Women Deaconesses:Historical and Contemporary Explorations

by Ann Marie Caron, R.S.M.

from Where can we find her?
searching for women’s identity in the new church
edited by Marie-Eloise Rosenblatt , pp. 132-151.

Published by Paulist Press,1991.
Republished on our website with the necessary permissions

Women deaconesses? The American bishops have recommended that the question of the “installation of women deacons” be opened to study.(1) They acknowledged the participation of women today in full-time pastoral ministry. Perhaps they recognized the situation to be similiar to one that fostered the restoration of the diaconate for males at the Second Vatican Council.

In this article I will highlight the sources of the patristic and medieval church supporting the ministry of deaconesses who went before us. However, as significant as the historical may be, the ministry of women in the church today cannot be addressed solely on the basis of what was done in the past. Therefore, from the perspective of our present American context and the concerns of women in the church I will reflect on ministry in the post-Vatican II church of diakonia, or service.

Deaconess: Her Story

The complex history of deaconesses is the focus of two major scholarly works available in English. One is written by Roger Gryson, The Ministry of Women in the Early Church,(2) and the other is the work of Aime Georges Martimort, Deaconesses: An Historical Study.(3)These studies are important, first because Gryson and Martimort have gathered the extant texts on deaconesses. Second, this research indicates that scholars have not come to a consensus of opinion about this ministerial role of women.

Perspectives

The early churches and the churches of the Middle Ages permitted and preserved great diversity in their ecclesiastical discipline. Over the centuries numerous reciprocal influences – cultural, theological, institutional – were at work. Therefore, both the historical period and particular geographical localities affected the ministry of the deaconesses. Some of the sources being considered witness to the presence, ordination and functions of deaconesses, especially in the eastern churches. The interpretation of the texts is open for further investigation.

In addition to the two works cited, women’s theological scholarship enables us to bring another perspective to the sources. What is needed is a feminist, revisionist reading of the sources.(4) That, however, is beyond the scope of this article. Our invitation is to look at historical sources with new eyes, minds, and hearts – with women’s eyes, minds and hearts – and to raise questions from the world of the texts. In this article my concern, then, is to try to understand who and what these deaconesses were in the developing tradition, east and west, and to reflect on diaconal ministry in the contemporary pastoral situation.

The New Testament Churches

Study of deaconesses usually begins with discussion of two scriptural texts: Romans 16:1 and 1 Timothy 3:8-11.In Romans 16:1, Paul refers to Phoebe, “diakonos of the church at Cenchreae.” The Greek word diakonia means an activity – waiting at table, serving food and pouring wine.(5) We can gather from Paul’s words that Phoebe, probably a deaconess, seems to be doing a ministering service. However at this early time we cannot read into the use of the word diakonos the full meaning connoted in a later day. In 1 Timothy 3:8-13,where the qualities of a deacon are given, one phrase refers to “the women” (3:11).Again, the identification of “the women” continues to be matter of debate for exegetes, historians and theologians.

Where do we start? What we do know is that Jesus gave the notion of service, diakonia, a radically new meaning. For Jesus, diakonia becomes an essential characteristic of discipleship (cf. Lk 22:26f). His fundamental concern is living for others (cf. Mk 9:35;10:43-45; Mt 20:26-28). He pre-figures this service (cf Mk10:45; Mt 20:28) and empowers others to so live (cf. Jn 12:25f).

Gospel discipleship is a following of one who rejected the patriarchal, hierarchal pyramid of his day. Fiorenza argues that the early Christian movement was “egalitarian and interpersonal.”

This reality of God-Sophia spelled out in the preaching, healings, exorcisms, and inclusive table community of Jesus called forth a circle of disciples who were to continue what Jesus did. Sophia, the God of Jesus, wills the wholeness and humanity of everyone and therefore enables the Jesus movement to become a “discipleship of equals.” They are called to one and the same praxis of inclusiveness and equality lived by Jesus-Sophia. Like Jesus, they are sent to announce to everyone in Israel the presence of the basileia, as God’s gracious future, among the impoverished, the starving, the tax collectors, sinners and prostitutes . . . .

Women who had experienced the gracious goodness of Jesus’ God were leaders in expanding the Jesus movement in Galilee . . . these women safeguarded the inclusive discipleship of equals called forth by Jesus.(6)

All four gospels show women as prominent in the public life of Jesus. Matthew, Mark and Luke describe their activity as “ministering,” diakonia (cf. Mt 27:55, 56; Mk 15:40; Lk 8:2, 3; 23:49).(7) The alternative character of the Christian community is highlighted by the gospel writers Mark and John. In these gospels women participate in apostolic and ministerial leadership.(8) Agnes Cunningham in her study, The Role of Women in Ecclesial Ministry: Biblical and Patristic Foundations,(9)recognizes three New Testament texts as providing a foundation for understanding the participation of women in ecclesial ministry. These texts, found in 1 Corinthians 12, Romans 12 and Ephesians 4:1-16, evoke a concept of ministry that is important for the life of the entire church.

