In the wake of Pope Francis mentioning a “study” about deaconettes (which I think was already done – but, as they say, “Quis sum ego ut iudicem.”) one of you alert readers alerted me to a survey that the women’s ordination crowd has put up on the interwebs.
It is from the inimitable Future Church!
I think we should all be as supportive and as helpful as possible, don’t you?
The intro to the survey says:
With the potential for a new discussion about women deacons in the Roman Catholic Church, we want to hear from you.
Do you support women deacons? Do you have concerns? Do you feel called or are you discerning a call to the permanent diaconate? Could you recommend other women for this ministry?
Please complete our survey. Twenty-three questions are designed to be answered by both women and men to gauge the level of support for women deacons. Seven additional questions are directed to women only and inquire about their personal/communal sense of calling to the permanent diaconate. The * symbol indicates questions with required answers.
Be careful with Q 5:
5. Please choose the option that most closely describes how you IDENTIFY:
Female
Male
If the Obama Administration and Dems in general are right, you might have to think about that for a long time… and you might be wrong, whichever you choose. Frankly, I’m surprised there weren’t more options.
Take note of Category 5 in particular:
There are quite a few questions under 5. Some of them are a bit dodgy. For example: they ask if we have questions or concerns about various things. Most of us, however, probably don’t have questions or concerns about the impact of deaconettes: I’m quite certain that it would be bad.
Anyway, you decide. Just read the questions carefully and, above all, have fun!
question #20 asked for recommendations for people who should be involved in the consideration of the matter. guess what priest with a Z in their name that i recommended? ;-)
Completed survey. see no sense in rehashing this it was already ruled on by JPII
And watch out for questions 23, 24, 25. “Do you have questions/concerns about the impact of women deacons on the 31,000 women serving in lay ministry?” I don’t have questions or concerns because I don’t consider women deacons a reality. My opposition has nothing to do with the impact on other ministries.
The survey is grossly slanted to collect data only to support the idea of women deacons. If you are opposed to the idea, your opinion will not easily be captured. Unless you write “I oppose the idea of women deacons” in every comment box like I did.
There are no questions about altar girls; I am opposed to them too.
I would support a survey about how we can increase belief in and reverence toward the True Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
Done
I tend to agree with the commentators who ask “If, as Pope Francis has noted on many occasions, ‘clericalism’ is a stain on the Church, why ever do women want to be part of that stain?”
But, as this reply concerns the survey, obviously it’s a Leftist website/survey:
Q#5. Please choose the option that most closely describes how you identify.
? Female
? Male
Gender is a matter of self-identification?
Then there was that pesky matter of language: The term “woman deacon” (and its variants) was used synonymously with the term “permanent deacon.”
From a social science perspective, this survey reveals a very poor methodology: Biased questioning, implicit assumptions, and “hidden” meanings that compares apples to oranges. Consequently, the findings will be as faulty as is the instrument.
Future Church is detestable.
I am a member of the Cleveland Diocese, where they lurk. During the parish mergers our Diocese underwent a few years ago, which affected my parish, Future Church campaigned for parishioners to withhold our Offertory envelopes in order to punish our bishop. The reasoning for this was that if we had women priests and/or married clergy, there would be no need to close parishes because we would be overwhelmed with priestly vocations. They also wanted to “punish” our bishop, possibly because one of his first acts was to evict their offices from the rectory of a Cleveland parish. Future Church’s henchmen placed “informational” flyers under our windshield wipers while we were at Mass, which urged us to refuse monetary support to our parish.
When I emailed one of the Future Church officers (a former priest) to object in a charitable and polite manner, I was personally attacked because I am only a high school graduate, and my small brain obviously cannot fathom such deep reasoning. I told the man in question that withholding funds from my parish would not punish the bishop. It would hurt our parishioners, our schoolchildren, our college students (we are a Newman parish), and the homeless and poor we feed daily.
This caused the Future Church official to go into a snit and engage in personal, petty hatefulness.
