Modernist thinks Church should bow down before the spirt of the age and ordain women

The diaconate of women: Why the Vatican Report is revealing

Women will have to forgo ordination as deacons for the foreseeable future. The Vatican report is remarkable in several respects.

This theologian thinks that the Church as the Body of Christ is a "disputed metaphor"

Many commentaries in the relevant media, but little broader response: That is my impression of the reaction triggered by the report on the work of the second Vatican commission on the diaconate of women, published on December 4. The reactions were predictable.

Some were pleased that the sacramental ordination of deacons is not considered appropriate at the present time, while others were pleased that it is not categorically ruled out – depending on their own stance on the matter.

Many commentaries in the relevant media, but little wider resonance: That is my impression of the response to the report on the work of the second Vatican commission on the diaconate of women, published on December 4. 

A courageous voice and the shitstorm

A courageous voice dared to describe the whole thing as a purely cultural problem. It was simply a matter of preserving male uniqueness within the clerical system – and she was right! A shitstorm erupted, so intense that others commented on the ideological fury that surfaced with palpable dismay.

The muted public response is more than understandable. The tactic of delaying the issue of women's ordination by establishing ever more Commissions is all too obvious. Nevertheless, this report offers noteworthy insights in at least two respects.

A systematic problem.

First, it makes it clear that the question of women's diaconate is a systemic, not primarily a historical, problem. Simply referring to historical findings is insufficient to resolve the issue.

Genesis cannot simply resolve the question of validity. A "that's always been the way it is" is insufficient. Even in this ideologically charged issue, the focus must be on factual arguments, and these must be contemporary. The argument of justice—or, ex negativo, discrimination—based on equal dignity is one such extremely powerful argument.

Secondly, on the question of whether the maleness of ordained ministers is an integral part of the sacramental identity of the ordained ministry because it represents the maleness of Jesus Christ, the commission reached a tie, with five votes against five. However, in conjunction with a bipolar gender anthropology and a corresponding bridal metaphor—Christ as the male bridegroom, the Church as the bride—this argument is currently the main argument, cited even at the highest levels, in favor of the impossibility of women's ordination.

Matthias Remenyi

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