Ministry is based on a diversity of charisms, gifts of the one and the same Spirit, present in the members of the faith community (cf. 1 Cor 12:4; Eph 4:4).These gifts are to be expressed in a variety of ministries or services (cf. 1 Cor 12:5-6; Rom 12:6) which are exercised in the appropriate manner (cf. Rom 12:6-21). The texts are addressed to the entire Christian community at Rome, at Corinth, and at Ephesus.

The distribution of charisms follows the will of the Spirit ever present and active in the church (cf. 1 Cor 12:11). And the ministries which constitute the expression of these gifts are services to be exercised in response to specific needs of each particular church, in order to foster its growth as the body of the Lord (cf. Eph 4:12). Cunningham suggests it is this concept of ministry which is the background for understanding more detailed references in the Pauline corpus to women, “co-workers in Jesus Christ” (cf. Rom 16:1, 3, 4, 6; 1 Cor 16:19; 2 Tim 4:19).(10)

New Testament categories for ecclesial leadership functions, categories such as apostles, prophets, facilitators, missionary coworkers, and co-laborers dedicated to the oikodome, i.e. the building up of the community, are appropriate to express a feminist understanding of ministry as empowerment.(11) However, “the post-Pauline and post-Petrine writers seek to limit women’s leadership roles in the Christian community to roles which are culturally and religiously acceptable.”(12)

In the second century another shift takes place. This was a shift from charismatic and communal authority to an authority vested in local offices. These offices, in time, absorbed the teaching authority of the prophet and apostle and the decision-making power of the community. A change from “alternating leadership” accessible to all the baptized to “patriarchical leadership” restricted authority to male heads of households. The shift is from “house church” to church as “household of God.”

Fiorenza maintains that the ascendancy of local officers generated three interlocking developments: (1) the patriarchalization of local church and leadership; (2) the merger of prophetic and apostolic leadership with the patriarchally defined office of bishop; (3) the relegation of women’s leadership to marginal positions and its restriction to the sphere of women.(13) The consequences are summed up by Mary Collins when she writes, “The loss of all women’s gifts and the gifts of lay men for 1700 years has been a high price to pay for organizational efficiency.”(14)

The “Great” Texts of the Syrian and Greek Churches

The “great” texts on deaconesses are found in the Didascalia Apostolorum and in the Apostolic Constitutions. The Didascalia Apostolorum is a Syrian church order from the middle of the third century.(15) It is considered to be the earliest reliable witness to the existence of an office of deaconess. The woman deacon is called and appointed by the bishop as a minister to women in the liturgy of baptism and in visitation to women who are sick and homebound.(16)

In the fourth century Theodosius provided the imperial legislation that declared the church’s ministers to constitute a new ordo in the empire, insofar as they were the agents of the new cult. By this imperial act, bishops, priests, deacons and their lesser associates became ranked members and officeholders in the public order of clerics.(17)

Apostolic Constitutions

The Apostolic Constitutions, also a church order, was compiled c.370-380.(18) The first six books of this document are a reworking and complement of the Didascalia Apostolorum. Book VIII is a development of the Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus.(19)

In the Apostolic Constitutions we learn that a deaconess was “a pure virgin or at least a widow who had been but once married, faithful and well esteemed.” The author develops the theme of the Didascalia. She must be “honored as the Holy Spirit is honored.” Yet, “the deaconess says nothing or does nothing apart from the deacon . . . .”(20)

Perhaps at this time there was no real difference between the deacon and deaconess with regard to the kind of service the bishop might require of them. The compiler locates deaconesses properly within all the categories of membership and functions within the church.(21)

In the portrait of the woman deaconess given in this text we see, on the one hand, the patriarchal and hierarchal biases of the era expressed through the clerical ordo. The female deaconess is placed beneath, inferior to, her counterpart, the male deacon. Yet she seems also to be placed above other women in their relation to the bishop. On the other hand, the text may be an important witness to pastoral practice and adaptation. It seems that, because of the need, and in spite of the patriarchal philosophy of the time, some women are called to this ministry of deaconess by appointment and ordination. “Choose . . . also a deaconess who is faithful and holy for the service . . . of women.”(22)

The hierarchal relationships of higher and lower status, inferior and superior ranks conferred by the rituals of ordination proclaim that all this is “God’s design.” Ordination rituals and prayers, including those for deaconesses, are found in Book VIII of the Apostolic Constitutions. There, the ordination of deaconesses comes after that of the deacons and before the ordination of subdeacons. The bishop participates in each of the ordination rites. The laying on of the bishop’s hands and the invoking of the coming of the Holy Spirit are prescribed for the deacon, deaconess, subdeacon and lector.

