Rome is in the news these days as the Catholic Church celebrates Easter and remembers the second anniversary of the death of Pope John Paul II, a brilliant man of superlatives and firsts.They say he’s caused a miracle, and cured a 45-year-old French nun of the Parkinson’s disease that claimed the old pope’s life. He may be beatified soon.
Pope John Paul II was a man of action. He visited more countries and canonized more saints than all other popes combined. He was a philosopher, the first with an earned Ph.D., and a linguist, the first to address the peoples of the world in their native languages.
He was not, however, the first modern pope to ordain women deacons.
That is unfortunate, because as a philosopher and bishop he knew he could have.
It is doubly unfortunate because the world still cries for leadership in the matter of women.
What better way to speak out against stoning in Nigeria, or dowry fires in India, than to raise women to ordained dignity in the Catholic Church?
How better to counter genital mutilation in sub-Saharan Africa, or female infanticide in China, than to state broadly and loudly that women are made in the image and likeness of Christ?
Women deacons, mind you, are not women priests or bishops.
The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith — then headed by Cardinal Joseph A. Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI — gave two reasons against women priests in 1976: the problem of authority and the “iconic argument.”
The problem of authority rests on the knowledge that Jesus chose male apostles.
The “iconic argument” says only male priests can image Jesus. They avoided women deacons entirely in 1976.
In 1994 Pope John Paul II presented the same conclusion: Women cannot be priests.
But there is a very big difference between the two documents.
Pope John Paul II’s later document dropped the “iconic argument.” The pope who will be saint did not write women cannot represent Jesus “iconically.” Nor could he. Of course there was more discussion, and soon the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, still headed by Cardinal Ratzinger, opined that the ban on women priests was permanent and a magisterial teaching of the church.
One wonders if the Congregation also meant to say Catholics may not disagree with the Pope John Paul II’s decision to drop the “iconic argument.” By dropping the “iconic argument” the now-dead pope of superlatives and firsts perhaps intentionally began the arduous task of evangelizing the world to the equal dignity of women to men.
Less than a year later he wrote about women: “Although (Jesus) chose men as his Apostles — a choice which remains normative for his successors — nevertheless, he also involved women in the cause of his kingdom; indeed, he wanted them to be the first witnesses and heralds of his resurrection.” Which brings us back to women deacons.
Deacons, who minister in charity, are not priests.
The Apostles — not Jesus — laid hands on the first deacons as servants of the nascent church.
And there were some women deacons in that early church, who essentially represented Jesus Christ as servant. As Pope John Paul II’s life and papacy waned, Vatican officials wrote a bit about women deacons. One low-level document in 2001 cautioned bishops not to train women for the diaconate because they could not be ordained.
An ambivalent 2002 study from the International Theological Commission, also headed by Cardinal Ratzinger at the time, said deacons are essentially configured to Christ as servant, and the real test is not what the deacon can do, but what the deacon is. It left the question open.
If the deacon is the icon of Christ alive in his church, and the church is comprised of both men and women, it would seem the Catholic Church could and should return to the ancient tradition of ordaining women deacons.
As the church celebrates the miracle of Pope John Paul II’s cure of one woman, it might ask him for the answer to the pressing need for ordained women’s ministry.
Now, that would be a miracle.
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