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The Church Has Ways It Can Move with Phyllis Zagano · Tomorrow's American Catholic Podcast

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  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Tomorrow's American Catholic.
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  SPEAKER_00: This is the official podcast of Tomorrow's American Catholic,
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  SPEAKER_00: a journal and publishing platform animated by a central question.
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  SPEAKER_00: Who is Tomorrow's American Catholic,
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  SPEAKER_00: and how is their understanding of themselves,
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  SPEAKER_00: their faith, and their church evolving in time?
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  SPEAKER_00: In each episode,
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  SPEAKER_00: we speak with a spiritual practitioner who helps us envision new forms
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  SPEAKER_00: of Catholic culture and ways of being church.
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  SPEAKER_00: Our guests come from a range of backgrounds and traditions,
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  SPEAKER_00: and we seek to proceed in a spirit of contemplative hospitality and synodal dialogue
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  SPEAKER_00: where we can learn from one another.
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  SPEAKER_00: We thank you for taking some time to listen with us today.
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  SPEAKER_00: If you're interested in exploring further,
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  SPEAKER_00: you can find additional podcasts as well as our written work at our website,
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  SPEAKER_00: tomorrowsamericancatholic.org.
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  SPEAKER_00: And now on to today's conversation.
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  SPEAKER_00: Phyllis Zagano is the author or editor of 27 books in religious studies and hundreds
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  SPEAKER_00: of articles and reviews in popular and academic journals.
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  SPEAKER_00: She's recognized as one of the foremost authorities on the Diaconate of Women.
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  SPEAKER_00: In 2016,
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  SPEAKER_00: Pope Francis appointed her to the initial Pontifical Commission for the Study of
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  SPEAKER_00: the Diaconate of Women.
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  SPEAKER_00: Dr. Zagano holds a research appointment at Hofstra University in Hempstead,
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  SPEAKER_00: New York,
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  SPEAKER_00: And her most recent book is called The Vatican and Women Deacons,
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  SPEAKER_00: which was published in April by Orbis Books.
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  SPEAKER_00: The book traces the fascinating history of six Vatican commissions since 1973
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  SPEAKER_00: that have discussed restoring women to the ordained diaconate.
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  SPEAKER_00: So Phyllis Zagano, thank you so much for joining us on Tomorrow's American Catholic.
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  SPEAKER_01: Phyllis Zagano Well, it's great to be here with you and good to see you.
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  SPEAKER_00: Dr.
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  SPEAKER_00: Likewise, likewise.
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  SPEAKER_00: We generally start our podcast interview with a little,
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  SPEAKER_00: just to orient our listeners, just a little bit on your spiritual background.
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  SPEAKER_00: If you'd like to share anything about your early relationship to the church
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  SPEAKER_00: or how you became interested in the issue of the women's diaconate,
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  SPEAKER_00: just any autobiographical points you might want to share with us.
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  SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, it's interesting.
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  SPEAKER_01: It's not a question I get often.
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  SPEAKER_01: But in the beginning of the book, I talk about an interesting experience.
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  SPEAKER_01: I was finishing my PhD at the State University of New York in Stony Brook,
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  SPEAKER_01: where I studied actually religion and literature.
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  SPEAKER_01: And as I was finishing the degree,
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  SPEAKER_01: I began studies at the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception,
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  SPEAKER_01: which was the major seminary for the Diocese of Rockville Center and the Diocese
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  SPEAKER_01: of Brooklyn, both in New York.
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  SPEAKER_01: And I went, I interviewed, and I told the interviewers I was there to study to be a deacon.
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  SPEAKER_01: And they said, well, you're too smart to be a deacon, we'll put you in the priest track.
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  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
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  SPEAKER_01: I said, well, you know, whatever.
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  SPEAKER_01: And I didn't take a lot of courses there.
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  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, in the first,
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  SPEAKER_01: I think the first semester,
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  SPEAKER_01: I had made friends with some of the seminarians,
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  SPEAKER_01: and they A couple of them called me up and said that the Apostolic Nuncio,
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  SPEAKER_01: who is the Pope's representative to the United States,
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  SPEAKER_01: the Apostolic Nuncio at the time Jean Jadot,
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  SPEAKER_01: Archbishop Jadot,
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  SPEAKER_01: would be visiting the seminary and that we were to wear house cassock and sash.