During the laying on of hands received by the deaconess it is assumed that the bishop was surrounded by the priests, deacons and the other deaconesses. The prayer recited over the deaconess follows. This prayer is composed in part from images of women found in the scriptures.

Eternal God, Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Creator of both man and woman, you who filled Miriam, Deborah, Anna and Huldah with the Spirit, you who did not judge it unworthy for your only Son to be born of a woman, you who in the Tent of the Testimony and in the Temple designated . . . women to guard your holy doors; let your gaze now fall upon your [female] servant here present, who has been designated . . . for the diaconate . . . and give her a holy spirit, cleanse her “from every defilement of body and spirit” [2 Cor 7:11 ] , that she may carry out in a worthy fashion the task confided to her, for your glory and for the praise of your Christ, with whom . . . .(23)

Precisely because her ordination closely parallels the ritual and prayer involved in the ordination of deacons, Gryson argues that the ordination of the deaconess was truly sacramental.(24) Whatever their elevation in honor and importance, however, the deaconesses were not allowed to teach in church or to baptize.(25)

The Testament of Our Lord Jesus Christ (Testamentum Domini)

There is general agreement that The Testament of Our Lord Jesus Christ comes from the eastern part of Syria and can be dated probably to the second half of the fifth century. This text offers a view of the deaconesses’ role in the liturgical assembly. They seem to occupy a very humble place in the scheme of things. Deaconesses were doorkeepers, “stationed near the principal door of the church.” At the oblation they were to be behind the screen with the clergy, but “after the subdeacons.” In the diaconal litany included in the universal prayer they are named after both subdeacons and lectors. At communion they presented themselves not with the lower clergy, but with the men of the congregation, the first of the women so to be served.(26)

Deaconesses and deacons, then, are called to be ministers in the service of the bishop. As the roles of the bishop and presbyter develop, canonical texts from the patristic church affirm a defined subordination of deacons to presbyters and of deaconesses to deacons.

Churches of the Greek-Speaking and Eastern Regions of the Roman Empire: Fourth to Sixth Centuries

The evidence from church councils, laws enacted by Christian emperors and the works of Christian authors all suggest that the presence of deaconesses was a notable fact in the Greek-speaking and eastern regions of the Roman empire.(27)

The letters and homilies of John Chrysostom from the golden age of the fourth century also give witness to some forty deaconesses at the cathedral of Santa Sophia. Chrysostom offers an interesting glimpse of their lives and positions.(28)

In summary, the institution of the feminine diaconate was a characteristic feature of the east with the exception of Egypt. From the fourth century onward, references to deaconesses multiplied. Their functions were identified. They were appointed and ordained by the bishop with the laying on of hands. The required minimum age was set at forty years. They could be virgins or widows of one husband. Their lives had to give witness to moral integrity. Deaconesses were considered to be members of the clergy. They held the highest rank among women, above virgins and widows. After ordination they were subject to the same rule regarding marriage as the major clerics. Deaconesses ministered to women: in the baptismal liturgy, within the liturgical assembly where they were to keep order, particularly among the women (here again the division reflected a hierarchical ordering of the church), and to women who were sick and homebound. The ministry seemed to lose its dimension of charitable outreach and be expressed primarily through the liturgical functions, minimal as they were.

The Latin Church

Both Martimort and Gryson are of the opinion that the feminine ministry of the diaconate did not exist in the first five centuries of the Latin church. Martimort believes that historians searching for evidence have searched beyond the possibilities of textual evidence.(29) Gryson maintains he has proved that the Latin west totally ignored, at this period, the institution of deaconesses which flourished in the east.(30)

Did conditions in the eastern regions create a need for deaconesses and their ministry that did not obtain in the west? Or were other factors at work? Perhaps the answers to these questions call for new research. Much of the textual evidence of the western church suggests opposition to the order of deaconesses. Does one then conclude an order of deaconess did not exist? Was the order of deaconess an innovation, merely a practice of heretics, and contrary to the discipline which the church had received from the apostles? This seems to be the “recorded” position taken by the Latin church.

