OUR CHURCH MUST CHANGE TO MEET THE NEEDS OF EACH NEW GENERATION (Opinion)

I’m think­ing deeply about where reli­gion and, in par­tic­u­lar, the Cath­olic Church are head­ing. 

There comes a time when sit­ting on the fence is not just cow­ardly but also sin­ful.

There are many com­plex issues facing the Cath­olic Church. One is the crass abuse of women. It is no longer defens­ible to deny women their full voice and their legit­im­ate role in the pas­toral work of spread­ing the Good News. 

This is a human rights issue and is spir­itual abuse.

The recent decision not to decide on the pos­sib­il­ity of ordain­ing women as dea­cons is plainly demean­ing. 

The Cath­olic Church needs to wake up to the need for women dea­cons and women priests.

Many theo­lo­gians and scrip­ture experts are con­vinced that women were ordained dea­cons in the early church. 

If that is true, it is not a ques­tion of intro­du­cing the prac­tice but of restor­ing it. They tell us that St Paul’s Let­ter to the Romans iden­ti­fies Phoebe as a dea­con and not just St Paul’s ded­ic­ated assist­ant. 

“Receive her in the Lord” is St Paul’s com­mand.

Many Church his­tory schol­ars are con­vinced that in the early cen­tur­ies of the Church’s exist­ence, women served their com­munity and church in a deep, essen­tial way — as thou­sands of women world­wide wish to do now.

Per­son­ally, I can see no primary theo­lo­gical reas­ons why women should not be ordained as priests either. 

But let’s stick to dea­cons for today.

CLERICS

Male dea­cons make a real con­tri­bu­tion to the life of the Church in many areas of the world. In these coun­tries, their con­tri­bu­tion is lim­ited by the clergy. 

Amer­ica has a longer exper­i­ence, as do the mis­sion­ary areas of Africa. I know that from per­sonal exper­i­ence. 

But, like the cler­ics, these male dea­cons are becom­ing old and grey. Eighty per cent of dea­cons in the United States are over 60 years of age.

Two pos­it­ives still exist in the Church. 

Many women are will­ing to serve as dea­cons (and priests, too). 

Secondly, there is a vast need for their tal­ents to min­is­ter to hurt­ing, suf­fer­ing human beings in need of care and dir­ec­tion. 

We do not have the right to deprive the church of their ser­vices. The women are tal­en­ted, will­ing and able. 

The people in need are cry­ing out for their help.

Masses of people are deprived of heal­ing because women are cast aside just because they are women.

There are hos­pit­als, par­ishes, pris­ons, schools, etc aban­doned because men min­is­ters can no longer serve them and women’s voca­tions are turned away.

Think of the impact that tal­en­ted women from all sec­tions of our com­munity could have, com­pared to that of good but eld­erly, grey­haired men.

I can think of no sus­tain­able argu­ment against the ordin­a­tion of women to the diac­on­ate. Some of the argu­ments often used are pathetic. They say Phoebe wasn’t ordained. 

How can we be sure? Do we know if Paul, Peter, or Apol­los were ordained?

It is often pro­posed that women have other ways to serve. So what? So do men; what’s the point of being a male dea­con or a priest then?

The most con­fus­ing argu­ment of all is that God called only men to the priest­hood. How come, then, that God used a woman to give birth to His Son? 

Or that he gave his women com­pan­ions respect, dig­nity and respons­ib­il­ity? Or that He chose a woman, Mary Mag­dalene, to announce His Resur­rec­tion? She is the apostle to the Apostles.

He sternly reminded guests in Beth­any that a woman who anoin­ted his feet would be remembered forever for doing the right thing (Mark 14:9). There are numer­ous other examples.

SALVATION

The author­it­ies now claim that this tra­di­tion can­not be changed. Hold on a moment.

Priests were allowed to marry for a thou­sand years, yet that was changed — for bet­ter or worse. 

The Second Vat­ican Coun­cil insisted that the church needs con­stant ref­or­ma­tion, i.e. con­stant change.

When I was young, we received the Euchar­ist a few times a year at most. That changed. 

For cen­tur­ies, it was said that out­side the church, there is no sal­va­tion. The Coun­cil, in Lumen Gen­tium, pro­posed another view. 

The Church must change to meet the needs of each gen­er­a­tion; oth­er­wise, we culp­ably fail to spread the Good News of God’s Love.

Across the world, Cath­olic women who dis­cern that their church rejects them have moved to other Chris­tian churches that wel­come women’s ordin­a­tion. 

There, they ful­fil their voca­tion to serve God as dea­cons and priests. Their (dif­fer­ent reli­gions) gain is our loss.

For dec­ades, we have asked the faith­ful to pray for voca­tions, yet con­tinue to reject women’s right­ful voca­tions. It doesn’t make sense.

The latest doc­u­ment from the Vat­ican con­cluded, “there is still no room for a pos­it­ive decision” on women’s ordin­a­tion. 

In my view, it is long past time they aban­doned their pre­ju­dices and opened the way for women to serve the church they love as God calls them.