Synod on Synodality now discussing female deacons, married priests, and lay governance

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Synod on Synodality now discussing female deacons, married priests, and lay governance
Synod participants will now spend the next few days discussing controversial topics, after officials refused to commit that members had to uphold Church teaching in discussions.



Pope Francis and Synod on Synodality leaders, October 13, 2023.
Michael Haynes/LifeSiteNews

Oct 13, 2023
VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — Participants of the Synod on Synodality are currently discussing topics of married priests, female deacons, and increased lay ministry as part of the third of five modules held during the event.

Opening the proceedings on Friday morning, relator general Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich gave an address highlighting the chief themes that will form the subject of discussion at the synod until Wednesday.

The central question for the discussion is “Co-responsibility in Mission: How can we better share gifts and tasks in the service of the Gospel?” However, the 35 small circle groups will be dealing with the five different subsections of the module, with only one of the subsections assigned to each group for the duration of the module.

Participants of #synod2023 arrive for start of 3rd module (B2) focussing on topics of lay ministry esp. role of women, female deacons, married priests. @cardinal_jch says these = “some of key points” of synod, so “let us not give hasty answers that do not consider all aspects.” pic.twitter.com/04ZD0O5DOE

— Michael Haynes ?? (@MLJHaynes) October 13, 2023

Within the worksheets provided to synod participants are questions dealing with

• Lay leadership
  
• Lay ministry
  
• Clericalism
  
• Role of women in governance
  
• Possibility of female deacons
  
• Possibility of married priests
  
• Seminary formation to promote synodality
  
• Role of bishops in a synodal church
  

Hollerich paid particular attention to highlighting the theme of women in the Church during his opening speech.

READ: Synod official refuses to answer whether members must follow Church teaching in discussions

“Most of us are men. But men and women receive the same baptism and the same Spirit. The baptism of women is not inferior to the baptism of men,” he said, in what appeared to be an allusion to arguing for female ministry of some kind.

How can we ensure that women feel they are an integral part of this missionary Church? Do we, the men, perceive the diversity and the richness of the charisms the Holy Spirit has given to women? Or the way that how we act often depends on our past education, our family upbringing and experience, or the prejudices and stereotypes of our culture?

Do we feel enriched or threatened when we share our common mission and when women are co-responsible in the mission of the Church, on the basis of the grace of our common Baptism?

He posited the male priesthood alongside the “other baptismal ministries,” asking if the clergy were “ready to accept that all parts of the body are important.”

Besides being men, most of us are also ordained ministers. In the People of God there are also other components, other charisms, other vocations, and other ministries. What is the relation between ordained ministry and other baptismal ministries? We all know the image of the body Saint Paul uses. Are we ready to accept that all parts of the body are important? Are we ready to accept that Christ is the head of the body, and that the body can only function if each part relates to the head and to the other parts? Can the body of our Church act in harmony or are the parts twisting in all directions?

Synodal worksheets: Female governance and ministry

With the various small circles working through the provided worksheets during the coming days, it is the themes and questions raised in those texts that provide clues as to the direction of the synod.

Worksheet B2.2 states that the synod process has recognized “a clear call to overcome a vision that reserves any active function in the Church to ordained Ministers alone (Bishops, Priests, Deacons), reducing the participation of the Baptised to a subordinated collaboration.”

Consequently, the groups studying this section will have to look at the question, “How can we renew an understanding of ministry not limited to ordained Ministry alone?” among other questions.

READ: Synod on Synodality discusses ‘pastoral’ approach to ‘love among gay couples’

Section B2.3 highlights that all the continental synod groups had issued a “call for the issue of women’s participation in governance, decision-making, mission and ministries at all levels of the Church, to be addressed, and for this participation to be given the support of appropriate structures so that this does not remain just a general aspiration.”

As such, the question is then raised regarding the possibility of new “ministries” for women to answer that call: “What new ministries could be created to provide the means and opportunities for women’s effective participation in discernment and decision-making bodies?”

Such new ministries even include a call for female deacons, with section B2.3 concluding with this direct petition:

Most of the Continental Assemblies and the syntheses of several Episcopal Conferences call for the question of women’s inclusion in the diaconate to be considered. Is it possible to envisage this, and in what way?

Fr. Timothy Radcliffe and Sr. Nathalie Becquart arrive to the synod, October 12, 2023.

Married clergy and lay authority

Alongside the role of women in particular is the slightly more general topic of the laity in the governance of the Church, a general undercurrent of moving away from a clerical Church hierarchy towards an increasingly lay-led Church.

Questions are presented calling on participants to examine if the laity can “perform the role of community leaders, particularly in places where the number of ordained Ministers is very low? What implications does this have for the understanding of ordained Ministry?”

The role of permanent deacons is also highlighted – a topic of growing interest at the Vatican as officials attempt to answer the vocations crisis that is endemic in many parts of the world. “How is the ministry of the permanent diaconate to be understood within a missionary synodal Church?”

But additionally, and in language that resembles the call of the Amazon Synod for viri probati, the text raises the question of married priests:

As some continents propose, could a reflection be opened concerning the discipline on access to the Priesthood for married men, at least in some areas?

Opening the module on Friday, Hollerich warned synod participants not to “give hasty answers that do not consider all the aspects of these difficult questions,” since they are “some of the key points of our Synod.”

Let us not give hasty answers that do not consider all the aspects of these difficult questions. We have theologians we can consult, and we have time to pray and deepen the questions we identify now in order to come to a conclusion in the second session of October 2024.

The results of the small table discussions over the next few days will be submitted to officials from the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops and used in compiling the October 2023 synod’s final report.