It is interesting that the Gospel reading for the Mass this Friday the 12th of September is about blind guides.
The problem, though, is that in the Church we have guides with 20/20 vision leading the Church in a progressive/heterodox direction using the LGBTQ+++ ideological colonization to change the faith and morals of the Catholic Church.
I have to hand it to the good Cardinal Hollerich. At least he’s honest about his heterodox goals for the Church and how he will instrumentalized the LGBTQ+++ideologies to colonize the Catholic Church and change her teachings not just for those with gender identity dysphoria but for all people so they can have guilt free sex of all kinds, marriages of all kinds and clergy of all kinds, which means that not only is sexual morality changed for everyone but the anthropological underpinnings of the doctrines and dogmas of the Sacraments of Matrimony and Holy Orders. And he says synodality is the way to do it. Thank you Cardinal Hollerich for your honesty and showing us where you will lead the Church with 20/20 heterodox vision, not as a blind guide.
All of this will dispense the Church, or rid the Church, of Natural Law and Humanae Vitae and St. John Paul II’s declaration that the pope, any pope, has no authority to change the Sacrament of Holy Orders to allow for female or whatever gender one claims, to be ordained. That is a part of the Ordinary Magisterium of the Church.
Using/instrumentalizing LGBTQ+++ ideologies embraced by cardinals like Cardinal Hollerich will bring about the canning of even the ordinary magisterium of the Church.
However, Pope Leo has brilliantly brought back to the Catholic table-discussion the place of natural law in Catholic moral teachings, all of them, sexual and otherwise. BRILLIANT!
Here’s what Cardinal Hollerich, not a blind guide, but a heterodox guide with 20/20 vision, tells us as reported by Lifesite News:
In a September 6 interview with Austrian outlet Die Furche, Luxembourg Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, S.J. advocated for the Catholic Church to expand their view of sexual morality while also promoting synodality.
Hollerich alleged that the Catholic Church should work to adapt their eternal doctrine to fit the current pro-LGBT narrative.
“Some look to the past with nostalgia, others with fear,” he said. “Both are wrong. We are part of a history — this we must accept and learn from. But we must also move forward.”
12 comments:
Hollerich = Evil on steroids
What you’re trying to do is close any debate.
Yes it’s the church’s teaching that priests must be male but it’s an open question about whether women could join the diaconate. There’s plenty of historical evidence that they were in some form within the first few centuries and some of the orthodox jurisdictions have restored deaconesses recently so there would seem to be no ecumenical obstructions for us doing so too.
To all intensive purposes religious sisters (not contemplative nuns) function as deacons since they are engaged in the ministry of charity through their work in healthcare / education and ministering to the poor etc - so why not recognise that?
When the permanent diaconate was restored they were called lay deacons (rather than transitional deacons) which is interesting.
The first class of permanent deacons in the Diocese of Savannah was in 1979. So we’ve had them for more than 46 years. I don’t know how calling them lay deacons came to be used, certainly it wasn’t an official name. I think it was because they were married with family and kept their secular job. Thus the ordained were implanted in the secular world of marriage and work. However, eventually someone corrected that false name, that being ordained, even a permanent deacon, one canonically entered the clergy. They are not laymen any longer. I can’t remember if that was a local clarification or came from Rome.
The diaconate is a stage in Holy Orders, if you open it to women, that opens the path to priestly ordination and eventually as bishop. Lay deaconesses has a historical precedent. They were not ordained deaconesses, maybe perhaps blessed as lay deaconesses. And yes, religious orders of women, those who are not contemplative, but active in the world, function as deaconesses. Why that is not applauded and pointed out in the current day is beyond me. If not for the active women religious who did the back breaking work of teaching, nursing, feeding the poor and caring for them, for centuries, those things may not have been done as expertly as they were by them.
"Lay deacons" is a bald misnomer, given Vatican II's pronouncements on holy orders. I can't decide whether it is more mad or simply modernist to hold that: the diaconate is part of holy orders; only men can be ordained priests; but women can be ordained to the diaconate (and I guess, because Ordinatio Sacerdotalis mentioned only priests, the episcopate, as Vatican II made clear that the episcopate is its own degree of holy orders).
Nick
Pope Leo has neither done nor said anything to push back against the Lavender Mafia. Instead, he allows the LGTBQ+ brigades to blaspheme the Mass in St. Peter's.
I don’t know if Orthodox Marc is reading this, but I would like his comments. The Eastern Orthodox Church, a particular branch, not the entire group, “ordain” women deacons but their role is not the same as male deacons. It is more like a Communion Minister and perhaps vested as a subdeacon, not a deacon. The Latin Rite’s subdiaconate was suppressed after Vatican II. I don’t think being a subdeacon is considered being ordained. But maybe reviving it would be a door for women subdeacons!
