NB: The Deacon in question posted a comment, below. Be sure to check it out.
The Fishwrap is having a little nutty these days about the ordination of women.
First, there is an editorial openly declaring that women should be ordained as a matter of “justice”. It is fun. If you bother with it, note how Fishwrap creatively hijacked Bl. John Henry Newman on conscience and papal teaching. The Catholic Herald‘s William Oddie has a sharp piece about that HERE.
Second, there is a piece at Fishwrap about a permanent deacon who was recently told he could not speak at a church event in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. The deacon in question, Rev. Mr. William Ditewig, once worked in the office of the USCCB for deacons. He co-authored a book promoting the ordination of women deacons. His co-author was Fishwrap columnist Phyllis Zagano. Remember her? She doesn’t like me very much, I’m afraid. (She actually has a fairly decent column this week about the secular and materialistic enervation of the Christmas season.)
Fishwrap has been having a pretty bad innings when it comes to promoting weird and invalid ordinations. Their darling Roy Bourgeois was recently dismissed from the Maryknollers for pushing women’s ordination to the priesthood. Now, Rev. Mr. Ditewig is not given a chance to talk in Philadelphia. Ditewig says that he wasn’t going to talk about women’s ordination, but giving him a platform might look like an endorsement of his unorthodox notions.
“But Father! But Father!”, some will declare. “Ordinatio sacerdotalis says women can’t be ordained as priests…. as prieeeeests. Get it? Can’t you read? It doesn’t say anything about deacons! There were deaconesses in the ancient Church. So there!”
Piffle. Are we going to disconnect the diaconate from the sacrament of Holy Orders? Ordination of women to the diaconate is nothing other than an attempt to promote the ordination of women to the priesthood. And if there were female “deacons” in some century in some corner of some church somewhere, the phenomenon was a) not anywhere near universal and b) swiftly stamped out as wrong.
Just because something happened occasionally way back when, that doesn’t mean that what happened was acceptable then or legitimate today.
In any event, women are not going to be ordained deacons.
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