What's a Deacon?

And Why not Women Deacons?

     There are things called Catechists, and other educators, and church secretaries and even business managers who are women, so what's the big deal about Women Deacons?

   Clearly there were women 'deacons' in the bible. What was a Deacon? Saint Stephen was one for example. Those were the people who made sure that the right allotments went to feed the widows and tend to the basic material needs of the congregation. They might now be called the Aumonerie. or the Daily Distribution, or the Food and Friends or SOME or other places where daily or regularly they provide charitable support to people.
They might be now what Catholic Charities does in part. Parts of all those functions are what 'Deacon' means.

   Deacon in the Catholic church is different than in the rest of the Protestant world. Deacons in the Protestant world are not typically schooled in Preaching or even necessarily in Teaching and Seminary is not a requirement. Deacons in the Catholic world can, and do fairly regularly at Saint Matthews Cathedral, preach from the pulpit.
They have some formation or seminary training. They are not scripturally illiterate. They are clerics.  They wear clerical robes. They are on the payroll in some fashion.

   In the Protestant world deacon means the man or woman at the door greeting you Sunday morning, they can sometimes have authority to review the books, distribute funds, chair committees, like the Stewardship committee and the like. They are not considered clerics in the majority of the Protestant world. Presbyterians don't consider them clerics. In some other denominations, where 'cleric' isn't necessarily just a 'minister' they may be, like Baptists.  In the Protestant world a Deacon is not on the payroll, he or she typically gives large sums to support the church efforts-they function more like Parish Council does in that regard.

    Fr. Tom Reese mentioned that because the Catholic Church has so many full time paid people who are doing all kinds of things on the payroll, he isn't a huge fan of sacramentalizing part-time people who
hold outside jobs.

    But the point is really that they already have Deacons- and they are all men, so why can't women also do it? What scripturally says a woman can't give a Sermon or Baptize a child? When I was briefly a Dominican third order lay novitiate I was told women could baptize now anyway in a pinch absent
a priest when a child needed baptizing- say in the remotest places in Africa.

    Deacon now has been sacramentalized. (Was Saint Stephen someone we would now call a cleric?) In the Catholic world a Deacon can be 'permanent' or 'transitional.'
Deacon means to some Priest-lite, or mini-Priest, or almost-Priest. But there is more to it. There are the ones who are married who hold outside jobs not in the church but the 'real' world and the transitional ones are on their way to the Priesthood and this is just training for them. The permanent deacons generally remain with a congregation because they live there with their families, and the transitional ones can be posted for terms of years and moved to other parishes in the Diocese.

     Women should be able to be Catholic Deacons-why ?? Because there are some that would be awesomely gifted preachers. Gifts of the spirit come uniquely to different people. Different people have different gifts, some of prophesy, some of translating tongues, some of preaching, some of teaching, some of ......Note it doesn't say only men have gifts of the Spirit....

    There are some people, some women, who are church 'workers' who are doing things that only people with adequate formation should be doing. A deacon is not a church secretary. No one would go to a church secretary for spiritual advice or guidance. That isn't to say that some people doing that job could not also be gifted spiritual guides but knowing excel spreadsheets and how to answer a phone is not the same skill set as spiritual guide or preacher. It is possible that some people already full time employed would like to become deacons and would be good ones-and if that opportunity is open to men it should also be open to women. At holy trinity there is a particularly gifted spiritual retreat person who is a woman, married I believe, who would be a prime candidate.

    God has clearly gifted women to be preachers. One only need to look at how many brilliant competent ones there are in the Protestant world. If you put the discipline and knowledge of a catholic seminary training with someone gifted to preach, why on earth would the Catholic world want to cheat
its members by not allowing women to serve in them in that capacity?

    I believe that the two obviously necessary key fundamental changes, you can call it post Vatican II reforms, that would make Catholicism the dynamic Evangelical fire Jesus intends it to be in this century are
1. women deacons and 2. optional diocesene priestly marriage.

Start that discussion in your Parish, feel free to make comments, and tell your Pastor what you think about that. Better yet, lets start a letter writing campaign to send love letters to Rome to tell Pope Francis what we think:-)