Women Deacons, Part 2

Women Deacons, Part 2

11/09/2023

Now, in order to envision women as deacons we have to rethink the theology of the diaconate, which always begins by redefining terminology, that is, vocabulary. We need to learn some new vocab words. One highly charged word in the Catholic lexicon is the term “cleric” from which we get the familiar, “clergy.” Now, clergy is not uniquely a Catholic concept. When I go to visit patients at Baptist Hospital, for instance, I hang my “Clergy” decal from my review mirror and park in the space reserved for the clergy. At the hospital that concept includes the wide array of ministers not just of a Christian persuasion, but of all religious ilk.

But when the word “clergy” or “cleric” is used in a technical sense in canon law, it carries a very specific and restricted meaning. In canon 266§1, we read: “Through the reception of the diaconate (ordination as a deacon), a person becomes a cleric.” In other words, prior to being ordained as a deacon, canon law considers someone a “lay person”. But once you become a deacon (and of course later as a priest or bishop that designation does not change), you are in an entirely different class of Christian. Really in the world of canon law, there are only two kinds of people: clerics and laity (or lay persons). Everyone belongs to one group or the other, and canon law draws a bright red line of demarcation between these two classes of Christians. Crossing over that line of diaconate ordination to the other side is like crossing a border from one country to another, where you enjoy different rights and responsibilities, new privileges and possibilities.

Now, this particular point of drawing this bright red line between clergy and laity has not always been drawn at this exact juncture. You have perhaps heard the phrase “moving the goalposts”? It means to change the rules of the game and how someone scores a goal and wins. Well, that is what the Church did with the timing of when someone becomes a cleric. In the last century, there were two revisions or updates, of the Code of Canon Law, once in 1917 and again in 1983. And those two Codes drew that line of demarcation between laity and clergy at two different moments. As I just said, the 1983 Code drew that line at “the reception of the diaconate.” But the 1917 Code drew that line much earlier in the process of becoming a priest, namely, at tonsure.

Now, what on earth is tonsure? That was a significant step toward the priesthood, where a young man would have his hair shaved on the crown of his head. You may have seen that bald spot on priests in old black-and-white movies. It was a symbol of humility – believe me, it is very humbling being bald – and a rejection of worldly things, like vanity. In the old Code, therefore, when a man received tonsure, he was introduced into the ranks of the clergy, even though he was still several steps away from being ordained as a deacon, priest, or bishop. My point here is to recognize the fact that the “goalposts” of who is “clergy” have been moved before, and therefore it is conceivable that they can be moved again. And that is what I suggest we do if the Church chooses to have women deacons, namely, we should redefine the word “cleric.”

As I said at the outset, if women become deacons, we have to rethink what it means to be a deacon. One aspect of that rethinking would include no longer designating a female deacon as a cleric. Put differently, we would move the goalposts again (like we did back in 1983), that line separating the world of laity and clergy, that is, move it from diaconate ordination to priestly ordination. In other words, someone would not become a "cleric" until he was ordained as a priest.

I grant this is a rather radical suggestion, and it immediately raises other questions and objections. One important question concerns the indelible mark that is received in the sacrament of Holy Orders. You may know that three sacraments are received only once and thus never repeated: Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Orders. One reason they are unrepeatable is because of the “indelible mark” they confer and which is permanent. A further rethinking required in this scenario I am suggesting is that while women would receive the sacrament of Holy Orders as a deacon, and consequently the indelible mark of Orders, their role and ministry as deaconesses would be restructured because they are not considered clerics. A women could be a deacon but not a cleric. She could not take my parking spot at Baptist Hospital.

One approach to restructuring or reshuffling of responsibilities to non-clerical deacons might be that those duties that belong properly and ordinarily to deacons (when they used to be clerics) would be transferred to priests and bishops (who are still clerics). Hence, baptizing, marrying, burying, preaching, etc. and any other ministries deacons currently perform ordinarily would be reserved to priests alone. Nonetheless, when circumstances warrant, and there is a genuine pastoral emergency, deacons (now either male or female) might be called upon to minister to the community in these capacities that lay persons could. In a sense, we have “called a spade a spade” and acknowledged the full truth that deacons are in reality glorified lay persons.

This transfer of ministerial roles and responsibilities should not shock or surprise us because it is not new. Since Vatican II, liturgical roles originally reserved to men, and sometimes only to men studying for priesthood, have been redistributed to lay persons, including women. You may remember altar servers used to only be boys, but now there are girls. We even underwent a vocabulary change, from saying “altar boys” to now saying “altar servers.” The same was true for Eucharistic ministers, and lectors, and even ushers, who were originally called “porters” (from the Latin “porta” meaning city gate or door) because they open the door to welcome people to church. All these ministries were originally reserved for men, especially those in seminary formation.

The real challenge for the Church and for Catholic Christians would be to understand how someone can receive the sacrament of Holy Orders and yet still be considered a lay person (not a cleric). But this new challenge is simply the mirror opposite of the challenge Catholics confronted prior to Vatican II. Those older Catholics had to understand how someone could be a cleric (because they received tonsure) and still had not been ordained. In other words, when we distinguish the “clerical state” from “Holy Orders”, we can envision a place for women as deacons.

Let me give the last word to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which does a beautiful job of juggling these three ranks of Holy Orders with their respective nuances. We read: “Catholic doctrine, expressed in the liturgy, the Magisterium, and the constant practice of the Church, recognizes that there are two degrees of ministerial priesthood in the priesthood of Christ: the episcopate (bishops) and the presbyterate (priests). The diaconate is intended to help and serve them. For this reason, the term sacerdos (Latin for priest) in current usage denotes bishops and priests but not deacons. Yet Catholic doctrine teaches that the degrees of priestly participation (episcopate and presbyterate) and the degree of service (diaconate) are all three conferred by a sacramental act called ‘ordination,' that is, by the sacrament of Holy Orders” (no. 1554). The only slight revision I would add to that eloquent passage is that "sacerdos" and "cleric" should be equivalent in canon law and theology. And incidentally, we should always remember that the greatest in the Kingdom of God are not the ministers but the saints, which is what we should all (clerics and laity) really be striving for.

Praised be Jesus Christ!