Courtney McGrailThe satirical Catholic website eyeofthetiber.com could hardly have reacted more snidely to reports that Pope Francis has called for a commission to investigate the possibility of ordaining women deacons than with the headline, “Pope To Commission Study To Find More Ways He Can Confuse People”.
Claiming that the Pontiff had revealed “an openness to re-examining the Church’s long-held insistence on not speaking off-the-cuff”, the site declared, “his move was hailed as a breakthrough by those in the media who have clamoured for years to be given more stuff to speculate on, and who cite research showing that a Pope whose speeches were scripted and thought out produced nothing for the media to report on, and [is] therefore, pointless”.
Whatever confusion there had been had arisen in the aftermath of an ncronline.org piece headed “Francis to create commission to study female deacons in Catholic Church”, detailing a meeting between Pope Francis and 900 women religious leaders.
The report began “Pope Francis has announced he will create a commission to study the possibility of allowing women to serve as deacons in the Catholic Church, signalling an historic openness to the possibility of ending the global institution’s practice of an all-male clergy”, and was greeted with breathless excitement online by such as americamagazine.org editor Fr James Martin SJ who tweeted: “Women deacons would be able to baptise, preside at marriages and funerals, and preach at Mass. It would be an immense gift to the Church.”
Circumspect
Fr Martin may well be right in what he said, but he might have been more circumspect in making such claims if he had read other reports on what the Pope had said. Cindy Wooden, for instance, writing for catholicnews.com, included a key point markedly absent from Josh McElwee’s ncronline.org report.
Her report detailed how when “asked about deaconesses in the New Testament and the possibility of the modern Church admitting women to the permanent diaconate, Pope Francis had said his understanding was that the women described as deaconesses in the Bible were not ordained like permanent deacons are”, mainly assisting at the baptisms of other women, before crucially adding, “I will ask the (Congregation for the) Doctrine of the Faith to tell me if there are studies on this”.
There have, of course, been studies on this, and it would seem from that statement that the Holy Father had simply forgotten what they had already examined and found, giving a crucial context to how he said he would like to set up a commission to examine this matter. Perhaps most importantly, 2002 saw the publication of an International Theological Commission study on the diaconate, with those working on the study including the now cardinals Gerhard Müller and Luis Antonio Tagle, and the final report being unanimously agreed by the commission.
Patience can be a virtue when stories like this break, and it’s worth reading the transcript of Pope Francis’ comments, as translated by Diane Montagna at aleteia.org, which make fully understandable subsequent Vatican efforts to calm speculation; the Pope had said nothing at all about ordination, and had described the role of deaconesses – as distinct from female deacons – in the early Church, before saying a commission to clarify this would seem “useful”.
As the author of revdbh.blogspot.ie points out, regardless of what one expects Pope Francis to do regarding the issue of deaconesses and his concerns about clericalism, there’s “a lesson here in the way that the media and certain Catholic commentators aren’t content to give a balanced account of what the Pope actually says, but decide to run with their own agenda”.
As though challenging the line of ‘Eye of the Tiber’ and many others, he continues, “that’s what leads to Fr Lombardi having to clarify these remarks. It’s not the Pope being hopelessly obscure. It’s people choosing not to listen to him honestly”.