For instance, in canon 25 of the First Council of Orange, we learn that “deaconesses are absolutely not to be ordained; and if there are still any of them, let them bow their head under the benediction which is given to the congregation.” The brief text gives a hint that deaconesses appeared to claim “a privileged position” in the church. Since the canon ordered them to submit to the blessing given to the laity, the clergy must have received a blessing apart from the laity or were not required to bow during the benediction. Whatever the case, texts such as this are unclear. It is even possible the reference here is to widows and not to deaconesses at all.(31)

The study of Martimort affirms that in the west, from the sixth to the eleventh centuries, two very different institutions came into being and later disappeared. They were the widow-deaconesses in Gaul (sixth century) and the wives of deacons called deaconesses.(32)

In the tenth century, a deaconess may have headed a kind of third order of pious women. Again, Martimort’s opinion is that whenever the later Latin liturgical books contain the prayer for the blessing of a deaconess, it is always to be found in the monastic or paramonastic context. Therefore he argues it was in no sense an ordination, even an ordination to “minor orders.” Rather it constituted an ecclesiastical recognition of a religious state of life.(33)

Conclusion

Historical sources of the eastern Christian tradition witness to the existence, ordination and functions of a women’s deaconal ministry in the church. It is a question whether a deaconess’ role and ministry differed in any significant way from the ministry of any baptized Christian, female or male.

In view of the western Christian tradition, perhaps only part of the story is told in the resistance to women witnessed by the texts. That resistance may be attributed to the powerful patriarchal culture of the western church, to the developing theology and ritual of ordination, and to the hierarchal vision attributed to Pseudo Dionysius. However, the power of resistance should alert us to the hidden reality, the ministry of women.

Post-Vatican II: Church of Diakonia

Christian ministry in the post-Vatican II church is no longer solely identified with the ordained: bishop, priest or deacon. A shift has occurred, affecting both pastoral practice and its theological interpretation. Two rediscoveries at the time of the Second Vatican Council brought this shift about. The first is the rediscovery of baptism, and not ordination, as the primary sacrament of ministry in the church.(34) The second rediscovery is the restoration of the permanent diaconate for males.(35)

In the first draft of their pastoral response to women, the American bishops restated and affirmed the ecclesial, theological vision of baptism.(36) Oikodome, the upbuilding of a community of baptized faithful, requires differentiated ministerial tasks within the community. As many members as possible ought to be actively involved in building up the church, for this is a right and responsibility of Christian initiation.

Brother Loughlan Sofield, S.T., and Sister Carroll Juliano, S.H.C.J., exemplify those who are working to help pastoral ministers and parish staffs move in this direction. They describe this vision as collaborative ministry.(37) The goal of collaboration is to discover ways to identify, release, utilize and unify the gifts of all the baptized. The implementation of collaborative ministry calls for efforts to enable all Christians to respond to their baptismal call and engage in ministry with others in the Christian community.

In the implementation of the reform and renewal of the Second Vatican Council, the church today is invited to return to its legacy and task of diakonia. A volume of Concilium, Diakonia: Church for Others, addresses this concern.(38) The church of diakonia means a church in which diakonia is the basic structural element, a church which is diaconal in all its discourse, activity and organization. It is not a church which “has” a well-organized diakonia, for then diakonia would be a “sector” of the church.(39) This is our challenge and the global challenge.

The church of diakonia is a critique of the clerical model. In the clerical model the helper becomes part of a professional class which monopolizes all of the knowledge and resources of this service. The laity are reduced to passivity and dependency. Yet a declericalized church still values the role of experts with particular skills. Their expertise would enable the community to share in and participate in collaborative ministry.(40)

The second rediscovery of Vatican II resulted in the restoration of the permanent diaconate for males. This is well documented.(41) In his study The Diaconate, A Full and Equal Order, James Barnett demonstrates that the decline of the diaconate is related historically to the transformation of the presbyterate and the increasing importance of the presbyter as an individual apart from the corporate presbyterate.

During the first three centuries of the Christian era the order of deacons flourished. The pastoral responsibilities entrusted to them were charitable, liturgical and evangelical. This ministry was not required for ordination to the presbyterate. Rather it was understood to be a lifetime office. The Council of Nicaea in 325 (cf. canon 18) took steps to limit the “powers of the deacons” in view of the developing jurisdiction of presbyters. Factors that led to the diminishment of the role of the deacon, especially in the west, included the decision made at Nicaea, the development of clerical ministry, changing sacramental practice and the rise of monasticism. In the east, diaconal ministry continued until about the eleventh century. The same or similiar factors may be attributed to the decline of women deaconesses.

