Packing the Court in a Stealth Holy Week

There are so many wonderful things being written in preparation for this Covid-19 Easter that I am as frustrated as could be by the Spy Wednesday announcement of the new Women Deacon Commission.

In Philadelphia, our Stealth Holy Week began with a HOLY MONDAY celebration of the Chrism Mass with 36,000 viewers, according to the Archdiocese. The response of those of us who have witnessed for women’s ordination outside this mass on Thursday for over forty years ranged from “secret rituals” to “Didn’t these 2 guys in the pew get the memo?!?”

Whether the announcement of the Deacon Commission was timed to the traditional celebration of the institution of the priesthood on Holy Thursday is not clear; certainly the Vatican’s English website buries it among the Holy Week stories.

“Packing the court” refers to the attempt of 1930s Great Depression President Franklin D. Roosevelt to raise the number of justices on the United States Supreme Court to increase the likelihood of agreeable verdicts. This comes to mind because of the anticipated consensus of those appointed to study the question of deacons, now not only in the early church but also in light of the need for priests identified by the Synod on the Amazon.

And what would that consensus be expected to be? Despite Francis’s oft-proclaimed desire to eliminate clericalism, this is a nod to it. The appointment of two American permanent deacons who are leaders in formation reminds me of the concern expressed in the Vatican that the “viri probati” who might be made deacons in developing countries would not be sufficiently trained.

Other members have researched ordained ministry, liturgical celebrations, the New Evangelization, deacons and women deacons – the latter not favorably.

Nevertheless, WOC welcomed the creation of the commission. Quoted extensively in The Tablet, our statement “supports a commission that is open to the movement of the Spirit.”

Women have been protagonists in the history of our faith since the time of the Gospels, something we are particularly reminded of this Holy Week. We do not need to prove our sacramentality. The ability of our bodies to manifest revelation is not up for debate.

We have heard the cries of the people of the Amazon and around the world for this ministry to be restored. We pray that the overwhelming historical evidence of women deacons, and the urgent need for women’s ordained ministries, guides the work of this commission to formalize a path toward ordination for women by recognizing the sacramental work that women already do. 

WOC moves the discussion beyond the particular appointees direct to the Holy Spirit and the cries of the people, in contrast to the UK’s Catholic Women’s Ordination and Women’s Ordination Worldwide. Following up with another commission is much better than what I feared – that women deacons and expanding the formal roles for women would be ignored.

And I am intrigued by one member, Anne-Marie Pelletier. Last fall, she was interviewed in the La Croix International effort to collect the thinking of mostly European theologians about women.

In reflecting on the daughters of Jerusalem, she writes: “Not that women alone should weep, as if it were their lot to grieve, passive and helpless, as part of a history that men alone are called to write.” She goes on to highlight Etty Hillesum, “that courageous woman of Israel who remained undaunted amid the firestorm of Nazi persecution.”

Today, Holy Saturday, is that moment between Good Friday and Easter, and Pelletier reflects on it. She speaks about how the women approached the tomb:

they hasten their step, the Gospel tells us, when the Sabbath had passed. Mysterious hastening, which is a contrast to the discouraged walking of the disciples of Emmaus, on the evening of the same day, submerged in their disappointment. And it is thus that it is women who, being the first, learn the unexpected, the unimaginable, the incredible <truth> of what the Father did for the Son, which he will do henceforth for all those that will be engendered by Him to filial life.

Not exactly the way I might have phrased it, but this gives me hope, the Easter virtue. Perhaps the court is not totally packed.