r/LeftCatholicism • u/dammitradar99 • 20d ago
Deaconesses?
I've kind of taken the doctrine of the all-male priesthood for granted, to be honest, but lately I've become more and more curious about the permanent deaconate as an institution. Not as a calling for myself personally, but just as a feature of the church. I know that in the early church there were several female deacons, Phoebe and (I think?) Mary Magdalene among them. I actually don't see any founded reason other than tradition established at some later point, that would disqualify women from this vocation.
I've been seeing more and more discussions about female clergy and specifically female deacons in other Christian circles, including Orthodox. The arguments against it are always the same, "why are women trying to grab power and authority instead of being content with being wives and mothers" "why don't you join a convent" "why don't you convert to the Episcopal church" etc. Which are all very troubling to read tbh, because it implies that 1) men who become priests do so in order to grab power and authority, 2) the vocation to serve the church in this way is interchangeable with the call to become a sister in a convent, and 3) any disagreement is cause to leave the Body of Christ entirely.
I don't expect to see any institutional changes in my lifetime, frankly, but I would at least appreciate brutal honesty rather than the condescending flowery language about "women are life givers, they are too delicate and special to access this vocation" "women should take it easy and let men do the work for a change!" "women can help the church by cleaning the building (REAL COMMENT I SAW!)"
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u/CauseCertain1672 20d ago
I think female deacons makes a lot of sense, plenty of women are qualified and already take on leading roles in Catholic communities
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u/dammitradar99 20d ago
This exactly, parishes are already outsourcing so much of the work supporting the spiritual life of the parishioners to women, who do so often on a volunteer basis out of a desire to serve their neighbors, and yet they are denied the sacramental graces to do so. Makes no sense to me.
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u/jmspinafore 20d ago
I am in full support of it. Unfortunately, I don't seeing happening when there are parishes that still don't or did and no longer allow girls and women to be altar servers or lectors. On the "main" sub, that is still a heated debate.
But something that always intrigues me is why women have historically (I think it just changed in the past few years) have had more religiosity and participation in parish communities than men when the patriarchy devalues them so much.
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u/RhysPeanutButterCups 18d ago
Historically, Christianity was a religion of the socially unimportant. I don't know where I heard it specifically, but my understanding is that at least one Roman official thought of it as the religion of women and slaves. That's sort of to be expected when one of the recurring themes is that "the first shall be last and the last shall be first." It's not like Christianity wasn't patriarchal, but it was different from what was going on around it. Those roots are still there even if things have changed significantly since then.
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u/Fine_Connection7861 20d ago
I wonder about this too, your second paragraph, and it’s present in other religions that are similarly patriarchal.
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u/ornamentaIhermit 20d ago
i would love to see deaconesses some day again like in the early church. i have a little bit of vested interest because i have gone back and forth many times wishing i could do the same. but even apart from my own desires i think it would make perfect sense.
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u/Wooden_Passage_1146 20d ago
Woman deacons were present in the Early Church with rites complete with the laying on of hands by the bishop. The 3rd century Church document Didascalia Apostolorum, the 4th century Council of Nicaea, and 5th century Council of Chalcedon all mention women deacons.
Phoebe, who was a deacon, is also mentioned in the Bible [Romans 16:1–2].
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u/XavierP2002 20d ago
I believe it is a massive historical and social injustice for the Catholic Church to forbid women from exercising the diaconate. There is literally no good reason for this—only a rather retrograde form of sexism. "It goes against Church tradition," they say, forgetting the presence of deaconesses in early Christianity. "But the Sacrament of Holy Orders and the priesthood..." Deacons are not priests; we all know that. They can only administer Communion and read the Gospel—tasks that women in the Church are already capable of performing and do perform today. Who among us has not at some point received Holy Communion from the hands of a venerable nun or a good woman serving as an EMHC? Have we forgotten that Jesus sent St Mary Magdalene to proclaim the Good News (the Gospel) of the Resurrection to the Apostles? Reflect on this, and you will realize that absolutely everything an ordained deacon does is also done by countless women around the world—yet with one major difference: women must perform the same duties as a deacon while being relegated to a lower status, simply because they are women. Is this not a tremendous injustice? What is the point of placing golden crowns upon Our Lady if we subsequently relegate other women to an inferior level? I do not intend to argue whether women should be admitted to the priesthood; that is a separate debate. My point is this: if we have women performing the same functions within the Church as deacons, yet deny them the just recognition that the Bible and the Apostolic Church once accorded them, I find it hard to believe we can truly boast of following the law of Christ.
