The Catholic Church’s annual opportunity to ignore the history of women deacons comes again this September 3rd, the Feast of St Phoebe, Deacon of the Church at Cenchrea.
Never heard of her? That’s because in 1969, the church calendar moved St Gregory the Great’s formal feast day from his date of death (March 12th) to the date he was elected pope, conveniently enough, September 3rd, overshadowing her. Conveniently, because Gregory is the preacher who passed along the falsehood that St Mary Magdalene was a prostitute. You cannot make this up.
Now it is worse. Angry journalists, bloggers, and even bishops are spreading even more false information about the history of, and the possibility for the restoration of, the tradition of ordaining women as Catholic deacons. Relying on translated copies of a 43-year-old book on the topic, they posit that no woman was ever ordained deacon in the history of the church, despite the author’s admission that, because there are many missing historical documents, no final determination is possible.
So, what is the problem? Several assertions float about attempting to cut off the Synod on Synodality’s magisterially mandated conversations about restoring the practice of ordaining women as deacons. They fall into two main categories: 1) women cannot “image” Christ, and 2) holy orders cannot be divided.
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The most startling objection is that women cannot image Christ, and therefore that they are not made in the image and likeness of God. Yet, the consoling fact of the incarnation is that God became human in the person of Jesus Christ.
Obviously, the understanding of anyone representing Christ today does not depend on sexual differences. To say women cannot represent Christ – cannot be signs of Christ in and for the church – is to deny their full humanity. The assertion sends a terrible signal to the rest of the world, especially to parts of the world where women are second-class chattel, living dominated by a male family member, unable to vote, drive a car, attend school or even decide whom they might marry.
Saying that women can image Christ does not deny gender distinctions or argue for anything other than Catholic teaching: we are all made in the image and likeness of God. To limit that ability due to what scholars call “naive physicalism” is to deny the extraordinary fact of the resurrection, and the Catholic teaching that Christ lives in all Christians.
As the discussion about women deacons reignited during the Second Vatican Council, the theory of the “unicity of orders” arose. The false argument that because women cannot be ordained priests, they cannot be ordained as deacons has now gained new traction, even within the Vatican. Even Pope Francis presented a version of it in a television interview less than a year before he died. When an American reporter asked if a young girl would be able to think about becoming a deacon, he gave a resounding “no” to a deacon within holy orders. Why? He did not explain, but as so many other non-specialists do, he reverted to speaking about all the wonderful things women can accomplish while not ordained. Importantly, though, he did not state women could not be ordained as deacons, just that he did not think they would.
The Catholic Church’s three major orders – the diaconate, the priesthood and the episcopate – have a long development trajectory, but one order does not necessarily imply the other.
The diaconate is an interesting case in point. St Paul’s Letter to the Romans (57 CE) presents the first, and only, mention of a deacon by title in all of scripture. Her name is Phoebe, and she was included in the church’s official list of saints, the Roman Martyrology, at its inception. Paul introduces her to the nascent church in Rome as a deacon and asks the Romans to welcome and, importantly, respect her. It is understood that she carried the letter to Rome and interpreted its theology for these new Christians.
Later, the Acts of the Apostles (70-90 CE) recounts the election of seven others by the community at the request of the apostles. They are not given the title “deacon”, despite their designated task to assist with the distribution of food to widows. This event comes well after the death and resurrection of Christ, making the diaconate a creation of the church.
But it is Phoebe who is first named and first known, directly, as a deacon. Why is she not welcomed and respected by the church today?
Phyllis Zagano is an expert on the diaconate of women. She holds a research appointment at Hofstra University, Hempstead, New York, and is the author, most recently, of Just Church: Catholic Social Teaching, Synodality, and Women (Paulist Press).
