processes and in her service to man, the Church is the essential co-responsibility of all Christians, specifically also of the laity.

In many countries at present we cannot complain of an excess of active apostolate of the laity. Let us think of the dramatic withdrawal of women´s orders and religious communities, without which the Church would never have taken root in the different nations and cultures.

In the specific ministries of canon and human law, to which the laity can also be called to collaborate together with the hierarchy, namely the bishop, pres byter and deacon, women carry out important services for the Church, which are also satisfying to themselves from the human and spiritual point of view.