By Jonathan Ekene Ifeanyi
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| American Feminist Professor Phyllis Zagano, who has long championed the ordination of women to the priesthood, was named Tuesday, Aug. 2, by “Pope” Francis to a new commission to study the idea of women deacons. (Photo courtesy of St. John's University.) |
American
Feminist scholar, Professor Phyllis Zagano, who has long championed the
ordination of women to the priesthood, was named Tuesday, Aug. 2, by “Pope”
Francis to a new commission to study the idea of women deacons. The “Special Commission for the Study of the
Diaconate of Women”, a body that will
include 13 members, will be headed by Spanish Archbishop Luis Francisco Ladaria
Ferrer, currently the secretary, meaning the number two official, of the
Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Six
of the remaining members are women: American professor Phyllis Zagano, Spanish
Sister Nuria Calduch-Benages of the Missionary Daughters of the Holy Family of
Nazareth, Italian professors Francesca Coccini and Michelina Tenaci, Italian
Sister Mary Malone of the Franciscan Sisters of Blessed Angela of Foligno, and
German professor Marianne Schlosser.
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Francis receiving a Lutheran female"Archbishop",
Antje Jackelé, at the Apostolic Palace in 2015.
|
The
announcement follows unscripted remarks by Francis at an audience for senior
nuns in Rome on May 12, in which he promised a group of
religious sisters that he would set up a commission to study the
question of women deaconesses. While Francis addressed 900 world leaders of the
Catholic women religious, the crowd had asked him if the Catholic Church would
consider female deacons and he answered: “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.”
Now,
“After intense prayer and mature reflection, Pope Francis decided to set up
this commission”, the Vatican announced in a press release. Rorate-Caeli translated the press
release into English and noted that former Bishop Roger Vangheluwe of
Bruges, an admitted sex abuser,
has long championed deaconesses. It states: “Let us never forget to whom the
merit belongs: if "deaconesses" are ever "ordained", we
must do justice and call it The Vangheluwe Reform, in honor of confessed nephew-molester Bp. Roger
Vangheluwe, who led the charge in favor of this move.”
Phyllis Zagano, a left-leaning Hofstra University professor, is
a well-known advocate for women’s ordination to the diaconate. She has spoken
at events sponsored by organizations that promote women’s ordination to the
priesthood. Several other appointees are also individuals who have expressed
questionable theological views.
Of
course, women leadership in the Catholic Church—in fact, in my personal judgment, women priesthood—IS
one of the prominent agendas of Bergoglio’s disastrous “pontificate’’ even
though—cunningly—he had previously said that women
would not be allowed to enter the priesthood. The inclusion of Zagano, who
writes a regular column for the National Catholic Reporter, shows
that Francis is at least open to considering the arguments for ordaining female
deacons, as she’s a long-time advocate on this issue, convinced it’d be a way
of including women in the church’s governance and ministry.
Writing for Harvard’s Divinity school last year, she said
that the current practice of not ordaining women deacons is a “merely
ecclesiastical law,” meaning it’s a regulation, not a doctrine.
In an article entitled “Ordain Catholic Women as
Deacons” for the school’s summer edition of their biannual
publication, Zagano also wrote that “given the many evidences of women deacons
throughout history, the restoration of women to the diaconate seems to be
something Francis could do easily.”
Zagano
is one of the most prominent advocates of women deacons, which opens a wide
door to arguments for women’s ordination to the priesthood. “There is
overwhelming historical evidence that women were ordained deacons by bishops
intending to perform a sacrament. If women were sacramentally ordained deacons
and the diaconate shares in the sacerdotal priesthood … then women have already
shared in the sacerdotal priesthood,” Zagano wrote for America magazine
in 2013.
Again,
she writes: “The humanity of Christ overcomes the limitations of gender, and no
church document argues an ontological distinction among humans except documents
that address the question of ordination. This view is not likely to dampen
growing worldwide enthusiasm for women deacons.”
In
September 2015, just days before "Pope" Francis’ visit to the United States,
Zagano spoke at a Women’s Ordination Worldwide (WOW) conference in
Philadelphia. WOW dissents from Church teaching that women cannot be ordained
as priests. It also embraces and promotes the LGBT cause.
The
dissident group welcomed "Pope" Francis’ announcement, saying in a press release
that it was “encouraged” by the creation of the commission. It praised the
commission’s “gender-balanced” and “lay-inclusive” appointments and mentioned
Zagano by name, noting her past participation in the 2015 conference.
In
May, Zagano spoke at a teleconference sponsored by FutureChurch, a group that
rejects the Catholic Church’s teaching that Jesus ordained his disciples at the
Last Supper. FutureChurch advocates for women priests.
The Catholic Church teaches that women’s ordination is an ontological impossibility because Jesus ordained only men and
their masculinity is essential to their priesthood and their ability to act in
the person of Christ (in persona Christi).
Even John Paul II—who opened the door to this scandal by his various actions
such as allowing Rev. Sisters to give Holy Communion, etc.—stated clearly in his
apostolic letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis that “the Church has no authority
whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women” and that “this judgment is
to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful.”
Because
only a baptized man can validly receive sacred ordination (as even affirmed by
the scandalous “Catechism of the Catholic Church” of John Paul II (See CCC 1577),
and the diaconate is a part of the sacrament of holy orders, only men are
permitted to be ordained deacons. The so-called “women deaconesses” in the
early Church were NEVER ordained deaconesses, but many modernist theologians
argue that they were actually ordained in this role—and Francis supports that!
“That
statement is true to some extent”, said Chad Pecknold, professor of theology at
Catholic University of America in Washington D.C.
“The
[Catholic] Church made it very clear that the deaconess was not part of
holy orders,” Pecknold said in a phone interview with PBS NEWSHOUR. “She had a job at baptism.
Baptisms in the early [Catholic] Church were done when the individual was
completely naked. The deaconess’s job was to protect the modesty of a woman
during the baptism ritual.”
“Women do way more for the church [now] than the deaconesses
of the ancient Church ever did,” said Pecknold. “The office of the deacon is
closely tied to the [Catholic] Church’s understanding of marriage. The
[Catholic] Church is referred to in the feminine, and the priest are men put in
service to the woman [The Catholic Church].”
For the role of women
in the Catholic Church, particularly what Sacred Scripture says on the issue,
see my piece: A “Feminized” Catholic
Church?
See also: Francis 1 Strikes Again:
Received His“Esteemed Sister”—Lady “Archbishop,” Head of Insane Lutheran
“Church” of Sweden
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