James,
Very well said. Great post.

To foist plainly false gender ideology into the sacramental theology of the Roman Catholic Church, the Church of our Lord, Jesus Christ, is a sacrilege of the gravest nature. It is to participate in the desecration, the torture of the flesh and blood of the Son of God. It is completely opposed to the New Creation established by the New Adam.
Every cell of the human body is either male in the case of men, or female in the case of women. It need be determined why you require adherence to a perspective that is entirely erroneous. On one level it serves to fluff up the “singularity” of whanna-be intellectuals requiring to be perceived as depth thinkers. It can serve to mask a discomfort in place for any number of reasons with one’s own sexual identity – from baseless guilt for being part of the patriarchy to being jealous of not being part of the patriarchy. It can serve as armor for those enduring sexual disorientation and justifies the frustration and anger there understandably resident. Of course those with a religious impulse, with a theological bent in an educational “industry” – and I use that word deliberately – the adoption of gender ideology provides them a certain edge of acceptability among their compatriots in the ivy covered halls – and an opportunity to publish fallacious notions that are marketable, though mendacious. The academic charade finds its axis not the life giving truth of the Holy Wood, but the mortal deception of Hollywood. To these God alone does not suffice at all. His revelation is their obstacle. Deception embraced, nurtured and promoted is a direct affront to the simple clarity of the Gospel of Jesus Christ which is our liberation.

It is dogmatic that Jesus Christ instituted an all-make priesthood and regardless of private opinions to the contrary, no one, whether bishop, council or pope, will ever be able to alter this doctrine.

Those who argue against this fixed and unchaneable doctrine are not listening to the true voice of the Holy Spirit.

The Catholic Church has never ordained, does not now, and never will ordain women as priests.

End of story.

Luis Gutierrez “Response to Bonnie and James - I don’t expect to be here in 3000 AD either, but hopefully we can continue this conversation then, in more pleasant surroundings” Luis, ha ha I had to read that over a couple of times to understand it and I do agree that in 3000 AD I hope that we will all be in a more pleasant place.Yes we are all of human nature but we are also distinct we are as God created us male and female and we have different roles in life. Jesus established a male priesthood. If He had wanted there to be women priests He would have done that - He did not. And I believe that He has the final word.

Response to Bonnie and James - I don’t expect to be here in 3000 AD either, but hopefully we can continue this conversation then, in more pleasant surroundings and with the benefit of hindsight. My understanding is that “body” and “sex” are not simply identical (see TOB 8:1). It boils down to whether or not we all share one and the same human nature with Christ. It will take time to overcome the patriarchal sex/gender binary.  Indeed, “con Dios nada me falta, solo Dios basta” (“with God I lack nothing, only God suffices”).  In the post-patriarchal era we are now entering, my impression is that the Church will NEED women in all levels of sacramental ministry, and just reiterating what has been said in the past is not persuasive.  Don’t worry about, but remember Gamaliel’s dictum (Acts 5:39). Also keep in mind what you say about obedience to the Pope because, in matters that are not really dogmatic, any Pope can undo what previous Popes have done, and false certainties are risky when they become unresponsive to pastoral realities (Acts 15:28). Cheers :-)

In speaking with a former Carmelite nun today she recounted a favorite acronym often employed by Thomas Merton.  KISS.  “Keep it simple stupid.” This humorous admonition is a gem of monastic culture and a perfect contemporary expression of Cistercian spirituality. “This is My Body” cannot be efficaciously uttered by a female “in persona Christi.” It belies common sense, as does the preponderance of gender ideology fog.
Comments here promoting the contrary are typical of the heterodox, addicted to their own perspective at the cost of wisdom or a wisdom tradition, in this case the Apostolic and Ecclesial Tradition of Roman Catholicism. It is characteristic of laity, clergy, religious and members of the hierarchy who just can’t shake their compulsive taste for their own pool of personal acumen and insight. It is a substitution of ideology for Roman Catholic theology – content and process. Theology is the study which through participation in, and reflection upon a religious faith, seeks to express the content of that faith in the clearest and most coherent language available.
Ideology of any sort is not theology. Not even if it is uttered by any ecclesiastic, priest, religious or laity, birth gender male or female, chosen gender male or female.
Sometimes things are just what they are.
We need all keep it very simple.
God alone suffices.