From what I can see, they all have way too much time on their hands and are too focused on their agenda. There is so much work to be done for Jesus and the Church. Good Catholics, in my opinion, are servants of Jesus and His children. We do not create dissent to glorify ourselves or our personal power issues.
God bless you Father, and your blog parishioners.
Should I reveal (under Diocese) that I am a member of the Ordinariate?
Done. And I have recommended you to be on the commission.
Done, and thanks to Fr Z for alerting your readers to this survey.
I have given answers to the questions which are charitable, though I found it difficult to provide an alternative word to “deluded” in one of my replies. But then ‘charity’ means speaking the truth, not just being ‘nice’.
I hope that Father Z has some spare time on his hands, as it appears that I’m not the only one to suggest he sits on the commission. I’ve also nominated Fr Hunwicke for his erudition and to keep Fr Z company. My apologies to both for not asking in advance, although I have a feeling that such nominations might not make the final report, if the wording of the very leading questions gives one a clue to the motives of the authors.
Someone on the receiving end of my survey response is seething with anger right now. LOL. The question to the end about “restoring women to the deaconate” deserves a comment in the box from us all that this was never true. The feminists think that if they lie enough, the public will think the lie to be true and they’re right. We have to stop them.
Survey, almost all are loaded questions?
One of the several things that I’ve noticed under this pontificate: the revisiting of several settled issues/questions within the Church. Saint JP2 already conducted a study of female deacons. He already addressed the issues with communion for the divorced and remarried. During his extensive reign, he beautifully wrote about a whole host of issues. Liberal catholics act like mischievous children who are denied by dad but patiently wait until mom comes home to ask the same question, all with the hope that the “no” they received is turned into a “yes.”
My question is why isn’t there any concern being generated for the decline in Nuns? I don’t see any campaigns for increasing their ranks, only garbage such as increasing the presence of womyn in male religious orders.
I hope the Holy Father would be surprised to learn that he has promised to create a commission to look at the possibility of women’s ordination (to the diaconate)! I don’t think that’s what he said, was it? Talk about loaded question ( and that is not one of those which gives more than a yes/no option).
Done! I also happily suggested you Father for their commission, along with Cardinal Sarah and Cardinal Burke.
I was amused with the “not applicable” choice for so many questions. And why not then for the gender “identity” question?
Can anyone enlighten me about who the “31,000 female lay ecclesial ministers” in the US might be? Altar girls? EMHCs? Or are there ministers I am not recalling at the moment?
The survey was great fun! Perhaps the answers will be so skewed from what they were looking for that the results will be unusable for their purpose.
Sorry, I didn’t recommend Fr Z for the commission. I thought Cardinal Burke, Cardinal Sarah, and Sr Marie Vianney of the faithful Nashville Dominicans would suffice. The survey results should be interesting to see
Committee members I recommended: Cardinal Burke; Cardinal Sarah; Dr. Alice Von Hildebrand.
Looks like a lot of the same suggestions for the Commission. Mine: Cardinals Muller, Sarah, and Burke.
Done, focused on the problem of clericalization.
While I thought about recommending Cardinals Muller, Burke, & Sarah, I choose a less obvious tact: Sr Sarah Butler, Dr Janet Smith, & Dr Dawn (Eden) Goldstein.
Completed, with commentary that will likely get my contribution completely ignored by “Future Church”. My recommendations for the commission: Bishop Schneider, Cardinal Sarah and Bishop Fellay.
In addition to Fr. Z and Cardinal Burke, I recommended Dr. Peters.
I don’t think I’m going to be receiving any invitations to subscribe/join any time soon, based on my answers. Loved their opportunities to comment on the questions!
There seemed a few loaded, ‘trick’ questions. My fear is that even our negative replies will be manipulated for support of the proposal and also for support of ‘gender fluidity’.
I nominated Cardinals Bourke and Sarah along with Bishop Schneider for membership of the commision.
I filled out their survey, which involved a lot of explanations that I don’t believe and would never believe that the Church has any authority to confer any degree of Holy Orders on a woman. I suggested Sr. Sara Butler, Dr. Dawn Eden Goldstein, and Sr. Prudence Allen.
