However, added Professor Drummond, a senior research fellow in theology at the University of Oxford, “it is going to take time” to dismantle certain perceptions of women and “the kind of patriarchy which is throttling or has throttled the Church”.
She was speaking at The Tablet webinar: “Women and the Church: affirming, challenging and transforming” for International Women’s Day.
The scientist and theologian, who felt called to priesthood in her 20s when she was an Anglican – a calling that has never left her in spite of becoming a Catholic –noted that in a “relatively quickly” period of time ecology has become part of the conversation over the last 50 years and she suggested that it is not impossible for things to likewise start to shift on the issue of women’s ordination to the diaconate or priesthood.
Pope Francis has “changed the conversation on so many different issues”, she said, but added that he had “made some very unfortunate statements about feminism” and had a “fairly stereotypical understanding of men and women’s roles”.
Dr Phyllis Zagano, senior research associate-in-residence and Adjunct Professor of Religion at Hofstra University, who was a member of the 2016-2018 Vatican Commission on Women Deacons, said: “It’s very nice that [Pope Francis] is putting women into management, but he is not putting women in ministry, and that is the barrier that needs to be overcome. I don’t think we can wait for misogyny to disappear for people to be able to address this.”
She outlined the history of the various commission on the issue of women and the diaconate. Referring to the second papal commission, which replaced the 2016-2018 commission, she said that if the Church doesn’t ordain women as deacons because women cannot image Christ, “then I will blame the Church for dowry burnings. I will blame the Church for wife beating. I will blame the Church for menstruation huts. I will blame the Church for FGM, because these are examples of things foisted on women by intractable misogyny in too many cultures, not only Catholic, not only Christian, but around the world.”
Emphasising how the world looks to the Catholic Church as a moral leader, she said the Church needs to lead its 1.4 billion people to the idea that women are made in the image and likeness of God.
Professor Deane Drummond told the webinar that academic positions in theology for women are still in the minority. “There are some significant sexist issues that I have experienced over the course of my career as a woman theologian. The ordination question is part of a wider sexism within the theological world and in the culture more generally.”
While the encyclical Laudato Si – On Care For Our Common Home, which was published 10 years ago, was a breakthrough in the Catholic Church because the issues of poverty, the cry of the poor became bound up with the cry of the Earth, she believes the “cry of women wasn’t included significantly enough” and this gap needed to be bridged.
“It is no longer credible to separate the cry of women from the cry of the poor and the cry of the earth. I think the Catholic Church has been far too slow to wake up to that,” she said.
In her presentation, Dr Zagano referred to a 9,000-word paper she wrote on the history over the last 50 years of the Vatican’s studies on women and the diaconate. “The short version is that every time a commission found positively [in favour of women deacons] they made another commission.
“I think that there is something to be said about Pope Francis being surrounded by a sea of misogyny, and it certainly does not look at this point as if he will be able to do anything in his papacy.
“I have studied the past 50 years of Vatican discussions, and I am quite unsure why the Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Argentinian Cardinal Hernandez warns against ‘rushing to a decision on the question’.”
She also recalled that her “old boss” Cardinal John O’Connor of New York told her in 1994 that there had been “secret meetings in Rome” on the issue and that those involved couldn’t “figure out how to have women deacons and not have women priests”.
In 1997, a second committee of the International Theological Commission prepared a 17-page study, in which the entire ITC committee voted positively for women deacons, but the then Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith at the time, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger refused to promulgate the document.
Dr Zagano said the official Vatican comment was that the commission was unable to complete it. She wondered where that document was, as it appeared to have disappeared.
Paragraph 60 in the Final Report of the Synod on Synodality, she said, was magisterial teaching. It says that the question of women’s access to the diaconal ministry remains open.
She noted that it does not say women’s access to the diaconate, but to diaconal ministry.
“Was it a compromise in order to get the vote passed? It had the highest number of ‘no’ votes, but it did reach the two-thirds majority,” she said.
“What I was told 30 years ago by the highest placed woman in the Vatican was that they can’t say no; there is absolutely no doctrine against ordaining women as deacons. They can’t say no, they just don’t want to say yes,” Dr Zagano recalled.
Albania-based Sr Imelda Poole MBE, an English Loreto Sister who led the Religious in Europe Networking Against Trafficking and Exploitation network (RENATE) fighting modern slavery across 27 European countries for ten years, spoke about her grassroots ministry in the 1980s in a deprived area north of Middlesborough with another Loreto Sister.
She also spoke about the impact of workshops run by the Mary Ward Foundation in Albania with young men which seeks to engage with them and challenge their mentality as part of the Foundation’s efforts to eradicate human and sex trafficking.
She told the webinar that the Catholic Church was not really ready for women clergy because of patriarchy and clericalism. “I think Pope Francis gets this. I think he understands that clericalism is more dangerous than anything that is going on in terms of the disempowerment of the Church membership.”
She said she “grieved” for Anglican women clergy and how they suffered with some refusing to take Communion from bishops who had ordained women.
Asked when they thought women might be ordained as deacons or priests in the Catholic Church, Dr Zagano said she had “no clue”. The latest commission to study women deacons would either say the time is not ripe or yes.
Professor Deane Drummond replied, “I have no idea, but at the same time, if I’m being optimistic, or rather hopeful rather than optimistic, then I would hope it would come in in the next 20 years.”
Sr Poole recalled how “twenty years ago I wrote to my general leadership saying that it was time that Sisters were trained to be deacons because it would happen very soon and those who are called should be ready… I thought it was imminent. Now, I am not sure, but I hope it will be soon.”