Luis Gutierrez I don’t know about you but I don’t think that I will be here in the year 3000. actually I am rather amused but saddened by your arguments.There is nothing in the Church’s teaching, documents, councils or whatever that would give you legitimate hope that the Church will change on this. The Church cannot and will not change as it would cause a great schism.  You have been presented with the facts by me and others on this thread but you stubbornly refuse to accept the Church’s teaching. The point is that there will not be women priests or deacons and that is the end of it, it just won’t happen. Be obedient to the Pope and the Church.

Response to Bonnie Baker et al - The Pope is not infallible unless he signs a document explicitly saying that he is teaching infallibly, either ex cathedra (extraordinary magisterium) or with all the other bishops (ordinary magisterium); and the CDF is NEVER infallible. Please show me a dogmatic definition that explicitly says that the Church will NEVER (future tense) ordain women before the Lord returns.  Please provide document title, date, and signing Pope. We’ll see what happens between now and 3000 AD. :-)

Luis Gutierrez God has spoken and the Church has spoken, Pope Francis has confirmed what St. Pope John Paul II decreed now all that is needed is for all to accept that there will not be women priests or deacons. “4. Although the teaching that priestly ordination is to be reserved to men alone has been preserved by the constant and universal Tradition of the Church and firmly taught by the Magisterium in its more recent documents, at the present time in some places it is nonetheless considered still open to debate, or the Church’s judgment that women are not to be admitted to ordination is considered to have a merely disciplinary force.

Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church’s divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren (cf. Lk 22:32) I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful.”

You’re a slippery one Luis!  I mean, just because the Pope said not to talk about women priests today that doesn’t mean we can’t do it tomorrow! Bravo!

What else did Our Lord Jesus Christ withhold from us while He walked among us? You know as well as I that the revelation was closed with His Ascension. Yes, He did say He would send the Holy Spirit to illuminate us in what was “too much for you now,” but really, this has been a bit of a long wait. Perhaps is it only now in history when we can avail ourselves of politically correct genital mutilation that we are prepared for the Roman Catholic priestess? Even current socially acceptable psychotic notions of what is “real” cannot bridge this trail to nowhere. Whoever is supporting you in regarding these fallacious notions as acceptable orthodox theology need be sued for either pastoral or academic malfeasance. Persistence in this obsession bespeaks disorder. While you have been deceived know you are not alone, it has been going on for fifty years. Screen your “friends” and “mentors” scrupulously. Particularly those with “theology” credentials. We live in dangerous times.

Response to Luis regarding JP2’s letter on the male-only priesthood:

Actually, Cardinal Ratzinger, as prefect for the CDF, cleared this up after many questions about the issue in the 1998 DOCTRINAL COMMENTARY ON THE CONCLUDING FORMULA OF THE PROFESSIO FIDEI (see paragraphs 9 & 11).  It is also explained in the 1995 RESPONSUM AD PROPOSITUM DUBIUM CONCERNING THE TEACHING CONTAINED IN “ORDINATIO SACERDOTALIS”

That the Church has no authority whatsoever to ordain women to the priesthood is settled as definitive teaching (irreformable not because it is divinely revealed but because it is inextricably connected to divine revelation).  However, the reason it is so is not because of JP2’s letter (which was a reaffirmation the the teaching is already definitive) but because of the constant teaching of the universal and ordinary magisterium over the years.  JP2’s letter merely bore witness to this fact.  Hence, it “is to be held always, everywhere, and by all, as belonging to the deposit of the faith.”

In another letter, the CDF mentioned that preparing women for the diaconate would be “premature,” but it did not eliminate the possibility completely.

