Pope Francis has accepted a proposal to form a commission to assess the merits of ordaining women as deacons in the Roman Catholic Church. Here is one male Catholic in the pews who applauds and hopes the Holy Father will move quickly and decisively to make it happen.
To justify this plea and to find evidence of women’s devotion, one turns to the critical role of women in the Passion and Resurrection of Our Lord. As Christ carried the cross, He greeted the women of Jerusalem — the women, not the male apostles who had gone into hiding for fear of the Romans and the Jews.
In another episode, Veronica steps out of the jeering crowd to wipe the sweat and blood from the brow of Our Lord who was struggling under the weight of the cross. It was Veronica, a woman, not Peter nor any of the other 10 apostles who sought to ease the suffering of Christ.
Especially moving, Christ stops to greet his mother. Sometimes we may forget that Mary was human and subject to all the emotions of a parent. Anyone who has lost his or her own child, no matter the age, will understand the anguish Mary felt as she watched her son beaten, nailed to the cross, and die a slow and agonizing death.
The Blessed Mother was joined at the foot of the cross by Mary Magdalene and other women. The only man who came to be with Christ in his time of torment was the Apostle John. After Christ died, Joseph of Arimathea asked for the body of Jesus and laid him in his tomb in the burial cloths in which the women had wrapped him.
Most telling, it was to the women that God announced the Resurrection of Christ, the central truth on which all else in Christianity rests. When Mary Magdalene and the other women arrived at the tomb early on the third day, the angel of the Lord told them: “He is risen, he is not here.”
The women, in turn, brought the vital news to Peter and the Apostles and they began to spread it to the other followers of Christ. Later, in the early church, St. Paul tells us that women served alongside men as deacons, preaching and baptizing but not celebrating the Eucharist. They also undertook administrative duties.
Surely today, with the widespread shortage of priests, the Catholic Church and the parishioners in the pews could be well served by able and dedicated women ordained as deacons.
Richard Halloran
Hawaii Kai