What church communities need today, however, goes beyond mere attempts at historical restoration. Pastoral adaptation and theological articulation are the issues. Posuka tries to show that the 1983 Code of Canon Law offers a renewed vision and a new possibility for male diaconal ministry as a full and permanent order in the church.(42) He argues that the deacon today can in fact be a “new” deacon – one quite different from the deacons who served in centuries past.

However, this vision is not always consistent with our experience. In response to the council’s restoration of the permanent diaconate, America today has more deacons than the mission territories of the world. At the same time, the diaconate is resisted in some parts of the United States. Several concerns need to be addressed. They include (1) the availability of male deacons for the ministry (only three percent are full-time in parish ministry); (2) the role of deacons as it is presently exercised, i.e. in terms of status and liturgical functions primarily, rather than ministry and tasks; (3) the concern that the clerical tradition be deemphasized.(43) Edward Schillebeeckx has described the New Testament qualities of this ministry as “the apostolic building up of the community through preaching, admonition and leadership.(44)

Voicing Women’s Concerns

Not unlike the pastoral situation that gave birth to the permanent diaconate for males, namely their participation in pastoral ministry without the benefit of “sacramental grace,” many women today are employed full-time in pastoral ministry. American women and their sisters in the global community share a ministry without the benefit of “sacramental grace” that historically was associated with diaconal service.(45)

Yet many women also contend that they are “not here at this place in time” to merely copy male models of ministry. As women of God, women are developing their own styles of ministry in accordance with their relationships with Christ and one another.(46) Fiorenza speaks for many women when she writes

For the first time in Christian history we women no longer seek to express our experience of God’s spirit within the frameworks of an androcentric spirituality but to attempt to articulate that we have found God in our soul in such a way that this experience of her presence can transform and break through the traditional framework of androcentric theology and patriarchal church.(47)

If women are to be included in a ministry whose very form and symbols are shaped primarily by patriarchy, it will be problematic for them. The need for a redefinition and declericalization of ministry becomes apparent. “If women are to be allowed to become only tokenly integrated into yet another male defined role, they will remain ”symbolically and socially anomalous.”(48) Christian feminists painfully express the dualism between the liberating hope given by the gospel and the enslaving patriarchal structures of the hierarchal church.

Today discontent in the church is very strong among women. Many feminists no longer argue directly for the admission of women to the ministry because it would involve an integration of women into patriarchal church structures. Again, Fiorenza’s words interpret this situation when she writes:

Feminist ministers do not seek to be incorporated into the lowest ranks of the patriarchal hierarchy as altar-servers, lectors, deaconesses or even priests but engage in ministry in order to subvert clerical-hierarchal structures and to transform the patriarchal Church into a discipleship of equals. The New Testament notion of diakonia as service can be reclaimed by feminist theologians solely as a critical category challenging those who have actual power and privilege in patriarchal Church and society.(49)

Ministry needs to be understood as “equality from below” in solidarity with all those who struggle for survival, self-love and justice.(50)

Women’s and men’s continued reflection on the praxis and theology of ministry is crucial for the life of the whole church. During these last twenty years women have gathered to share their stories, to describe Christian feminist spirituality, to unearth and interpret women’s religious experience. Feminist theologians have accomplished much in exploring the meaning of sexism. They have uncovered the history of what has denied, diminished, and distorted the expression of the full humanity of women in the church. They have explored feminist perspectives on the meaning of Christian faith, mission and ministry. The work of feminists and the method of liberation theologies have helped us realize that Christian theology has been developed by a relatively small group of people – mostly men, mostly white, and mostly from a European-American culture.

Models of ministry are shaped in response to particular contexts in light of reflection on God’s intention for the world. From a feminist perspective, what is of critical importance is that women ground their ministry in reflection upon their experience, the ethical challenge to care for the well-being of all women, and the development of full humanity.

In her article, “Women and Ministry: Problem or Possibility,” Letty Russell reflects:

. . . [it] is not just a matter of adding up the contributions women make to the ministry of the church and deducing the inconveniences they present for a particular committee on ordination or ministerial relations. Nor is it just a matter of arguing on biblical, historical or theological grounds that women should be elders or deacons, ministers or priests of Word and Sacrament. Ultimately it is a matter of how we do our theology, of how we choose our questions and how we arrive at answers as we think about God’s call to mission and ministry in church and society . . . .(51)