Response to Bonnie Baker - St. John Paul II’s document about the male-only priesthood, dated 1994, was not an encyclical.  It was an apostolic letter, addressed to the bishops, ordering them to stop further discussion of the issue.  It is entirely written in past and present tense, and therefore is “definitive” for the past and the present, but says nothing about what the Church can or cannot do in the future.  What the Church intends can change, and has changed many times, as the Church discerns Christ’s will over the centuries.  We need not believe, with certainty of faith, that what Christ intended for the Church 2000 years ago is what He intends for the Church now.  Christ is always the same, but the needs of the Church do change.  I am not persuaded that this issue has been dogmatically settled and cannot be reconsidered until the Lord returns.  Personally, I think it should be reconsidered, and sooner rather than later, as the patriarchal culture of sole male (father) headship evolves to an egalitarian culture of joint male-female (father-mother) headship.

Luis Gutierrey St. John Paul II said that to clear up all doubt it was to be known by the faithful that Christ left no example of ordaining women. It was in an encyclical that he issued about the priesthood. He declared that there were to be no women priests. All of this has been discussed and gone over many times before and decided. Pope Francis said in the comments about Deacons that the deaconesses in the early church were comparable to religious sisters of today. People take the words that the Pope speaks and twists them around to make it what they want to hear rather then what the church intends.

Jesus Christ, Son of God, Son of Man, Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, walked the earth in an age rife with priestesses. If He had wanted to include females in His priesthood He would have. Perhaps it is necessary that those possessed of this issue bring to prayer why He did not do that instead of the incessant manipulative, disingenuous whining and complaining, ever throwing a distraction and diversion into the gears of the evangelization the Church is to be about, rather than harping on utter nonsense.
Conformity to Jesus Christ will bring this to an end. By their fruits you shall know them. The last fifty years are testament to that.

Distraction. Ever effective tool of the devil.
Another “D” word has risen to the top of the “D” list—again—Deaconess.
The fact that ecclesiastics are consumed with this absurdity—yet again!—bespeaks either or any or all of obsessive/compulsive disorder, stupidity, obstreperousness, ignorance of history, a lack of common sense, and inability to read the signs of the times, the nature of the sexes, the admonition of the Gospel, Apostolic Tradition and the timeless Magisterium of the Church.
Bottom line, the absence of cognitive activity under the skull caps is frightening.
Anyone who had the grace of consciousness in the Roman Catholic Church before the the “council” is aware of the value, respect and affection religious sisters and nuns held in the minds of the faithful. It would be ahistorical and disingenuous to think otherwise. Their invaluable service – and that is to speak without affect or hyperbole – cannot be over-estimated. They were the primary means of evangelization in the United States, and I suspect in Europe and the Third World as well. We fractured, disassembled and junked the role of women in the Church at the urging of the heterodox. Now they proclaim women were oppressed in the Church before “the Council.” Religious women were criticized before the ravages of the Council for exercising too much authority!
Religious women were lied to and undermined by a heterodox clerical class with their own ideological agenda. Father “knew best.” Well, he didn’t either by design or ignorance and they succeeded in empting the convents that were to be found at every parish. The reestablishment of truly authentic religious life would be the route to undertake in restoring the vital role of women in the Church.
We are once again in the grip of arm bending fraudulence. Is the pope part of this maneuver or a victim of it? In either event, that is a far more serious problem than the issue of women deacons.

Response to Bonnie Baker - “There will not be women priests because God did not intend for there to be.”  Really? Never? Says who?

Luis Guterrez you are reading much more into the Pope’s comments then what is warranted. Setting up this “commission” means absolutely nothing. This subject has been studied before and it was found that the “deaconesses in the early church were not part of the ordained clergy. Jesus chose to come to the earth as a man. There will not be women priests because God did not intend for there to be.

Finally, a papal acknowledgment that this issue has to be reconsidered!  Not that it will be easy.  As long as the patriarchal sex/gender binary is not discarded as an inadequate theological anthropology, there is no path forward in the Catholic and Orthodox churches. Protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, patriarchal gender theory presupposes two different human natures, male or female, so Jesus’ masculinity is normative. But if men and women share one and the same human nature, then the psychosomatic masculinity of Jesus is as incidental as the color of his eyes; the Word was not a male before the incarnation, and assuming embodied human nature required becoming flesh as either male or female (or intersex). What is not assumed is not redeemed, so if women have been redeemed it must be that patriarchal gender theory is an ancient error. Every conceivable rationalization is being used to avoid facing the contradiction, but it is a visceral issue that cannot be resolved by reasoning alone. Indeed, Pope Francis’ openness is a sign of hope, but we have a lot of work to do. Come, Holy Spirit!