“the option that most closely describes how you identify” : M/F
The brains of these people appear to have leaked out of their ears.
I nominated our dear Pope Emeritus, Cardinal Müller, and our Ordinary.
The very notion that some random persons might be proper choices is quite ludicrously uncatholic.
The idea of becoming a deaconette to me sounds like a colossal bore. But that’s me…From my vantage, I don’t think the feminine genius of women has been fully appreciated or enjoyed or explored with respect to the myriad and diverse possibilities already on offer within our communion. Strangely in this era of feminism, women seem to be greatly devalued in all their works and contributions, so for me the adding on of deaconettes seems irrelevant to that. I’d feel that if people like this organization wished to be credible they would, well, for one, put their money where their mouth is, so to speak, and advocate for human rights and dignity of all women, and not just their pet projects etc. Cheers all for Memorial Day weekend.
Took the survey. Mentioned that the topic had already been reviewed about 15 years ago, so no need to repeat. I am well educated and can read and understand Church teaching, without all the convoluted “buts” and “howevers” they use, but I quess all that matters to them is a degree in Theology, not plain common sense.
N.B. If Mother Angelica had been forced to carry out her work and ministry as a “deaconette” (?!) — this as I gaze at her lovely countenance just under Cardinal Sarah’s on Father’s book recommendations to the right on the blog scroll — one suspects her mission would in fact have hindered, and it not a help, to what became in fact a prolifically effective work for the good for the world in our times, for the salvation of countless souls, which she managed to accomplish through the way God had called her within the Church as a cloistered nun.
My three suggestions at the end of the survey for the commission were Cardinal Sara, Cardinal Burke, and Pope Emeritus Benedict.
This will probably get me a “toxicity” demerit from the English-language assistant to the Holy See Press Office, but I wish the Pope would spend a tenth as much time addressing the concerns of struggling SSA Catholics like me as he does appeasing the PC mob.
Can anyone enlighten me about who the “31,000 female lay ecclesial ministers” in the US might be?
I selected that I’ve done some ministry, and they brought up a whole list of parish jobs (catechist, worship director, EMHC, etc), so it seems they use the touchy-feely definition of “minister”–anyone who has some sort of official-ish role in the parish.
My three suggestions at the end of the survey for the commission were Cardinal Sara, Cardinal Burke, and Pope Emeritus Benedict.
Same.
Wish I had recommended you for the commission, Father, but I skipped that one altogether.
That was fun….though a bit disturbing. To bad that group isn’t in the Springfield IL diocese. Bishop Paprocki would take care of that hahaha
20. I recommend the following individual(s) to serve on this commission…
1. Michael Voris.
2. Fr. John Zuhlsdorf.
Left the third position blank.
Question 6: (for women only) I am called to the permanent diaconate. Not true at all Somewhat true Completely true Not applicable . I would hope that Not applicable would be the correct answer.
Seems that a lot of us recommended Burke & Sara. Hurray!
If you are ready to write your bishop to encourage him down the deadonette path, they (Future Church/WomenDeacons) provide a ready-made letter suggesting he write to the USCCB to encourage them to allow bishops to give faculties to women. They even provide enclosures for your letter!
http://catholicwomendeacons.org/support/sample-letter
Perhaps these woman are really traditional at heart, though. Near the end of the letter they (possibly unwittingly) suggest this line:
The people are hungry. Let us give them something to eat.
Done – told them I’d rather get something done on bringing the SSPX back into the fold.
My recommendations: Archbishop Schneider, Cardinal Sarah and Cardinal Pell.
Would that some of our finest biblical scholars (e.g., Raymond Brown) were still around to weigh in on the scriptural evidence.
Well, I recommended Pope Benedict XVI (he’s got free time lately), Card Sarah, and Fr. Z for the commission.
5 cents paid.
what a sneaky, loaded set of questions.
what an affirmation of the damage that loose-lips pope frank is visiting on the Church.