The liturgical functions of an ordained deaconess in the Eastern Orthodox Church, particularly in the Patriarchate of Alexandria, differ significantly from those of a male deacon, though their pastoral and charitable roles often overlap. The primary distinction is that male deacons have a more central role within the altar and liturgy, while the deaconess's liturgical involvement is more circumscribed.
Liturgical role of a male deacon:
A male deacon in the Orthodox Church has a central and prominent liturgical function. Their duties include:
Proclaiming litanies: Leading the people in communal prayers and responses.
Reading the Gospel: Reading the Gospel lesson during the Divine Liturgy.
Assisting at the altar: A deacon assists the priest or bishop during the celebration of the Eucharist, including preparing the altar table.
Managing order: Maintaining decorum and focus within the church during services.
Distributing communion: With the blessing of the presiding priest or bishop, a deacon may help distribute Holy Communion.
Liturgical role of a deaconess:
The liturgical role of deaconesses, revived by the Patriarchate of Alexandria, is based on the practices of the ancient church but also adapted to modern needs. While not identical to the male diaconate, her functions include:
Distributing Holy Eucharist: In the Alexandrian Church, a key function of the newly ordained deaconess is to help distribute the Holy Eucharist.
Assisting at baptisms: Historically and in the current revival, deaconesses assist at the baptisms of women.
Ministering to women: Deaconesses historically served as a point of contact between the clergy and the female congregation. They oversaw the decorum of women during services.
Pastoral and charitable work: In both ancient and modern times, a deaconess has been a key minister of charity, visiting the sick and needy in their homes. These pastoral visits often have a liturgical dimension, such as bringing communion to women who are homebound.
"It is more like a Communion Minister and perhaps vested as a subdeacon, not a deacon. The Latin Rite’s subdiaconate was suppressed after Vatican II. I don’t think being a subdeacon is considered being ordained. But maybe reviving it would be a door for women subdeacons!"
At that point, the role involved becomes more like that of the instituted acolyte, to which women have recently been admitted. One can dispute the prudence or propriety of that decision, but setting that aside, it would appear that the Latin Church is already in a comparable position to the Orthodox.
Nick
The revival of the role of deaconess is extremely limited in modern Orthodoxy as it is questionable. But so far as I know, you are correct that they function in a markedly different way than deacons. As you mentioned, deacons have an extensive role in the liturgy. And notably, not every church's practice has deacons distributing communion. In the Serbian and Russian churches, the deacon doesn't distribute communion, for example. Obviously, we don't have lay people distributing communion.
I wonder how much of the historical record is hard to understand because of the words used and a lack of clarity of what they mean. For example, a deacon's wife is called what amounts to "deaconess" in English [being in a Serbian Church, our newly-ordained deacon's wife is called Djakonisa; and the word is similar in Greek, the language of the early Church].
As a practical matter, I can see the purpose of deaconesses to assist with the baptism of women since we continue the practice of full immersion, which I could imagine being awkward for women. But notably, deacons cannot baptize in the Orthodox Church, so even the assistance with baptism wouldn't amount to actually conducting the sacrament.
A small note too that with regard to organizing the liturgy, etc. That is typically the role of the subdeacon in the Orthodox Church. Although, before we had a subdeacon, this mostly fell to the nuns attached to our church, who even had a blessing to go behind the iconostasis. A subdeacon isn't "ordained" in Orthodoxy, they are tonsured--which is a very short ceremony. We still have the role of tonsured reader too, which can only be men.
All of this to say that there's no real push for deaconesses in Orthodoxy in most of the world. For whatever reason, the Alexandrian patriarch saw the need for it in certain parts of Africa. I assume that's due to a perceived need in that specific region.
I'm not sure there's a lot of overlap with these designations between Orthodoxy and Catholicism, oddly enough. So the attempt in the Roman church to use Orthodoxy as a model is not exactly on sure footing.
Thanks Marc. I do think the historical aspects of deaconesses is important for the Church as that history comes from the Eastern Church. Also, I believe in some Eastern Churches, the wife of a priest is called “Presbytera”.
Yes, that's correct. Prebytera in the Greek churches. In the Slavic churches, the title for the priest's wife is different. In our church, it's Popadija, which basically means the same thing. And in Russian churches, it's Matushka, which means mother basically.
One of the most important deaconesses is St. Tatiana of Rome, so at one time, this was an important aspect in the life of all the churches.
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