Steve, the Canons of LATER councils speak of Deaonesses as being in MAJOR orders.

Furthermore, the service for ordaining one is CHEIROTONIA, same as for Male Deacon, Presbyter, and Bishop, unlike CHEIROTHESIA, for minor orders of Reader and Subdeacon.//

I have given the link to the Byzantine service, where the similarities of Deaconess Ordination with that of a Male Deacon—even the principal prayers are the same—can be seen.

All of this has been studied and discussed and clarified by earlier popes.
The bishop of Rome knows this, of course.
His masters have given PF his orders. 
PF is very clever, indeed.

Dixibehr,

The term “deaconess” was being used in a different way than to refer to the diaconal grade of ordained ministry.

Thus the canons of the First Council of Nicaea (A.D. 325) refer to deaconesses that have not been ordained:

And we mean by deaconesses such as have assumed the habit, but who, since they have no imposition of hands, are to be numbered only among the laity (canon 19).

In other words, these deaconesses were servants or ministers in the Church but did not exercise ordained ministry.

You know, since this pontificate began, all we have talked about is what we can change.  When the world was suffering from eboli we had a synod on family life that said nothing new, but confused us about God’s revelation of himself to us.  Confusion reigns supreme. Catholics can now believe anything as long as they have a vague notion of a divine being.  We are all called to be deacons and deaconesses and get out there serving our brothers and sisters in the Church and our neighbours in the world. This proposal about deaconesses is designed to further undermine the faith and cause division and confusion.  And meanwhile we are too busy to serve neither our brethren or our neighbour. Shame on the hypocrisy of this papacy.

All these posts complaining how Pope Francis doesn’t really understand the vocations or the church teachings… well, one thing is becoming very clear, which is that Pope Francis certainly understands the Spirit of the Church.

Anyone who had the grace of consciousness in the Roman Catholic Church before the climactic changes of the Second Vatican Council knows the value, respect and affection religious sisters and nuns held in the minds of the faithful. It would be ahistorical and disingenuous to think otherwise. Their invaluable service – and that is to speak without affect or hyperbole – cannot be over-estimated. They were the primary means of evangelization in the United States, and I suspect in Europe and the Third World as well. We fractured, disassembled and junked the role of women in the Church at the urging of the heterodox. Now they proclaim women were oppressed in the Church before “the Council.” Religious women were criticized before the ravages of the Council for exercising too much authority!
Religious women were lied to and undermined by a heterodox clerical class with their own ideological agenda. Father “knew best.” Well, he didn’t either by design or ignorance and they succeeded in empting the convents that were to be found at every parish. The reestablishment of truly authentic religious life would be the route to undertake in restoring the vital role of women in the Church.
Today the decoy issue of the deaconess is before us—again. Anyone who has achieved the age of reason knows this to be a simple ploy to represent the issue of the priestly ordination of women. It is that, and nothing else. There is no running from the reality that we are once again in the grip of arm bending fraudulence. Is the pope part of this maneuver or a victim of it? In either event, that is a far more serious problem than the issue of women deacons.
If the need for female deacons were posited in utter sincerity it would be utterly opposite of the comportment of post-Christian male and female fascists of dubious religious commitment in their unceasing effort to conform the Church of Christ to their narcissism. These individuals require a vocation that requires some sweat in order to direct their attention to more pressing issues.

@ Dixibehr
This might help to clarify that deaconesses were not “ordained” in the same sense as male deacons. In the early Church, the office of deaconesses was akin to a minor order. A blurb from our eastern brethren might help to clarify the distinction.

“Those who are placed into the minor orders are done so by cheirothesia, which also means “laying on of hands,” but has come to be a technically distinct term from cheirotonia, which is used only for the major orders. According to the DEC (Blackwell Dictionary of Eastern Christianity), cheirothesia IS NOT regarded as part of the Holy Mystery of ordination.”—OrthodoxWiki

Dixibehr - what I mean to say is that I believe that our Pope is very misinformed.