The Priestless Parish in the United States

During these same twenty-five years in the post-Vatican II church the future of the Roman Catholic priesthood in America and throughout the world has experienced serious troubles. Clerical membership is dwindling; recruits have decreased. Is the male-dominated clergy facing ruin because it is a vestige of the great days of privilege? The vocation shortage has been studied from a variety of angles. Catholic University Professor Dean R. Hoge, an expert on the sociology of religion, has published the most comprehensive study to date, Future of Catholic Leadership: Responses to the Priest Shortage. Hoge’s conclusion: “The shortage . . . is an institutional problem, not a spiritual problem.” By the turn of the century, based on a suggested priest-parishioner ratio of 1 to 791, the United States will need 73,242 priests. Yet less than one third of that number will be in active ministry by then.(52)

Is the priestless parish the parish of the future? Or is it the parish of today? The Notre Dame Study of Catholics since Vatican II, published under the title The Emerging Parish,(53) found that three to five percent of the nation’s 19,313 parishes have no fulltime priest (forty-three percent worldwide). The National Catholic Reporter (November 25, 1988) indicated that seventy of the nation’s one hundred and sixty-seven dioceses had parishes led by non-ordained pastoral administrators. Of the seventy, thirty-one had Sunday communion services without a priest. In response to similar situations worldwide the Vatican issued a document governing Sunday eucharistic services presided over by a deacon or lay minister. Entitled Sunday Celebration in the Absence of a Priest, this document insists that Sunday communion services must not be held where a mass is celebrated the same day.

The current pastoral situation, then, raises serious theological problems. Additional permanent male deacons and women deaconesses are not the solution. Whether it should be a “lifetime office” needs to be given consideration. But at present it may simply be a smokescreen for the greater theological problematic facing the Catholic Church community.

The basic question is institutional priesthood and the communities’ right to both leadership and to eucharist, not a communion service. There is a theological problem concerning the relationship of lay pastoral assistants, deacons and deaconesses, with the institutional priesthood. Karl Rahner has argued:

If the essence of the diaconate is to be defined, this definition must of course be framed in such a way that the nature of the diaconate is clearly distinguished from that of the priest …. It seems appropriate . . . to see the task of the diaconate not as a curtailed, partial function of the priest and exercised under the priest, but as a distinct and separate function existing as such independently alongside that of the priest . . . the deacon is also in a congregation under the leadership of the priest who guides and unites it.(54)

Will the pastoral assistant be commissioned in a way appropriate to his or her function? If this function corresponds to the tasks of a deacon or deaconess, he or she should be so mandated, installed or sacramentally ordained. If the function of a pastoral assistant is in fact that of a community leader, she or he should receive priestly orders. A “partition” between the function of the community leader and the function of presiding at the eucharist is contrary to their very nature.(55)

Schillebeeckx offers a similiar argument:

Either the ministry of deacon should be given a completely new content which corresponds in a more appropriate way to what pastoral workers in fact do as those who inspire a community of believers; or there should be a fourth ministry, alongside the episcopate, presbyterate, and diaconate, bestowed by the community of the church and its leaders on pastoral workers: by laying on of hands and an appropriate epiclesis, a prayer in which the task of these pastoral workers is precisely described.(56)

Conclusion

Historical precedence and response to contemporary pastoral needs call for both the restoration of the permanent diaconate for women and for the ordination to the priesthood of women and men, married and single. Leonardo Boff captures the necessary first step. For he reminds us that the manner in which the woman deacon or the woman priest will do her ministry cannot be described beforehand. “No apostolic theory will be able to make such a description,” Boff writes. “Only concrete experience and life in a determinate context will show the precise manner in which she will acquit herself of her task.”(57)

Notes

1. Partners in the Mystery of Redemption.First Draft of the U.S. Bishops’ Pastoral Response to Women’s Concerns for Church and Society, Origins 17:45 (April 21, 1988) n. 220. Hereafter: Partners.

2. Roger Gryson, The Ministry of Women in the Early Church, trans. by jean Laporte and Mary Louise Hall (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1976). Hereafter: Gryson, The Ministry of Women.

3. Aime Georges Martimort, Deaconesses, An Historical Study, trans. by K.D. Whitehead (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1986). Hereafter: Martimort, Deaconesses.

4. Cf. Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory of Her. A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins (New York: Crossroad, 1983); hereafter, Fiorenza, In Memory of Her; and Bread Not Stone. The Challenge of Feminist Biblical Interpretation (Boston: Beacon Press, 1984); Rosemary Radford Ruether, Sexism and God-Talk, Toward a Feminist Theology (Boston: Beacon Press, 1983); Carol P. Christ and Judith Plaskow, eds., Womanspirit Rising, A Feminist Reader in Religion (San Francisco: Harper & Row Publishers, 1979).

