UPDATED VERSION
(1) Some daft Canadian Archbishop wants women deacons. That is how, in Anglicanism, people were softened up for women priests. Just get the laity accustomed to seeing women in clerical collars and vestments.
(2) That poisonous fellow Rosica, whose duties seem to include telling the Synod Fathers what they should think, says that the admission of the remarried divorced to Communion should be decided regionally. As Anglicans, our technical term for this was Provincial Autonomy. It's a brilliant way of perverting the Faith ... you get some perversion started in one place and then you rely on a combination of bullying and creep to spread it. See now Father Zed on this point. It is in many ways the crucial issue. Notwithstanding a CDF document Apostolos suos of S John Paul's pontificate, Papa Bergoglio has already talked about giving Episcopal Conferences doctrinal status.
(3) In the C of E, our synod had a two thirds majority rule for all resolutions involving Doctrine. This kept Women's 'ordination' at bay for some decades. BUT as soon as a resolution gets that majority, you then need a two thirds majority to overturn it and to return to Tradition!! Papa Bergoglio's Synod has the same rule about a two thirds majority. BUT in the last Synod he ordered paragraphs to stand which had only secured a simple majority. So, in this year's Synod, these same paragraphs now need two thirds majorities to overturn them!!
Can the Devil really think he can get away with these games in the Catholic Church when the evidence of what it all leads to is so obviously displayed to view in Anglicanism? But he seems to, and he has a history of success.
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21 comments:
How is the subject of women deacons even relevant to a synod dedicated to the family???
The Canadian bishops, save the odd one, are an embarrassment, poorly formed, spineless Uriah Heeps on stilts, courting the approval of the media and the uncatechised Catholic majority whose ignorance they have orchestrated.
These people will try any devious route they can think of. Unfortunately the Anglican Communion has given them all sorts of ideas to suggest. It would appear that their goal is to make the Catholic Church into the Anglican Communion Mark 2 though heaven forfend that we would ever end up with a Katherine Jefferts Schori Mark 2 as an Archbishop.
Apologies from Canada, but at least we can say that Fr. Rosica is only a citizen, he was born in New York State, but alas, the Bishop is ours.
And that is just how Communion in the hand became almost the norm. Only two days ago I was disgusted to hear of a priest in my own diocese actually refusing somebody Communion on the tongue.
Rosica and his ilk can probably do more damage than Kasper and his friendly host of heretics... the spin and the perceptions of the hoi polloi (whether or not they are practical Catholics) are what they are after at this point. As for "Provincial Autonomy" you are spot-on there as well... think "National Episcopal Conferences" and Communion-in-the-hand, girl altarboys, and so-forth...
The devil must have found a very comfortable abode in Canada, since both of these twits are Canadians.
The Canadian bishops with a few exceptions are an embarrassment:poorly formed, spineless, Uriah Heeps on stilts, tying themselves in knots trying to appeal to the secular world which despises them, and the uncatechised laity for whose ignorance they are responsible.
The order of Deacon is a priestly one. Women cannot become priests. Therefore, they cannot receive that order. Any such service would be meaningless. All quite simple really.
The adjective you have used for your Canadian seems appropriate.
But the devil does get away with it with many people. He uses Gradualism.
Jacobi, you've lost me. In what sense is a deacon a priest?
I never said a deacon was a priest. Please read what I said. It is there in black and white above.
Trent established the pre-priestly minor orders as seven. Now parts of the Church, at present do not recognise some minor orders such as porter etc. as orders although others, such as the FSSP do.
However, the orders of deacons, sub deacons, exorcists and I believe, acolyte, are still recognised by all as being as stages on the way to the priesthood.
The order of deacon is particularly important. For instance their hands are blessed and anointed so that they may handle and distribute the Sacred Elements and clean the sacred vessels.
I believe acolytes may be allowed to do this under certain circumstances.
Therefore, they are priestly orders and since women cannot become priests, they cannot receive these priestly orders.
On the "unordainability" of women to the diaconate one could hardly do better than to read *Priesthood and Diaconate:The Recipient of the Sacrament of Holy Orders from the Perspective of Creation Theology and Christology* by Gerhard Ludwig Mu(e)ller; Ignatius Press, 2002: ISBN: 0-89870-892-3. The book's author is, of course, the current Prefect of the CDF who, in this book, argues strongly that women are no more "ordainable" to the diaconate than to the presbyteral or episcopal priesthood.
There is also the fine book, *Deaconesses: An Historical Study* by the late French patristics and liturgical scholar, Aime-Georges Martimort, published by Ignatius Press in 1986 and reprinted in 1996, which demonstrates (and I use the word "demonstrates" with due deliberation) (a) that there never, ever were deaconesses anywhere in the Latin/Western Church before ca. 400 (and never, ever, at any time, in the Church of Rome) and that where "deaconesses" did come in around that date (as in Gaul) the title was simply one given to aristocratic abbesses without any liturgical or sacramental functions, and (b)that in the East, "deaconesses" were not "female deacons," despite the close similarity (but not identity) between the ordination rite for deacons in the Byzantine Rite and that for deaconesses: he demonstrates that where the functions of deaconesses were most varied, in Roman Syriac Syria and over the frontier in Persian Mesopotamia, the ordination rites for male deacons and deaconesses were distinctly dissimilar, and that it was quite clear in the East Syrian theological and canonical tradition that deaconesses were not female deacons.
