All posts tagged: women deacons

In Vatican summit’s final document, delegates call for more lay and female church leaders

In Vatican summit’s final document, delegates call for more lay and female church leaders

Published by skeptic

VATICAN CITY (RNS) – After three years of discussions at every level of the Catholic Church, a summit of Catholic bishops and lay people at the Vatican ended Saturday (Oct. 26), with the publication of a document laying out a vision for structural reform of the church and calling for the hierarchy to make more room for lay leaders, especially women. The final document of Vatican Synod on Synodality presented pathways to a more inclusive and transparent church that gives all Catholics a say on the future of the institution. It proposed changes to canon law that would allow lay people to be better heard by their bishops, national bishops’ conferences and even the pope. The 52-page document serves as the final statement on the summit, which brought nearly 400 prelates, lay Catholics, nuns and brothers to Rome for the past month. Pope Francis announced that he will not publish an ‘apostolic exhortation’ as is customary at the end of a synod. The pope signed Saturday’s document instead, suggesting that it constitutes official church teaching. …

Before tackling troublesome issues, Pope Francis insists on synodality

Before tackling troublesome issues, Pope Francis insists on synodality

Published by Sam

(RNS) — After raising expectations with his Synod on Synodality, Pope Francis is punting on a number of controversial issues that the synod process invited lay Catholics to raise. When the next session of the synod meets this October, the topics of married priests and same-sex blessings will be off the table, while the possibility of women deacons will be assigned to study groups. In effect, Francis is leaving his successor to resolve what he started. The Synod on Synodality has been a three-year consultive process, gathering input from listening sessions all over the world. The synod’s first meeting in Rome, which for the first time allowed lay men and women to vote alongside bishops, met last October in groups of 10 at roundtables for “conversations in the Spirit,” in which everyone had an equal voice. In November, the report on the October session gave recommendations to the pope and called for further research and discussion of certain topics. On March 14, the General Secretariat of the Synod gave the pope’s response to the synod’s report, …

Vatican puts the brakes on Synod on Synodality, pushes ‘controversial’ topics to 2025

Vatican puts the brakes on Synod on Synodality, pushes ‘controversial’ topics to 2025

Published by Sam

VATICAN CITY (RNS) — A three-year process aimed at putting the most pressing concerns of lay Catholics front and center in the church was reshuffled on Thursday (March 14), as the Vatican announced that it plans to push discussion of “doctrinal, ethical and pastoral issues that are controversial” to June 2025. The controversial issues include allowing women to be ordained as deacons, as well as welcoming LGBTQ Catholics. These and other issues of importance to Catholics, discerned in discussions at every level of the church that took place since 2021, were the subject of a meeting of bishops and laypeople at the Vatican in October and a report listing the main concerns of the faithful. But a second summit, scheduled for October 2024, will now focus not on the issues the Synod on Synodality raised, but on the process itself. “The synod of bishops will be centered on the theme of synodality,” said Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, the relator general of the general assembly of the synod of bishops, at a news conference Thursday at the …

Orthodox Christian radio hosted a panel on female deacons. Then misogyny poured in.

Orthodox Christian radio hosted a panel on female deacons. Then misogyny poured in.

Published by Sam

(RNS) — Soon after the live broadcast began on Ancient Faith Radio, a media ministry aimed at Orthodox Christian listeners, the real-time commentary open to listeners on YouTube erupted with a stream of misogyny.  The topic of the Jan. 30 broadcast, which included a pre-recorded radio documentary, was examining the call to restore female deacons in the Orthodox Church. Deacons make up the lowest and third order of clergy in the Orthodox Church, and not every parish has them. Where they exist, deacons primarily assist the priest with liturgical duties such as preparing the Eucharist and are almost always exclusively male. “Why should I care about women trying to subvert the major orders?” asked one commenter.  “This is such a joke,” opined an opponent, while another chimed in that the subject was too sensitive for their 17-year-old, and another cited St. Paul as saying, “women should stay silent because they talk too much and are too opinionated in Church.” Yet another was plainer in their bias: “Deaconesses would turn the sanctuary into a brothel.” Far from …