Oh my, that was sooooooo much fun!
If there is a commission yourself and Cardinal Burke should be on it to set things right Father.
Chiara says: During the parish mergers our Diocese underwent a few years ago, which affected my parish, Future Church campaigned for parishioners to withhold our Offertory envelopes in order to punish our bishop. The reasoning for this was that if we had women priests and/or married clergy, there would be no need to close parishes because we would be overwhelmed with priestly vocations.
This supports what I have been saying for years, namely, that the purpose of the self-inflicted priest shortage is to force the ordination of women.
Incidentally, I notice on the part of the priestess crowd no reverence for the Mother of God, the greatest woman who ever lived.
Done. My Dream Team was Cardinals Burke and Sarah with Bishop Athanasius Schneider on deck!
Is self-excommunicated heretics too harsh a description of alleged women priests? One problem is the women who want to be priests are about power but I’ve never met a priest who entered seminary because it was his idea.
The longer I live, the more chances I have to wish I was born in a much earlier century.
frjim4321 says:
Would that some of our finest biblical scholars (e.g., Raymond Brown) were still around to weigh in on the scriptural evidence.
There’s only one text, Acts 6:6, and it’s explicit that only men were chosen.
There has been much change in Scripture study since you were in seminary. Attention was turned–finally–to the value of the criteria that has been used in examing texts. Certain criteria have been jettisoned because they were little else than a priori ideas, among which are Low Christology indicates early texts, High Christology indicates late texts (1) and of two texts that describe the same thing, the simpler text is the earlier text.
Form Criticism is only as good as the criteria that are used.
(1) Raymond Brown himself has an essay that addresses this in the 2d JBC.
Was Raymond Brown truly one of the finest scripture scholars? I don’t think there is a consensus there. It’s still early yet as he is only an historic contemporary. A lot of his more popular Barnes and Nobles type tomes tended to undermine faith in Jesus, why he would have wanted to take that approach is not understood, but I think it takes away from his credibility to some extent as a scholar.
Of course the idealization of a clerical class of this type sort of goes against the grain of Vatican II, no? Vatican II classically stood for the notion that receiving Holy Orders does not privilege any one over another in terms of the economy of salvation, within the Church. Being obsessed with obtaining this status for women is a little backwards in my opinion.
I competed their dopey survey so I could recommend Cardinal Burke and ArchBishop Cordileone on the commission.
I recommended that Scott Hahn be on the committee to study this issue. They did ask for theologians.
I recommended Cardinal Sarah, Cardinal Burke, and Scott Hahn. I also pointed out that the commission was to study the question of women deacons not their restoration.
uggg. First off with all this, deaconesses of old were not the same as woman deacons. They were not clergy, they provide charity to women in a time before religious orders and assited women being baptized. Those pushing this idea are the ones pushing for women priests. As far as a need for deaconesses, a consecrated virgin friend of mine wrote an article in Crisis magazine titled In Lieu of Female Deacons a Proposal. Basically its about why reinvent the wheel, we already have consecrated virgins who can serve the Church.
I recommended Card. Sarah, Card. Dolan, and Abp. Cordileone. I don’t expect much.
There was a trick question among trick questions: “Are you aware that Pope Francis announced his intent to form a commission to study the ordination of women deacons” – nothing was said about ordination, and it was explicitly denied by the Vatican spokesman.
I recommended my Senatorette, the local parish priestling, and the Governoress of a neighboring state.
It looks like what they are doing right now is trying to frame the arguments for future debate
We’d would do better to avoid using the terminology “women deacon”. That’s part of what the scheme is – to accustom everyone to use that specific term because it equates deaconess with a deacon . . . not that different from the sophistry used when the media onslaught for gay
marriagegot into gear. We should stick with “deaconess as much as possible and be adamant about sticking to it.There has never been any such thing as women deacons. There had been several deaconesses , but they were never ordained ; . . .might even be a stretch to say they were “instituted” since this commonly implies a bishop’s approbation, which in turn, is generally understood to imply authorization granted to a cleric. If Furtive Church is given free rein to equate deaconess with a deacon it will provide them with an advantage later on when they pull out the “equality” card and force it on unsuspecting mushy Catholics.
