Comments on: Female Deacons in the Catholic Church

By: Heather Hastie

Heather Hastie — Fri, 20 May 2016 03:00:31 +0000

I couldn’t agree more. Everyone loves Francis, but the reality is nothing is actually changing. There’s a lot of talk and no action, even on the paedophilia front.

There are some pretty amazing conspiracy theories out there, and it’s even more amazing just how many people believe them. When I was researching a paper on the origins of WWI, I found a website that said it was all started deliberately by the pope. The tortured reasoning blew me away.

By: Jenny Haniver

Jenny Haniver — Thu, 19 May 2016 20:37:52 +0000

These words from the current Pope re his willingness to consider the possibility of deaconesses in the Church and the subsequent disclaimer by “the Vatican” is part of the MO of Vatican politics these days re reform: the Big Tease and Con. This allows Pope Francis to play his humble, earnest, endearing, well-meaning, bit of a bumbling reformer role; then a mouthpiece for that amorphous entity called “the Vatican” steps in to do the walk-back and take the heat off him. This admirably preserves his public image as a pope of the people, and appeases and encourages his naïve fans (Catholic and non-Catholic alike), eager for ecumenism and progressive reform, to cling mightily to the theological virtue of Hope, while nothing at all is accomplished, or perhaps a crumb is tossed. He also speaks directly out of both sides of his mouth: out of one side come expressions of liberal, even progressive, desires for change; while out of the other emanates the usual offensive, reactionary crap (ex. as noted in this post: ‘Women, as even Pope Francis says, do the “… work of servitude and not service”’ and his comments about homosexuality) which reveal what the state of affairs really is – what one hears depends on which side of his mouth one is standing adjacent to; which again allows him to preserve and burnish his good-guy image and, as if he’s just a figurehead, blame everything on the big, bad Vatican bureaucracy, which is beholden only to itself.
Irrespective of questions of papal infallibility, I sincerely believe that if Pope Francis was committed to radically liberal changes in the Church, he could do it, though perhaps I’m as naïve as I accuse Pope Francis’s fans to be. Moving into ‘humble’ quarters and all that, visiting refugee camps and rescuing a few people, even washing the feet of the poor, are merely symbolic acts, and, given objective reality, I see nothing substantive in these particular symbolic acts any more than the odious Mother Teresa’s symbolic posturing was a reflection of any inherent holiness and humility that she possessed. In point of fact, I find the ritual of washing the feet of the poor particularly offensive, precisely because it’s a ritual, which, to me, reinforces rather than breaks down the divide between the haves and the have nots, and encourages the kind of demeaning and actually destructive pathological altruism that sadly infects and corrupts wide swaths of the (US and British) social welfare system and so many charitable endeavors these days, domestic and international, public and private. The pathological altruists, religious or secular, need the poor in many ways and they need for the poor to remain poor in order to glorify the beneficent status of the pathological altruist.
I recently came across a website which explains everything; billed as “Your source for reptilian, Jesuit, conspiracy & Illuminati information,” which explains that everything is a Jesuit plot. So this business about women’s equality in the Church is merely another part of the Jesuit plot. It’s not the reptilian Illuminati and the Jews who control the universe, it’s the Jesuits, who control them and use them as fronts. The Jesuits are the ones who engage in unholy rituals of depravity and murder (somewhat reminiscent of the kinds of things the Knights Templars were accused of). They’ll join with ISIS to hasten the return of the Antichrist, assassinate Donald Trump. And, horror of horrors! they’re also against fresh milk, organic food, and cannabis, too! How diabolical. Now a Jesuit Pope. I find it fascinating that these hoary conspiracy theories don’t fade away; they just go dormant, then develop surreptitiously and resurface in new guises apropos to the age and culture. Unfortunately, the person who maintains this site does a lousy job of constructing a coherent narrative, so it’s not nearly as much fun to read as I’d anticipated; nonetheless, there are errant nuggets of nonsense, such as the alleged plot against fresh milk. Outside of its lunacy, though, it is grotesque in its accusations, which, of course, is typical of these kinds of psychotically deluded conspiracy theories; but it’s one thing to read about such accusations being made many centuries ago or in some remote, underdeveloped country; quite another to find them applied to the contemporary Western world. Meanwhile, the obedient handmaidens of the Lord pine away hoping that someday, some commission will be convened to do what? To “clarify” some historical point? To consider the possibility that if they’re patient and trusting they might someday become minor officiants in a grand (Guignol?) chauvinist farce?

By: Heather Hastie

Heather Hastie — Tue, 17 May 2016 00:10:25 +0000

Reuters has published an article called Vatican plays down expectations over women as deacons in Church. I’ve added an update to my post, which includes most of the article, as a result.

You can also seen the article here:
http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-pope-women-idUKKCN0Y420O

By: Heather Hastie

Heather Hastie — Tue, 17 May 2016 00:07:43 +0000

In reply to Lee Knuth. They sure do. I see religion as a useful justification for the oppression of whatever group you want power over. The main remaining one is women, but it's been used for all sorts over the millennia. Thanks for your kinds words. :-)

By: Heather Hastie

Heather Hastie — Mon, 16 May 2016 23:00:01 +0000

In reply to paxton marshall.

Yeah, deacons are less than priests. In the early church baptism was done naked and people were fully immersed in holy water, so the baptism of women was a big role for female deacons. There seems to have been a differentiation between younger women, who did the more physical stuff, and the older ones also. Male deacons in the Catholic church have to be 35 and married, and I assume the same criteria will apply to women if they get the job. The role was re-instituted fairly recently, I assume to make up for the drop off in the number of priests.

There is convincing and plentiful evidence of female priests and bishops too though. It was such evidence that Protestant scholars relied on when they instituted similar roles in some of their denominations.

As for Paul, he was a prick. He relied totally on women for his work. They financed him completely, and without them Christianity wouldn’t have got off the ground. I guess I could be generous and say he’d internalized the same attitude toward women that was common amongst Christian theologians – that man’s fall was all women’s fault – but I’m really not inclined to do so. The Jesus person they made up treated women pretty well compared to the later Christian Church, and so he should have been less of a hypocrite.

By: Heather Hastie

Heather Hastie — Mon, 16 May 2016 22:46:40 +0000

In reply to Ken.

Yeah, it’s not much of a step, but it is a step. “A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step.” I see it as pretty significant that he’s even admitting there may be something to study – it’s a big departure from what previous Infallible Ones have stated.

By: Lee Knuth

Lee Knuth — Mon, 16 May 2016 22:30:27 +0000

Religion and misogyny seem to go hand in hand. Great article.

By: paxton marshall

paxton marshall — Mon, 16 May 2016 17:24:26 +0000

Fascinating info, Heather. I believe a RC Deacon is distinctly inferiror to a priest, so even if this reform comes about, which as Ken points out is far from accomplished, it will be no more than a small step towards equality.

I know that early church “fathers” courted rich women, and these women played a significant role in smoothing the way for Christianity’s triumph over Roman polytheism among the populace. But Paul early on clarified the woman’s role in the Christian Church: “34 Let your women keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak; but they are to be submissive, as the law also says. 35 And if they want to learn something, let them ask their own husbands at home; for it is shameful for women to speak in church.” 1 Corinthians 14

By: Ken

Ken — Mon, 16 May 2016 08:31:17 +0000

Interesting. I didn’t know there was such a history of women serving in the church. But then, I was raised a Catholic.

I note that the quoted commentary is that the Pope’s commission will study the possibility of allowing women to serve again, but the Pope’s own quotes are only that it would be good to clarify the role female deacons had in the early church. Either is a step in the right direction, but the former a much greater one than the latter.