(ZENIT News / Rome, 22.05.2024).- “No,” is Pope Francis’ clear, concrete and direct response to Norah O’Donnell, CBS’ journalist of the “60 Minutes” TV program, who asked him:
“Many boys and girls will come here at the end of next month for World Children’s Day. And I’m curious: will a girl who grows up today as a Catholic, have the opportunity at some point to be a Deaconess and participate as a member of the clergy in the Church?”
O’Donnell asked the question again, pressuring the Holy Father to find out if he is open to the female diaconate, to which he answered:
“If it’s Deaconesses with Holy Orders, no.”
The Pope continued: “But women have always had, I’d say, the function of Deaconesses without being Deacons, no? Women are at the service in a great way as women, not as Ministers within Holy Orders.” And he added: “They are more courageous than men. They know better how to protect life. Women are teachers, custodians of life. Women are great, they are very great. And to make room for women in the Church doesn’t mean to give them a ministry, no. The Church is Mother, and women in the Church are the ones who help to foster that maternity. Let’s not forget that it was women who never abandoned Jesus. All the men fled.”
On April 8, 2020, Pope Francis established a “Commission for the Study of the Feminine Diaconate.” Four years later, during an interview with Europa Press, theologian Linda Pocher said that the Pope was in favour of the feminine diaconate. She made the statement in the context of her participation in a closed-door meeting with the Pope, his Council of Cardinals, two Catholic women theologians (Pocher being one of them), and an Anglican woman “Bishop”.
The Pontiff’s answer to CBS contradicts all those that said that Pope Francis was in favour of the feminine diaconate. This response certainly has an outstanding point: the Pope says that “If it’s Deaconesses with Holy Orders, no.” Which opens the possibility of an eventual form of feminine diaconate , but without Holy Orders. It might be that the Commission instituted by the Pope is moving its reflection in this direction, and also that of those women who advised him in the meetings with his advisory Cardinals.
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