I think that the readiness to say “I don’t know” is high with little knowledge, low with middling knowledge, and is high again with expert knowledge.

In general.

Bergoglio, a man from s country mired by 19th century ideas who considers himself a progressive for being mired by 20th century ideas.

“Let his days [in office] be few; may another take his place.” (Ps 109:8)

How is it possible that the pope is unfamiliar with the theological and historical parameters of the nature of the diaconate? How is it possible that the pope is unfamiliar with the research on woman and the diaconate that were concluded in 2002? The hubbub that orbited that study and its conclusions are not all that easily forgotten despite our best efforts. How is it possible that the pope would give credence to an appeal by Hans Kung to review infallibility? This would include “ex cathedra” statements by the pope, “de fide” definitions issued by ecumenical councils and the “ordinarium magisterium” comprised of doctrines that have been constantly taught and held. Essentially Kung and Pope Bergoglio are willing to review all the components of the faith including our understanding of Divine Revelation. Pope Bergoglio appears to have forgotten his theological studies and has not followed events since that time except for those that, for whatever reason, capture his attention or suit his perspective. Thus it appears necessary to establish a commission to yet again reexamine an issue well studied. Why can’t he pick up a book or two and study it? Why can’t he reference the report published in 2002? What were the qualifications this man had to be elected pope? What exactly is going on here? Deference offered once again to the wailing, whining and complaining of the aberrant, mastering their Alinsky tactics while undermining our confidence in the Church.
When questioned regarding the pope’s consent to study the issue Father Lombardi responded, “I think it’s too early to say what [the pope] has exactly in mind.”
That is the issue, really. What does the pope have in his mind?

Bonnie Baker, do you mean to say that only the Western European and North American prelates understand the Universal Church!

FIE!

In my opinion, there are fewer people more insular.

I will say it again. Speaking as an Eastern Christian, the Latin Church is NOT the totality of Catholicism, or even the standard.

One of the best ways to kill an idea, I’ve noticed, is to entomb, I mean, ENTRUST it to a Papal commission for study.

I get the impression that our Pope is not very well informed about church matters. It seems what he does best is cause confusion. He came from a South American culture and does not know about the universal church.

He seems to be speeding up.  Perhaps he senses that his time is short.

Daniel if you think the Church is a ‘Mickey Mouse outfit’ then you should indeed cease to be a deacon ...

Well, MAYBE the Pope will set up such a commission.  Another in the endless *clarifications* has been issued by the Vatican regarding the Pope’s off-the-cuff comments:

“Questioned by many, the Holy See spokesman, Fr. Federico Lombardi said the following afterwards:

“I think it’s too early to say what [the pope] has exactly in mind.”

I hope I live to see permanent women deacons in the Church.

Are you kidding me? How much more can our Church become a Mickey Mouse outfit? If this becomes reality, then I will stop functioning as a Deacon

I don’t know what ‘rampant pedophilia’ you are talking about Jean.  And most of the Priests I know, here and in the missions, are understanding and human and selfless in their service.  Being celibate does not lead to the temptation to molest children since the majority of child molesters are married; and pedophilia is rampant in schools and also in Churches where their clergy are married.

May 12, What a nasty uncharitable comment Andre.  Why are you here reading the Register when you state that few do (many do) - are you here to create discord not honest dialogue? That’s the devil’s work!

Is the Commission rigged like the Synod was?  Looks like he isn’t going to stop until the Church is unrecognizable.

While there were deaconesses in the early Church their position was never considered to be an aspect of the sacrament of Holy Orders nor were they ever admitted to Holy Orders or allowed to proceed to the priesthood in any way, shape or form.

Deaconesses were used in the early Church primarily for the purpose of preserving modesty in the baptizing and catechizing of women.

The distinction between male deacons and female deaconesses was an absolute one which didn’t and doesn’t allow any direct comparison.

These historical truths were clearly delineated in Cardinal Mueller’s book “Priesthood and Diaconate” and in the International Theological Commission’s 2002 study, “From the Diakonia of Christ to the Diakonia of the Apostles”

Of course, Cardinal Mueller is the current Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a position that will assure his strong influence and insight in any discussion related to this topic.

