And On and On We Go: Female Deacons Next?

Pope Francis opens another can of worms!

Francis to create commission to study female deacons in Catholic church

At the recent meeting in Rome of the International Union of Superiors General, the pope agreed that a commission to study the question of women deacons was a good idea. According to press reports, when challenged about it, he responded, "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.”

Pope Saint John Paul II closed the question of women's ordination in 1994, but here we go again. Of course this is being reported in the press with headlines like this:

Pope Francis: Let’s study possibility of ordaining women deacons

Pope Francis says he's willing to create a commission to study whether women can serve as deacons in the Catholic Church, signaling the possibility of letting women serve in ordained ministry

Pope Francis: Let’s study possibility of ordaining women deacons 

Can this latest off the cuff response to a question do anything but once again imply the possibility of women's ordination? The diaconate is an ordained ministry. If women can be ordained as deacons who assist in serving Mass; why not the priesthood? Even if a commission recommends ordination, it can hardly be allowed by the Holy Spirit. But like the Birth Control Commission did, it can raise false hopes and exacerbate the disunity of an already-divided Church.

And then there's the question of infallibility. If Hans Kung isn't lying (a definite possibility since his entire pretense of being a Catholic is a lie), the pope agreed in a letter to discuss the doctrine of infallibility with him. Here's what Kung wrote in a statement published by the National Catholic Reporter:

Francis has set no restrictions. He has thus responded to my request to give room to a free discussion on the dogma of infallibility. I think it is now imperative to use this new freedom to push ahead with the clarification of the dogmatic definitions, which are a ground for controversy within the Catholic church and in its relationship to the other Christian churches. 

I could not have foreseen then quite how much new freedom Francis would open up in his post-synodal exhortation, Amoris Laetitia. Already in the introduction, he declares, "Not all discussions of doctrinal, moral or pastoral issues need to be settled by interventions of the magisterium." 

He takes issue with "cold bureaucratic morality" and does not want bishops to continue behaving as if they were "arbiters of grace." He sees the Eucharist not as a reward for the perfect but as "nourishment for the weak."... 

...Francis no longer wants to be the sole spokesman of the church. 

This is the new spirit that I have always expected from the magisterium. I am fully convinced that in this new spirit a free, impartial and open-ended discussion of the infallibility dogma, this fateful key question of destiny for the Catholic church, will be possible.

Kung had his license to teach in a Catholic institution revoked in 1979. Since then he has continued to do all in his power to undermine Church teaching on many issues including women's ordination, a door Pope St. John Paul II clearly closed in his apostolic letter, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis (Pentecost 1994). After giving numerous examples of the continuous Church teaching that orders are reserved to men, Pope John Paul II concluded:

Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church's divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren (cf. 22:32) I declare 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.

If Pope Francis does one thing exceedingly well it's opening cans of worms. And the dissenters all pounce to feed on them. Let's pray every day for Holy Mother Church. The gates of hell will never prevail, but the assault is relentless! St. Joseph, Patron of the Universal Church, pray for us.