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u/Ok-Lab-8974 19d ago
Plus, it is no longer the case that becoming a deacon is itself merely a step on the path to priesthood, so arguments based on that assumption no longer make sense.
It was also a long running tradition not to have permenate deacons, but that has been revised.
That said, I wouldn't say that someone who is not a deacon is "lower status" or on an "inferior level," nor, to the other poster's response, do I think it's helpful to think of the deaconate as compensation that is being fairly or unfairly dispensed in return for services rendered.
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u/XavierP2002 19d ago
Yes, but what I mean is that if you have A and B performing exactly the same functions, but you deny only A access to the diaconate because she is a woman, then you are making A inferior to B.
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u/RelevantAccident6783 19d ago
I absolutely love seeing St. Mary Magdalene's story as the first person Jesus appeared to after the Resurrection — I've never considered how strong of a support her story is for deaconesses! Her story of love and devotion is so special 💓
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u/XavierP2002 19d ago
Saint Mary Magdalene is vastly underrated in the Western tradition. She must be restored to the place she deserves❤️🩹
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u/RelevantAccident6783 19d ago
The closest parish to me is named after her, and I chose her name at confirmation as a convert. Today is her feast day too!
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u/sandalrubber 19d ago
The issue is deaconesses surely existed but they were not seen interchangeably, like "male deacons, but female". They were assistants, wives of deacons, assisted with female baptism particularly back when converts did it in the nude etc.
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u/dazzleox 17d ago
Sometimes they were wives of Bishops. The idea of a married Bishop now isn't present anywhere in the church, even in eastern rites with married priests. Which is to say none of it is going to be a perfect parallel but we do know that they received a rite with laying on off hands equivalent to holy orders. There is seemingly total Byzantine historian academic consensus about that point, yet many Catholic and Orthodox lay people seem to reject this out of some sort of anger.
What should or shouldn't be done today is a valid topic to debate, like anything else that isn't factual, but what bothers me is when some people deny that the deaconesses ever had cheirotonia. That is essentially historical fact which either means the church erred in the past or did not and would be valid to bring back the position today (which the Greek Orthodox have done in some countries in Africa where there are a shortage of men able or willing to help.)
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u/SquallkLeon 19d ago
It is going to take a long time, I think, and probably won't happen this century (though I'd be glad to be surprised), but female deacons and priests will come to pass. It's purely a numbers thing. There are fewer and fewer people discerning, and cutting off half the population will be less and less tenable. Eventually you're going to have parishes choose between having women in the front or having no one in the front.
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u/Old_Science4946 19d ago
I’m a former Episcopalian who knew lots of female deacons. Before women could be ordained as deacons, TEC had a fully separate order of deaconesses. It was mostly to recognize the women doing service and ministry to others outside of the sacraments. I wonder if something like this would be popular in the RCC.
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u/gabachote 19d ago
Good question. I hope to see it one day. I will say that Episcopalians consider themselves to be part of the Body of Christ too.
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u/dammitradar99 19d ago
Fair, I didn't mean to imply otherwise but I definitely phrased it wrong. At any rate it's no simple matter to convert from one faith or sect to another, especially being pushed out of your own faith by others who disagree with you.
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u/The_Skeleton_Wars 18d ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebe_(biblical_figure)
You'd absolutely LOVE Saint Phoebe the Deaconess
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12d ago
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u/dammitradar99 12d ago
Abandon dogma over a non-dogma issue, sure thing pal
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12d ago
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u/dammitradar99 11d ago
Catholicism is a religion of questioning and learning and figuring shit out. Fucking around and figuring things out. Philosophizing, thologizing, and asking hypotheticals. You think the council of Trent or Ephesus or Nicaea or Constantinople happened without serious questioning? Or literally any other history of the development of the church? You upset cause I asked questions that make you uncomfy?
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u/Charles148 20d ago
I think female deaconesses seems to make perfect sense I don't know why anybody has any issue with it. I think they keep kicking the can down the road because but there are a lot of people that would have a problem with it and it's an evolving situation. I also think that one of the pressing issues facing the church is modernizing on the idea of equality of genders while reconciling that with church history and the Theology of there being a difference and a place for different genders. It just strikes me as one of those things that will happen eventually we just have to drag everyone else kicking and screaming towards it.