Judy you are the reason there are no vocations and young folks go to TLM.
Always thankful that very few read the register.

Is this what the Holy Spirit is Communicating?

Kasper again .....

I actually was interested in pursuing the diaconate some day.  IF it is opened to women, I really don’t think I would.

Female deacons in the early church were synonymous with schismatic and heterodox groups. Their only legitimate function was there to help with baptism by immersion, for the brief time when this was the norm, as it was deemed inappropriate for male clerics to be involved in the practical aspects of this baptism. St. John Paul II apparently already allowed a study into this question and deemed it impermissible. The problem with Blessed Paul VI allowing the re-establishment of the permanent diaconate is coming back to haunt us.

\\The Early Church had women deaconesses, but they did not receive the Sacrament of Holy Orders. \\

That’s not right, Steve.

Check the Byzantine office for ordaining deaconesses, which I have already given below. It takes place WITHIN the Divine Liturgy at exactly the same place ordaining a male deacon is done. Many of the prayers are identical.

OTOH, readers and subdeacons are ordained OUTSIDE the Divine Liturgy

\\And, yes we all know there were married priests in the early centuries of the Catholic Church. \\

There always have been and still are, Jean—in EASTERN Catholic Churches.

As I also said earlier, the Latin church is not the standard, much less totality, of the Catholic Church.

I believe the Church needs married, celibate, and religious order priests. All have different gifts and charisms and experiences to bring to their ministries.

My confessor is a married Melkite Catholic priest, and he’s the best I ever had.

Why don’t these “enlightened” priests and bishops go join a more “with it” church like the Anglicans or Unitarians? Do they think they know better than all the Popes before and Jesus himself? Seriously, I’d like to know!

You couldn’t make this stuff up.  Another waste of time.  But wait, no, it’s simply the next step toward wimen priests.  Bet on it.

Holy Father, where is your statement on Asia Bibi?

God Bless Holy Benedict

Here we go to kill vocation!
The data shows the altar girl is one of the major reason for boys are not around the altar.  now, ms. deacon telling them how to serve?  The ms.Deacon shares the sacricy with priest?  Actually, one of church at south, nuns, who are in full habit, pushing for altar girls.  Actually, ms.nun made the girl as a head of altar server. They dressed this girl like a priest without color.  So, do not go by outfit of nuns!

As we have seen, in every case imaginable, this that once a thing is possible in the Church it becomes not only the ordinary thing, but the only thing. This will destroy an authentic understanding of Holy Orders, the true nature of masculine and feminine, and breed new abuses and schisms.

Nothing to see here folks. Move along now.

The Early Church had women deaconesses, but they did not receive the Sacrament of Holy Orders.  If they’re looking to create the same level of “deaconesses,” I guess they can, but what, really, would be the point?  Aren’t we all called to serve as called vs. serve as we want to, according to our ego?  I suspect at the bottom of it is a desire to promote the acceptance of the notion of women priests.  And this can never be.  Even if a bishop laid hands on a woman and said all the proper words require for the Sacrament, nothing would happen.  Why?  Because the proper matter for this Sacrament is a male human being, just like the proper matter for the Eucharist is bread and wine.  Using Oreo’s and Coca Cola does not produce the Eucharist, regardless of intent and form.

There were deaconesses in the early Church for centuries.  This is clearly established and well documented.  It is vitally important to notice, however, that the function of deaconesses was primarily for the purpose of adult baptism, that is, the baptism of women by full immersion.  For obvious reasons, the Church did not want male priests and deacons doing full immersion (naked) baptisms of grown women; and so deaconesses filled this role (the minister of Baptism does not have to be a man, for example in cases of imminent death a woman is both allowed and encouraged to Baptize). 

As the Catholic encyclopedia notes (cf. New Advent for the encyclopedia), several early Councils specifically indicate that deaconesses are consecrated rather than ordained in the sense of Holy Orders; only a man can receive Holy Orders, because that sacrament is intrinsically linked to the person of Christ.