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  SPEAKER_01: Well, I didn't have house cassock and sash, so I wore a yellow pantsuit.
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  SPEAKER_01: And I attended.
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  SPEAKER_01: We had a mass, and I sat basically in the nosebleed seats.
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  SPEAKER_01: They had choir seats, and the most junior people sat in the highest places.
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  SPEAKER_01: Then I had a lunch, and my friends put me on the end of the table in the refectory.
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  SPEAKER_01: So I was right next to the aisle and the bishop,
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  SPEAKER_01: and the nocio came in after everyone was seated.
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  SPEAKER_01: And the bishop knew me.
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  SPEAKER_01: Because he had played basketball with my father.
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  SPEAKER_01: And he was on my side, I think.
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  SPEAKER_01: And he said, Phyllis, what are you doing here?
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  SPEAKER_01: I said, I'm in studies.
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  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, the lunch proceeded and a young priest who appeared to be or turned out was
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  SPEAKER_01: the secretary to the nuncio,
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  SPEAKER_01: said the nuncio would like to see you in the front hall.
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  SPEAKER_01: And I was brought into the front.
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  SPEAKER_01: I went into the front hall.
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  SPEAKER_01: And he interviewed me,
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  SPEAKER_01: the Nuncio,
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  SPEAKER_01: Archbishop Jean Jadot,
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  SPEAKER_01: for about 20 minutes, asking me why I was there, what I was doing, and all that.
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  SPEAKER_01: And I said, well,
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  SPEAKER_01: I came to study to be a deacon,
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  SPEAKER_01: but they told me I was too smart to be a deacon to study in the priest track,
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  SPEAKER_01: but I really came to be a deacon.
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  SPEAKER_01: And as I said, he interviewed me for 20 minutes, and he said, don't quit.
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  SPEAKER_01: You know, basically said, you're right, don't quit.
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  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, if you move fast forward, Michael...
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  SPEAKER_01: To the last time I saw Pope Francis in person,
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  SPEAKER_01: I guess about maybe a year or so before he died, I said,
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  SPEAKER_01: you know, if you want me to stop writing and speaking about the diaconate, I will.
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  SPEAKER_01: No need to fight.
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  SPEAKER_01: If your answer is no, the answer is no.
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  SPEAKER_01: He said, no, no, no, you must keep doing what you're doing.
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  SPEAKER_01: Don't quit.
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  SPEAKER_01: So at either end of my life, I was at the seminary a long time ago.
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  SPEAKER_01: I had church officials telling me to keep studying and writing and speaking about
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  SPEAKER_01: the diaconate for women, which is not a different diaconate.
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  SPEAKER_01: We're talking about women being ordained as deacons in the Roman Catholic churches.
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  SPEAKER_00: That's really nice.
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  SPEAKER_00: The book ending there between the Archbishop and Pope Francis, both encouraging you to go on.
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  SPEAKER_00: In the book, you've done this amazing job of tracing the whole history.
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  SPEAKER_00: So can you give us just a breakdown of history?
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  SPEAKER_00: These six different commissions, why has it been 50 full years?
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  SPEAKER_00: What's the genealogy of this issue?
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  SPEAKER_01: They can't say no.
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  SPEAKER_01: They just don't want to say yes.
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  SPEAKER_01: That's basically it.
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  SPEAKER_01: You know, the discussion really goes back to Trent.
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  SPEAKER_01: In Trent,
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  SPEAKER_01: there was a movement to make the diaconate a specific and separate order
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  SPEAKER_01: as it had been.
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  SPEAKER_01: The diaconate kind of faded around the
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  SPEAKER_01: Deacons, number one, controlled all the money.
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  SPEAKER_01: And number two,
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  SPEAKER_01: that for the most part,
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  SPEAKER_01: not only in Rome,
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  SPEAKER_01: but in other places in Europe,
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  SPEAKER_01: the deacon was being elected or chosen as the bishop when the bishop died.
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  SPEAKER_01: Now, why does that matter?
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  SPEAKER_01: Well, because the Bishop of Rome is the Pope.
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  SPEAKER_01: So we have 36 or so Popes who were never priests.
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  SPEAKER_01: They were deacons.
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  SPEAKER_01: They were chosen as the bishop,
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  SPEAKER_01: consecrated as bishop, and became the Bishop of Rome, and thereby the Pope.