In Father John Hardon S.J.’s definition of deaconess, he is careful to say that deaconesses “assisted the deacons” , which right away should tell us that the two offices of deaconess and deacon were distinct and in no way equal ; it wasn’t one office performed by both men and women. Fr Hardon’s definition of deaconess follows in next post.
From Fr Hardon’s MODERN CATHOLIC DICTIONARY :
“Deaconess : A woman officially charged with certain functions in the Church. St. Paul speaks of Phoebe as one who ministered to the church at Cenchrae (Romans 16:1), but the term “deaconess” did not come into use until the fourth century.
Gradually the office developed and was recognized by the Church. Among other duties a deaconess devoted herself to the care of the sick and the poor of her sex; she was present at interviews of women with bishops, priests, or deacons; instructed women catechumens and kept order in the women’s part of a church. Her most important function was at the baptism of women, where she assisted the deacons. But as adult baptisms declined, deaconesses became less prominent. The decline was accelerated by the abuses that crept in where deaconesses arrogated to themselves ministerial functions, e.g., among the Monophysites and Nestorians, where they administered Holy Communion, read the Scriptures, and preached. Several regional council abrogated the office, which was never a formal ordination, but deaconesses were found in the West until the eleventh century. In the East, where the privileges of deaconesses were more pronounced, including investiture with the state and distribution of the chalice, the decline was slower.
In Protestantism deaconesses date from the nineteenth century. And among the Anglicans they are admitted by the episcopal imposition of hands conferring lifelong status.”
Rather an interesting point that the decline of deaconesses “was accelerated by the abuses that crept in where deaconesses arrogated to themselves ministerial functions.” Isn’t that more or less what they’re trying to do now ?
After Father Z’s last post on this subject mentioned a site, I went to do a little digging at that Catholic Women Deacons (not Catholic Deaconesses) website.
They already provide a sample letter of petition to send to one’s bishop. They even provide dowload enclosures for the letter (enclosure is compliments of Furtive Church again).
The site also boasts a slogan : “Catholic Women Deacons – helping women answer the call” . . . umm, what call might that be , precisely ?
Here’s one particularly stinky (or is that “sticky”) snippet from the sample letter:
My first reaction was “. . . Yeah, right. Why don’t you just go over and spit on Blessed Mother Theresa of Calcutta’s grave while you’re at it ?”
But after looking it over, it appears more as if there is a flaw in their oh-so-clever thinking:
St Francis of Assisi was a deacon – and remained a deacon out of humility. He didn’t consider himself worthy to be a priest. So how is it that deacons exist in religious orders but
women deaconscan’t ? Maybe because awoman deaconcould never picture herself taking orders from a Mother Superior ?Like most of those polls, you can fill it out repeatedly (incognito mode…), and oh, how much fun one can have with the last question….
Of course there’s
– the category of hierarchical throwbacks and male oppressors (besides the already mentioned BXVI, Card Burke, Sarah, Pell, Muller, why not an Eijk or Ouellet).
– the category of aspiring hierarchical throwbacks and male oppressors (bishops like Scheider, Chaput, and dozens more)
– priests [still only men, you hear them growl] like Fr Z himself, Fr Hunwicke, Fr Byers, and many more, but also categories like:
– The two lungs department: one can also recommend Patriachs Kiril, Bartholomew, Tawadros – none of them in communion, but let’s be inclusive, right?!
– Speaking of less then perfect communion, let’s recommend bishop Fellay too. He surely will side with deaconesses, given his experiences and struggles with Rome, right?
I pity the person at FutureChurch who lands the job of separating all the conservative suggestions from the liberal ones. Just realising there are so many people – a sizeable part they’ll have never heard from – who would never get onboard with their pet projects would be heartrending.