"However, the orders of deacons, sub deacons, exorcists and I believe, acolyte, are still recognised by all as being as stages on the way to the priesthood."
In the Latin Church in general, all the "minor orders" save acolyte and lector were abolished in 1973; they are still retained among those trained and ordained according to the EF rites.
Yes, the Prefect's book is excellent! I remember, however, just a few short years ago, when Benedict appointed him to the CDF, a bunch of folks wet their nappies over the man, claiming that he was an arch-heretic. Now, I can't vounch for all of Mueller's work, but he's doing a fine, even heroic job where he is.
Just a little historical perspective. Now, we have something really worth worrying over in regard to this synod!
I join with the Vox in offering my apologies for the boring reports out of Canada. Viva Christo Rey!
Dear William Tighe,
You are stating, "it was quite clear in the East Syrian theological and canonical tradition that deaconesses were not female deacons". So, as so often we are confronted with the argument "but there exist diacona in the early church in the East", what (in short) was the actual duty and function of a diacona, what grace was transferred to her in her ordination - if any - , did she have any defined function in a eucharist liturgy, and did she wear any liturgical garnments? Or was the title diacona simply another expression for a catechumenist and female helper at baptismn of girls?
Thank you, William. So Lector still remains, presumably for men. The others (remaining) are therefore steps on the way to priesthood and therefore can not apply to women.
"what (in short) was the actual duty and function of a diacona, what grace was transferred to her in her ordination (if any), did she have any defined function in a eucharist liturgy, and did she wear any liturgical garnments? Or was the title diacona simply another expression for a catechumenist and female helper at baptismn of girls?"
No liturgical garments, no role in the eucharistic liturgy, anywhere. I'm not sure what the role of deaconesses was in Contasntinople, if any, beyond catechizing and helping at the baptism of girls. In Roman Syria and Persian Mesopotamia, women were sequestered from "public life;" and so there deaconesses, in addition to catechizing and assisting at baptisms, brought the preconsecrated eucharisitc species to women so sequestered. In female religious communities a deaconess (usually the hegumene, I think) administered the reserved sacrament to members of the community when a priest was not available to celebrate the liturgy there. I think that deaconesses (although my memory of this is hazy - although it's in Martimort) could read the gospels in some communities in some circumstances as well.
Of course, the contemporary Orthodox proponents of "the female diaconate" wave aside the lack of any role in the eucharistic liturgy for deaconesses by claiming that this was due entirely to "social conditions" making such a role impossible. I think that this is Bishop Kallistos (Ware's) line; it is certainly that of the most voluble American Orthodox proponent of "the female diaconate," Kyriake Kydonis Fitzgerald, cf.:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=firzgerald+women+deacons&rh=n%3A283155%2Ck%3Afirzgerald+women+deacons
The diaconate is not a minor order - it is one of the major orders, to wit bishop, priest and deacon. All three orders are conferred by the sacrament of Holy Orders. Even those churches in the east which had deaconesses have never considered them to be in Holy Orders.
However, there is some confusion/variation about what deaconesses in the Greek churches actually were/are. In Arab churches, like the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, even today it is the wife of the deacon who is known as the diakonissa in a similar way that the wife of a priest is a presbytera. The women's ordination movement has exploited such titles to try to justify their case, but they have done so without understanding what they mean.
Anyway, despite the impossibility of what the poorly-formed Canadian bishop was suggesting, what an act of crass stupidity to bring up the subject during a synod on Marriage and the Family! Does the poor man suffer from ADHD or was he given the impression that he was taking part in Vatican III?
Jacobi, they are not steps on the way to priesthood. They are Orders in their own right. Women cannot be or do them because women cannot be clerics. The meaning is similar to that they cannot be priests, but not quite the same. Please do not go against, for ex., Trent, by relegating the Minor Orders to yearly Seminary graduation gifts from the Bishop.
FAR
FROM
THE
RHINE
“the Church as an accompanying mother” (Fr. Thomas Rosica)
Accompany my child
In acts of sin?
You’d have to first boil
Then peel off my skin.
They have free will
But so do I –
And before accompany
In sin, I’ll die.
Before accompany
Their obscene choice
In charity admonish
With a true mother’s voice.
Just like my mother
Did for me
When once I turned
From the Trinity.
When cold and hard
I knelt at her breast
Embraced by her arms
She coaxed, I confessed.
And then the rain
Poured down on me
Shined sun and moon
Simultaneously,
Not because mother
Accompanied me
In trend-setting sin’s
Finery.
My stick of a soul
She secured to the Vine
Timeless Tiber rooted
Branching far from the Rhine!
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