If the Pope wants to bring back a consecration of women to a very clearly delineated role of deaconess, distinct liturgically from a deacon and having no connection to Holy Orders whatsoever, I think this could be within the bounds of Tradition and possibly beneficial.  If there is any confusion at all about the distinction of Holy Orders, if there is any sense of a wedge opening a door to “priestesses,” if there is any liturgical chaos related to reading the Gospel or giving homilies (which are not part of the deaconess’ role in the Church), then it would be a devastating and incredibly destructive thing, helping to further blind people to the reality of sexual difference. 

The priesthood is not “male only” in the sense of excluding women; it is male, in the sense that pregnancy, childbirth, nursing with one’s own milk are female.  To give birth is not “female only” in some oppressive way.”  So also, to celebrate the Eucharist is inherently male because it is the nuptial act of Christ the groom who gives himself in love to his bride the Church.  The concept of a “female priest” is fundamentally a rejection of the marriage of Christ and the Church.  There is room in the Church for more female input, for more female leadership, for more of the genius of women to be heard; there is no place for a destruction of the Eucharist and the eschatological wedding feast that the Eucharist makes present.

Being that there are no other comments on this topic, as of the moment of my writing this; I suspect opinions such as mine, are being filtered out.  At least the moderator will hear my opinion.  Oh well, here goes anyway.  Maybe the Register will surprise me and allow this to post… nah, it won’t.

Why does this pope seem so interested in changing anything and everything about the truth of our beautiful Catholic faith?  He appears to be much more interested in revolutionary views than about preserving the faith once delivered.

So d—- depressing.

If there were Mrs.Deacon, I am gonna take vacations from pope Francis roman catholic church! 
He ought to Sep Up Commissions on ;
Why to loose Vocations?
Why younger generation go for TLM?
In my humble opinion the hippie fathers are digging wrong spot!
they don’t get it!

Pope Francis is a prophet.  Yes, we all know there were female deacons in the early Christian Church.  And, yes we all know there were married priests in the early centuries of the Catholic Church.  Let’s move on and recognize that Jesus wanted female ordained deacons and supported marriage for priests.  It would make our priests so, so much more human and understanding.  And, who knows, it might help reduce rampant pedophilia in our Church.

When will this stop?  It’s something new every day.

This is interesting in light of Card. Mueller’s comments when asked to study the issue: https://zenit.org/articles/women-deacons-a-perspective-on-the-sacrament-of-orders/

Perhaps Pope Francis is unaware of the fact that such a commission was already convened and finished its very excellent work.  See “INTERNATIONAL THEOLOGICAL COMMISSION: From the Diakonia of Christ to the Diakonia of the Apostles*
(2002)” on the Vatican website at http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_con_cfaith_pro_05072004_diaconate_en.html

Jesus and Scripture have always been clear ... Divorce and re-marriage is adultery, period.  The early deacons, (Stephen, etc.) were all men.  These are all simply attempts to move “beyond Jesus” and sing a new Church into being, one that ignores the teaching of Christ and the Apostles for modern day politeness.

But don’t deacons also help the priest celebrate Mass, such as folding linens and such at the altar, wiping the chalice after Holy Communion and such that I don’t believe women should be doing?  They’d also be involved in reading the Gospel, and fling homilies.  I don’t understand the need for them.  After all, women serve as lecters and EM ministers, and also as altar servers in some cases.  Maybe I’m an anti feminist, but I do believe women are already involved in the church. I myself am a lecter because we don’t have enough men volunteering!  I would much prefer men doing this.  It’s not that women are incapable, but I think men should be assisting the priest during Mass, and doing the duties a regular deacondoes.  Also, I believe women deaconesses in the early Church probably participated in charitable works, making sure that the linens and vestments the priests used were clean ( which they do today) and perhaps providing lodging for the Apostles.

I have nothing scholarly or wise to contribute.  I only have what I am thinking.  I’m thinking that if I see myself on a slippery slope in this Church, I can go somewhere else where there’s music that doesn’t make me cringe.  It’s down to that. C.

I look to heaven on high and ask whence cometh help.

How did we end up with a Protestant Pope?