5. Hans Küng, The Church (Garden City: Image Books, 1967) 498.

6. Fiorenza, In Memory of Her, 135, 138.

7. Cf. Leonard Swidler, Biblical Affirmations of Woman (Philadelphia: The Westminister Press, 1979) 161-328; Also related articles in Women Priests. A Catholic Commentary on the Vatican Declaration, ed. by Leonard Swidler and Arlene Swidler (New York: Paulist Press, 1977); Carroll Stuhlmueller, C.P., “Women’s Place: A Biblical View,” in Women and Catholic Priesthood: An Expanded Vision: Proceedings of the Detroit Ordination Conference, ed. by Anne Marie Gardiner, S. S.N.D. (New York: Paulist Press, 1976) 25-30.

8. Fiorenza, In Memory of Her, 334.

9. Agnes Cunningham, S.S.C.M., The Role of Women in Ecclesial Ministry: Biblical and Patristic Roots (Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference Publications Office, 1976).

10. Ibid. 1, 2.

11. Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, “ ‘Waiting at Table’: A Critical Feminist Theological Reflection on Diakonia,” in Diakonia: Church for Others, ed. by Norbert Greinacher and Norbert Mette. English ed., James Faiken Gardiner, Concilium 198 (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, LTD, 1988) 91.

12. Fiorenza, In Memory of Her, 334.

13. Ibid. 286-288.

14. Mary Collins, “Refusal of Women in Clerical Circles,” in Miriam’s Song (Washington, D.C.: Quixote Center) 17.

15. R.H. Connolly, Didascalia Apostolorum, the Syriac Version translated and accompanied by the Verona Latin Fragments (Oxford: Clarendon, 1929). Cf. Martimort, Deaconesses, 35-45; Gryson, The Ministry of Women, 35-45; Laporte, “Women in Ministry,” 111-115.

16. Didascalia 3.12.1-3; Connolly 146, 1-148, 22 quoted in Martimort Deaconesses, 69. Gryson writes, “The first text giving diakonissa is Canon 19 of Nicaea. Therefore, it is practically certain that the Didascalia used the form he diakonos for the deaconess.” Gryson, The Ministry of Women, 138, n. 61.

17. Collins, “Refusal of Women in Clerical Circle,” 17.

18. Cf. Martimort, Deaconess, 59-75; Gryson, The Ministry of Women, 54-63; Laporte, “Women in Ministry,” 115-118.

19. Cf Hippolytus of Rome, The Apostolic Tradition.

20. Const. apost. II, 26:6.

21. Martimort, Deaconesses, 62.

22. Quoted in Martimort, Deaconesses, 61, 62.

23. Const. apost. VIII, 20; quoted in Martimort, Deaconesses, 70; cf. Gryson, The Ministry of Women, 62.

24. Gryson, “The Ordination of Deaconesses According to the Apostolic Constitution,” appendix in The Ministry of Women, 115-120.

25. Martimort, Deaconesses, 63.

26. Cf. Gryson, The Ministry of Women, 64-69; Martimort, Deaconesses, 46-52; Testament Bk. I, 19.7; Bk. 1, 23:1; Bk. I, 23:14.

27. Cf. Gryson, The Ministry of Women, 44-74; Martimort, Deaconesses, 101-119.

28. Cf. Gryson, The Ministry of Women, 80-85; Martimort, Deaconesses, 117-119.

29. Martimort, Deaconesses, 187-196.

30. Gryson, The Ministry of Women, 92-102.

31. Ibid. 102-106.

32. Martimort, Deaconesses, 197-209.

33. Ibid. 210-240, esp. 229.

34. Lumen Gentium, nn. 10, 11, 31-42. David Power, Gifts That Differ:Lay Ministries Established and Unestablished (Pueblo Publishing Compa 1980, 1985), 52ff; Nathan Mitchell, O.S.B., Mission and Ministry, Hisi and Theology in the Sacrament of Order (Delaware: William Glazier It 1982), 299ff.

35. Lumen Gentium, n. 29.

36. Partners, nn. 203, 204.

37. Loughlan Sofield, S.T. and Carroll juliano, S.H.C.J., Collabora, Ministry, Skills and Guidelines (Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press, 1987). A Keith Clark, Capuchin, The Skilled Participant. A Way to Effective Coll~ ration (Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press, 1988); James D. Whitehead

Evelyn Eaton Whitehead, The Emerging Laity: Returning Leadership to Community of Faith (New York: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 198E

38. Diakonia: Church for Others, Concilium 198 (1988).

39. Ulrich Bach, “But if you say so! A Plea for a Church of the 1 konia,” in Diakonia: A Church for Others, 123-131. Also, Paulos P Gregorios, The Meaning and Nature of Diakonia (Geneva: WCC Pub l tions, Risk Book Series, 1988).