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  SPEAKER_01: So in Trent,
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  SPEAKER_01: it never really went any place to move the deaconate back as a full
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  SPEAKER_01: and separate order.
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  SPEAKER_01: I kind of think because they knew,
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  SPEAKER_01: you know, the memory of women ordained as deacons was very fresh then.
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  SPEAKER_01: Women were actually ordained as deacons later, as far as I know.
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  SPEAKER_01: There were more women ordained permanently to the deaconate as deacons than men,
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  SPEAKER_01: shall I say, between the 12th and 16th century.
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  SPEAKER_01: We always had Ceremonial deacons,
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  SPEAKER_01: male deacons,
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  SPEAKER_01: but we know that women were ordained in Lucca in Northern Italy in the middle of
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  SPEAKER_01: the 12th century.
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  SPEAKER_01: Bishop was Ottoni.
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  SPEAKER_01: He apparently didn't get the memo and he just kept ordaining women
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  SPEAKER_01: as social service deacons, which is very interesting and very important.
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  SPEAKER_01: Certainly in the East,
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  SPEAKER_01: the diaconate continued far longer for women And in fact,
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  SPEAKER_01: just two years ago in Harare,
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  SPEAKER_01: Zimbabwe,
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  SPEAKER_01: the Orthodox Church of Greece,
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  SPEAKER_01: Metropolitan Seraphim ordained a woman, Deaconess Angelique, to the role of deacon.
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  SPEAKER_01: It was affirmed by the Synod of Alexandria in all Africa that she is sacramentally ordained.
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  SPEAKER_01: Metropolitan Seraphim told me that he used the same ceremony that he uses for men
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  SPEAKER_01: and that she is ordained as a deacon.
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  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, between Trent and the Second Vatican Council,
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  SPEAKER_01: there was discussion about the diaconate and actually continued discussion on
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  SPEAKER_01: whether the women deacons of history were sacramentally ordained.
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  SPEAKER_01: But once the Second Vatican Council essentially restored the diaconate as
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  SPEAKER_01: a permanent vocation,
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  SPEAKER_01: the question of women in the diaconate came to the fore as well.
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  SPEAKER_01: And that's pretty much the short beginning of my book.
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  SPEAKER_01: I talk about...
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  SPEAKER_01: The contemporary discussion between priests named Grison and Montemort,
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  SPEAKER_01: two French-speaking priests,
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  SPEAKER_01: one of whom says,
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  SPEAKER_01: yes, women were sacramentally ordained, the other one who says they weren't.
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  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's important to think about that,
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  SPEAKER_01: the history question, because history alone is not dispositive.
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  SPEAKER_01: We can't say that every single woman known as a deacon or deaconess buried under a
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  SPEAKER_01: A tombstone that says D-I-A-K.
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  SPEAKER_01: We can't say every single one was ordained sacramentally,
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  SPEAKER_01: but we can't say none one of them was.
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  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's an important point.
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  SPEAKER_01: So I think the history discussion is almost moot,
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  SPEAKER_01: except for the fact we do know factually that there are liturgies used sacramentally
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  SPEAKER_01: for men and for women.
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  SPEAKER_01: I think right now of the sacramentary of Egbert of York,
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  SPEAKER_01: which is an 8th century Latin liturgy that just simply says,
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  SPEAKER_01: if you're going to ordain a woman, use these pronouns.
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  SPEAKER_01: If you're going to ordain a man, use these pronouns.
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  SPEAKER_01: So anyway, after the council, the discussion continued.
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  SPEAKER_01: And in 1973,
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  SPEAKER_01: Pope Paul established a commission on the role of women in society and
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  SPEAKER_01: the church.
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  SPEAKER_01: And that's the first commission that I studied.
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  SPEAKER_01: And it's very interesting that I got to study it because the archives were closed.
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  SPEAKER_01: Until I was almost finishing this book, actually.
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  SPEAKER_01: So I had access to closed archives in the dicastery for the laity.
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  SPEAKER_01: And it turns out during that, there was discussion.
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  SPEAKER_01: Women were saying, why can't we be deacons?
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  SPEAKER_01: And the discussion said, because the diaconate implies the priesthood.
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  SPEAKER_01: And that's one of the problems.
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  SPEAKER_01: Concurrently, in 1969, the International Theological Commission was created.
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  SPEAKER_01: At the beginning was a group of about 30 men who would advise the Congregation for
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  SPEAKER_01: the Doctrine of the Faith, and thereby the Pope, about matters of theology.
