Vatican commission votes against female diaconate

In a letter addressed to Pope Leo XIV explaining the work of the study commission on the female diaconate, its president Cardinal Giuseppe Petrocchi said it had approved a statement that its findings “exclude the possibility of proceeding in the direction of the admission of women to the diaconate [when] understood as a level of the sacrament of ordination”.

However, it also said it could not make “a definitive judgement” at present, and called for further study of the female diaconate. It also approved a statement encouraging the development of “new ministries” open to all the baptised which could “contribute to the synergy between men and women”.

The statements date from the first two sessions of the commission, in February 2021 and July 2022. At the first session, the commission’s 10 members also unanimously approved a statement that theological study of the diaconate “raises questions about the compatibility of the diaconal ordination of women, with the Catholic doctrine of ordained ministry”.

According to Cardinal Petrocchi’s letter published on December 4, at the same session the commission’s members voted against three different statements on the institution of a female diaconate: one saying they were not in favour, one saying it was not a suitable time for it and one saying they were in favour.

The members approved the statement to “exclude the possibility” at the second session by seven votes to one. The cardinal did not explain why just eight members of the commission voted on it.

Cardinal Petrocchi’s letter to Pope Leo acknowledged the historical evidence for a female diaconate, although a statement from the July 2022 session said it was “a sui generis ministry” and “not placed in the line of apostolic succession”.

“We know, however, that a purely historical perspective does not allow us to reach any definitive certainty,” Cardinal Petrocchi wrote. “In the final analysis, the question must be decided at the doctrinal level.”

FULL STORY

Vatican commission votes against ordaining women deacons (By Patrick Hudson/The Tablet)