My 3 recommendations:
1) Anyone from the CMSWR
2) Scott Hahn
3) Cardinal Burke
Done. These people are so twisted. Just shaking my head.
What a ‘Push Poll’ – the most loaded questions, and all responses being able to be mis-characterized!
If you choose to “identify” as female, you get different questions I’m told.
Anyway, three for their ‘expert panel’ to study the question:
1. Benedict XVI
2. Bp. Bernard Fellay, SSPX
3. Fr. Z
benedetta says:
Was Raymond Brown truly one of the finest scripture scholars? I don’t think there is a consensus there. It’s still early yet as he is only an historic contemporary. A lot of his more popular Barnes and Nobles type tomes tended to undermine faith in Jesus, why he would have wanted to take that approach is not understood, but I think it takes away from his credibility to some extent as a scholar.
It is the nature of the work people like Brown did. They begin by making a distinction between the Jesus of History and the Christ of Faith. My objection to a lot of their work is, as I have noted before, is the criteria they use to distinguish historical texts (usually early compositions) from texts that are only an expression of faith (usually considered later versions). Men like Raymond Brown became masters of a certain method, but there’s little evidence that they were capable of examining the validity of the criteria.
I think I have also mentioned that many contemporary Scripture Scholars either are not slavish adherents to the Form Critical Method or have rejected some of the criteria previously used.
robtbrown, That is quite interesting, than you for that. I think that some of us suffered needlessly, some suffering in confusion still without benefit of helps to overcome the confusion and even invitation to doubt irrationally, which was sown by “scholars” such as that one. In the absence of programming and worthy celebration of the sacraments establishing the foundations, I don’t know that the majority of us laity know quite what to do with work of that sort, and when it is aimed at us by clerics as “the truth” that we must accept or else be branded a VII hater, well, it’s not altogether good.
I also put down “Pope Emeritus Benedict” as others did for my recommendations for a study group for the matter, and, I added as well two women foundresses of superb and very much growing orders of sisters in our times who I think can ably speak to women’s development and dignity and what is important as far as the needs of women in the Church, lay and consecrated. They are tremendously helpful to great numbers of women already in our times and they know what challenges to women living a life in the Faith encounter, and they understand how to live fully the gifts that women possess in our times.
I just wonder whether this sort of agenda goal ought to be postponed until such a time as the vocations crisis is no longer? If Holy Mother Church has limited resources in our times, then, it seems that for the benefit of all those should be concentrated on reverent and worthy celebrations of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in all the Rites and forms that the Church provides, and, on encouraging vocations to the priesthood. If we remain in the dismal dark ages of no vocations as presently for decades now, then, the question of increased laity in the permanent diaconate really gets no practical or realistic expression.
Women should not be it the sanctuary. Council of Laodicea (365 AD) stated in Canon 44: “Women may not approach near the altar.”
@majuscule : Sorry for doubling up on the same topic and missing your initial post on the subject majuscule. Usually I’ll do my best to read all the comments before posting mine, but I got to this late – no internet service possible until late Sunday evening. My bad.
I’m a little late to the party….and I think I may have missed it. I can’t seem to get the through to the survey.
Mueller, Burke, Fellay. That should produce a balanced result.
Ah, I should have put Bp. Fellay!
Comments:
“Impossible, I’m a woman.”
“Women cannot receive the Sacrament of Order.”
“There has already been a commission…” With info regarding its conclusions.
Dr Alice von Hildebrand, as a woman…
Cdnl Burke, because he is also involved in the promotion of Canon 604.
Cdnl Alencherry (he is awesome, fun, doctrinally sound and a member of a minority church).
My recommendations for the commission were Cardinals Burke and Sarah and a certain Fr. Z ;)
I wrote in that the highest “ministry” for women in the Church is being mothers and holy wives to their husbands.
I’m sorry but the highest for women as well as men is consecrated life. And then for men cerical state then the lay state of life. For women, consecrated life then the lay state of life weather single or married.
This is traditional teachings on the states of life in the Church.