From CNS, Staff and other sources
A diaconate for women should be considered as a new role for women in the church. Cardinal Walter Kasper made this proposal during a study day discussing how to involve more women in church life, convened as part of the spring assembly of the German Bishops Conference in the city of Trier, in western Germany, on Feb. 21. Kasper spoke of a “deaconess” role that would be different from the classic deacon but could include pastoral, charitable, catechetical and special liturgical functions. The deaconess would not be designated through the sacrament of orders, but by a blessing. Many women already perform the functions of a deacon, he argued, so as a practical matter the possibility cannot be ignored. Cardinal Kasper noted that the female diaconate was foreseen in the church in the third and fourth centuries. Regarding the ordination of women, however, the cardinal said, “I do not think you could change anything in the fact that women cannot be ordained priests; it is the unbroken tradition of the Eastern Church as well as the West.”
Comments
"Many women already perform the functions of a deacon, he argued, so as a practical matter the possibility cannot be ignored." This is a statement that is real. I am grateful for the argument and the public witness to it. Successive approximations offer Consolation.
Deacons has very vital to play for betterment of the society. Now women's deacons have the opportunity to take a leading role in the reformation of society.
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Kasper is hi-jacking history and playing to the stands. In 1974 International Theological Commission member Cipriano Vagaggini published in Orientalia Christian Periodicaan article he wrote--reportedly at the request of Paul VI--about women ordained as deacons. Vagaggini's conclusion: what the church has done, the church can do again. This was also the finding of the first ITC study document on the diaconate (around 1997), which kept being sent back to committee until it grew from 17 or 18 pages to over 70 pages. ONly then, when its answer was that the church's discernment should answer the question, would Ratzinger sign it. To restrict women to an unordained nebulous "deaconess" role is to do--essentially--nothing. What Kasper is talking about is re-naming lay ecclesial ministry, not restoring women to the order they were ordained to at least until the 12th century in the West, and to the present in the East. This is the same Kasper who said some years ago that women could do everything now they would be able to do if they were deacons--so which side of the discussion is he really on? And, why?
He's capitulating. Who knows why? At his age, he's got nothing to lose. Let's pray the Spirit continues to work miracles of conversion even among the Cardinals of the Church.