A Big Deal

So many people responded “what’s the big deal” to Pope Francis’ change to Canon Law allowing all laypeople to be acolytes and lectors that I am going to say it IS a big deal. 

I’ve edited what I wrote to my grandson: “This is so important to me right now because it’s a chink in the armor that I’ve been fighting for 40 years. Women in these roles — which I’ve done, even training lectors for the Burlington diocese — have always been provisional, allowed by individual bishops but not really authorized to be in these roles. So it’s like being able to cast a real ballot, to use an example of ‘provisional’ from our current politics. In this case there’s absolutely no power but this change adds an ‘entitlement,’ another frequently disparaged term but important to those denied the right. We’ve argued that the theology the Pope uses here should affect everything — that all people are equal ‘by virtue of their baptism.’ The rest is sexism masquerading as theology.” 

 Let’s focus on the theology for a minute. The WOC press release says it well: 

Pope Francis said this development recognizes that some ministries in the Church are founded on the common priesthood of all the baptized. WOC prays that he follows that logic, which is sound theology, to its natural conclusion: that all genders have “put on Christ” through the sacrament of baptism and should not be barred from fulfilling an authentically discerned call to ordination. 

The Pope using that language in an official document—especially in Canon Law—is a big deal. It’s also a big deal that he understands it to be “a doctrinal development [that] has been arrived at in these last years.” He’s not saying we’ve always done it this way. 

Recently Francis has been trying to expand roles for women. The Vatican news release says: “Now, in the wake of the discernment which has emerged from the last Synods of Bishops, Pope Francis wanted to formalize and institutionalize the presence of women at the altar.” I would argue that the Synods wanted more than this, but change is change. 

The New York Times reported: “The decree in itself ‘is not a radical shift,’ said Kate McElwee, executive director of the Women’s Ordination Conference, which fights for gender equality in the church, including the right for women to become priests. ‘But the church recognizing widely accepted practices by Catholics around the world and taking the steps to be more inclusive is a radical thing,’ she added.” 

Exactly, and bravo to our staff for excellent media placement. There are churches around the world where reading the scriptures or being Eucharistic ministers (not to mention altar boys) is restricted to “suitable” men, which sounds a lot like the “viri probati” we heard so much about at the time of the Synod on the Amazon. 

This little “big deal” change can stir up lots more questions. In the letter explaining the change of the law, Francis says he’s expanding that to “male and female.” Robert Shine in the New Ways Ministry blog points out: “Left unclear is whether transgender, non-binary, and gender non-conforming people similarly must be welcome to these liturgical roles. These Catholics have, in a sense, been denied personhood in a church discourse tied to gender complementarity. More broadly, in too many instances many parish volunteers have been and still are being dismissed from liturgical and other parish roles when an LGBTQ identity becomes known.”

McElwee suggests to the Guardian that women are also serving as pastoral ministers, and reporter Angela Giuffrida takes it further to refer to a previous campaign: “A huge number of women serve within the church around the world, outnumbering men in some countries, but they are denied the privilege of voting at Vatican synods because they are not ordained.” 

WOC program associate Katie Lacz goes in another direction when talking to NBC Detroit, connecting this issue to church advocacy for human rights. If it “treats…its members in a way that denies 50 percent equality, that advocacy, that witness, feels hollow.” 

And deacons are one more of probably an infinite series of questions to be explored following this big deal. Phyllis Zagano has begun a substantial series in NCR’s Global Sisters Report on the diaconate and religious life. In addition to a great deal of background, the first article establishes the parameters: “The specific vocation to the ordained diaconate is not a replacement for religious life, nor is it a replacement for the priesthood. But, just as with the priesthood, the ordained diaconate can coexist with religious life.” Something else I never thought of, and probably it will muddle the answer to the question as of those who want to be ordained: “Why don’t you just become a nun?”

The last question I want to explore is the first one I thought of when I heard this news on the BBC: the Pope did it himself. Just like condemning capital punishment, the Pope on his own initiative changed Canon Law in favor of women. While he says he’s done it “after having heard the opinion of the competent Dicasteries,” (basically Vatican offices), it’s his initiative. If he can do it for acolytes and lectors, he can do it for priests and deacons. As I said before, anything else is “sexism masquerading as theology.” And doing that would be a big deal, indeed.