40. Rosemary Ruether, “The Ecclesia of Patriarchy and Wor Church,” in Miriam’s Song II (Washington, D.C.: Quioxite Center) 9 esp. 6; also Letty M. Russell, Household of Freedom Authority in Fem~ Theology. The 1986 Annie Kinkead Warfield Lectures (Philadelphia: ‘ Westminister Press, 1987).

41. Lumen Gentium, n. 29; Motu proprio Sacrum Diaconatus Ordiy Restoring the Permanent Diaconate in the Latin Church, June 18, 1 Motu proprio Ad pascendum, Laying down norms regarding the orde diaconate, August 15, 1972; The Apostolic Constitution, Pontifical is mani recognitio, Approving the new rites for the ordination of dean priests and bishops June 18, 1968; the Motu proprio Ministeria quanc On first tonsure, minor orders and the subdiaconate, August 15, 1 and several publications on the diaconate from the United States Ca lic Conference, Washington, D.C., as well as numerous studies available.

42. James Barnett, The Diaconate, A Full and Equal Order, quote Joseph W. Posuka, “The Diaconate: A History of Law Following P tice,” The Jurist 45 (1985) 96, 97.

43. Dean Hoge, Future of Catholic Leadership. Responses to the F Shortage (Kansas City: Sheed & Ward, 1987) 194-197.

44. Edward Schillebeeckx, Ministry, Leadership in the Communi Jesus Christ (New York: Crossroad, 1981) 29-37.

45. David Power, Gifts That Differ, 1-44.

46. Mary E. Giles, When Each Leaf Shines, Voices of Women’s Mir (New Jersey: Dimension Books, Inc., 1986).

47. Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza quoted in Edward Schillebeeckx, The Church with a Human Face. A New and Expanded Theology of Ministry (New York: Crossroad, 1988) 239.

48. Lynn N. Rhodes, Co-Creating. A Feminist Vision of Ministry (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1987).

49. Fiorenza, “Waiting at Table,” 91.

50. Ibid. 92.

51. Letty M. Russell, “Women and Ministry: Problem or Possibility?” in Christian Feminism: Vision of a New Humanity, ed. by Judith L. Weidman (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1984) 75.

52. Hoge, Future of Catholic Leadership.

53. Joseph Gremillion and Jim Castelli, The Emerging Parish. The Notre Dame Study of Catholic Life Since Vatican 11 (San Francisco: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1987).

54. Karl Rahner, “Pastoral Ministries and Community Leadership,” in Theological Investigations XIX, Faith and Ministry, trans. by Edward Quinn (New York: Crossroad, 1983) 74.

55. Ibid. 84.

56. Schillebeeckx, Church With a Human Face, 266. See also Hoge, Future of Catholic Leadership, 182-207.

57. Leonardo Boff, Ecclesiogenesis. The Base Communities Reinvent the Church, trans. from the Portuguese by Robert R. Barr (Maryknoll: Orbis Press, 1986) 95.

Recomended Reading

Fiorenza, Elisabeth Schussler. In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins. New York: Crossroad, 1983. This scholarly study includes exegetical chapters on the narratives about women in the New Testament. From this minimalized report is reconstructed a fuller picture of women’s authority, leadership and influence in the early church.

Gryson, Roger. The Ministry of Women in the Early Church. Translated by Jean Laporte and Mary Louise Hall. Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1976. A review of the evidence for women’s ministry in the early church, written before the issuing of the Roman document against women’s ordination, Inter Insigniores (1976),

Martimort, Aime Georges. Deaconesses: An Historical Study. Translated by K.D. Whitehead. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1986. A dissertation written after Inter Insigniores. Its conclusions are a reading of the evidence of women’s ecclesial ministry from a perspective which would limit their role and question the sacramental nature of their diaconate.

Hoge, Dean. Future of Catholic Leadership: Responses to the Priest Shortage. Kansas City: Sheed and Ward, 1987. This sociological study has many tables and charts, reporting the gradually recovering image of priesthood in America in the 1980s after its decline in the 1970s. In spite of the “upturn” in the public perception, and incremental increase of candidates in seminaries, the pastoral needs of a burgeoning Catholic population will far outstrip the ability of ordained male ministers available to serve them by the year 2000.

Ihanneson, Joan. Woman, Survivor in the Church. Minnesota: Winston Press, 1980. The need and desire of women to share all their gifts in the ministries of the church propels them to dialogue with other women, clergy and men. She describes her growing up in the church of the 1950s, relating it conversationally with the experience of pain and hope of other women. This makes it accessible to both genders in answer to the question, “Why do women want an equal role in the church?”