Deacon Anthony Gooley, 28 June 2024
28 June 2024
The most recent edition of the National Association of Deacons of Australia Newsletter, The Diaconate, features both my article of the last post, and another on the same topic. Deacon Anthony Gooley, who has spoken previously for our 2022 webinar and written for this blog, has also responded to Pope Francis’s comments on women deacons. Please read the whole article, from page 19-24 in the newsletter.
Anthony addresses the context of Pope Francis’s remarks, then examines a non-sacramental diaconate, a functionalist theology of Holy Orders, the tradition of women deacons, clerical identity, and the weight of Pope Francis’s private opinion. I found his reflections on a potential non-sacramental diaconate illuminating:
“Is Pope Francis saying yes to the possibility of a non-sacramental diaconate for women? If this is so it would mark a genuine innovation and departure from the Tradition. It would be a genuine innovation to have an ordained ministry of deacon, for men, alongside of a nonordained diaconate of women. We have never had a situation in which we had a parallel of an ordained order with a non-ordained. This is hugely problematic. Does it open the way for a non-ordained and ordained presbyterate and episcopate? Why could we have two forms of diaconate without two forms of the other orders? How would this be justified theologically? The doctrinal implications for understanding Holy Orders are profound.” (page 20)
As we discuss the “access of women to the diaconate” (Synod Synthesis, page 24, i; Synod Study Groups’ Work Outline, page 8), we really are delving into the theology and value of Holy Orders for men as well. Thank you for your deep analysis, Anthony! Let us continue this conversation, as we share in our ministries of liturgy on the margins.
Liturgy on the Margins 