Women Deaconesses?
When Two Women Put Pope in Communication Problems
It had not happened in the past, when only the Pope and his Council of Cardinals met, that details about topics addressed were ventilated in a public way.
Two individuals have done disservice not only to the great multitude of discreet women that are outside and inside the Church, but also to the Pontiff himself.
FEBRUARY 10, 2024 18:39JORGE ENRIQUE MĂJICAANALYSIS
OPINION, (ZENIT News / Rome, 10.02.2024).-
The official communication of the Holy See Press Office regarding the content of the meetings in early February 2024 between Pope Francis and his Council of Cardinals (the so-called C9), stated that one of the three topics addressed was the role of women in the Church.
But what they said, which has spread more widely, is what the non-official communication transmitted (in reality, it should be called indiscretion): that women’s Diaconal Ordination can be taken for granted in the Catholic Church.
The indiscretion came from two women, who were present in the Pope’s Council as experts. On one hand, a Catholic woman theologian and, on the other, an Anglican woman “bishop.”
In an interview announced on the cover of the Spanish magazine “Vida Nueva,” the Anglican “bishop” Jo Bailey Wells admitted that the invitation left her totally surprised.
And she also gave more details about the topic she was asked to address. “I was asked to talk about the experience of the ordination of women in the Church of England and in the Anglican Communion.
This included some antecedents, the process of decision-making and the impact it had for our Church. But I also talked somewhat more generally about what we had learnt through the process in terms of how to surf the change and address the differences.”
Mrs Wells commented that those present “spent more time listening than speaking,” although later she acknowledged that, more than a request for advice, “it was rather a seminar in which we sat together to listen ( . . . ) as colleague, as ministry companion in Christ’s Gospel, to share the recent history of women in our Church.”
Ands she added: “I know that on the part of Pope Francis there is a willingness to explore, to assume some risks, to exercise the imagination in regard to the possibilities of change.”
Wells had already made some statements to the Anglican News Service saying virtually the same but with fewer words.
Asked if she thinks Anglicans are going farther than other Christian denominations in gender equality, Mrs Wells said that “It seems we are going ahead of the Catholic Church in regard to helping women to take advantage of the gifts granted to them in the whole gamut of possibilities at the service of God.”
Women Deaconesses? When Two Women Put Pope in Communication Problems | ZENIT - English