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  SPEAKER_01: And that commission took up the question of women in the diaconate,
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  SPEAKER_01: and I was told It's secondhand information I get.
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  SPEAKER_01: I was told that Pope Paul VI asked a priest named Vagagini,
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  SPEAKER_01: a Benedictine,
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  SPEAKER_01: asked Vagagini specifically,
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  SPEAKER_01: he was an expert in Eastern liturgy, could or were women ordained as deacons?
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  SPEAKER_01: Could they be so ordained again?
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  SPEAKER_01: And his answer was yes.
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  SPEAKER_01: And Vagagini wrote a paper and himself and a Jesuit named Nemeshege during
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  SPEAKER_01: that first International Theological Commission.
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  SPEAKER_01: They pressed for a vote saying, you know, it's no big deal.
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  SPEAKER_01: Women were ordained as deacons.
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  SPEAKER_01: The diaconate's not the priesthood.
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  SPEAKER_01: You know, let's do it.
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  SPEAKER_01: But the conversation in the International Theological Commission was guided away
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  SPEAKER_01: from the diaconate toward the priesthood.
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  SPEAKER_01: And so eventually,
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  SPEAKER_01: after that commission closed,
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  SPEAKER_01: but in 1976,
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  SPEAKER_01: the International Theological Commission published its opinion
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  SPEAKER_01: that women could not be ordained as priests.
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  SPEAKER_01: That was known as inter insigniores.
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  SPEAKER_01: And in its presentation,
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  SPEAKER_01: the secretary of the commission said, this has nothing to do with the diaconate.
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  SPEAKER_01: So the first was the commission on the role of women in society and the church.
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  SPEAKER_01: The second was the first quinquennia of the International Theological Commission.
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  SPEAKER_01: The academic debate then really took off in the middle.
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  SPEAKER_01: I have a chapter about that.
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  SPEAKER_01: And then we have another quinquennium of the International Theological Commission,
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  SPEAKER_01: Which prepared a 17-page paper,
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  SPEAKER_01: and I'm told this by a member of that commission,
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  SPEAKER_01: now deceased, that it was 17 pages long.
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  SPEAKER_01: It said women deacons are no big deal.
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  SPEAKER_01: It was printed.
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  SPEAKER_01: It was numbered.
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  SPEAKER_01: The entire commission voted on it, but it was not promulgated.
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  SPEAKER_01: The president of the International Theological Commission by that time was also
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  SPEAKER_01: the prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith,
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  SPEAKER_01: and he refused to sign the paperwork.
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  SPEAKER_01: So it was never promulgated.
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  SPEAKER_01: His name was Joseph Ratzinger.
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  SPEAKER_01: And in fact,
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  SPEAKER_01: it was Ratzinger who,
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  SPEAKER_01: in the first Quinquennium, steered the discussion away from the diaconate.
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  SPEAKER_00: Just because you brought up Joseph Ratzinger, but there's an interesting, I think, irony.
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  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you could talk a bit about, didn't he disentangle the priesthood from the diaconate?
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  SPEAKER_00: Was it 2009 you write about how he separated those out?
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  SPEAKER_00: Could you talk about that idea?
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  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, that comes later.
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  SPEAKER_01: You see,
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  SPEAKER_01: it's in the sixth quinquennium of the International Theological Commission,
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  SPEAKER_01: which met between 1997 and 2002, that a document finally came out of the ITC.
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  SPEAKER_01: And what that document says is,
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  SPEAKER_01: well, we don't think women deacons were the same as men deacons, but you know what?
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  SPEAKER_01: This is something the magisterium has to decide.
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  SPEAKER_01: Well, who's the magisterium at the time?
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  SPEAKER_01: The magisterium is Pope John Paul II.
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  SPEAKER_01: However,
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  SPEAKER_01: there's an interesting footnote in that document,
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  SPEAKER_01: and that document kind of mixes up the priesthood and the diaconate,
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  SPEAKER_01: but in a footnote,
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  SPEAKER_01: it says that there is underway a revision to canon law to clarify the distinction
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  SPEAKER_01: between the diaconate and the priesthood.
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  SPEAKER_01: And that is what you are referring to,
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  SPEAKER_01: actually,
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  SPEAKER_01: in 2009,
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  SPEAKER_01: this document called Omnium in Mentum,
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  SPEAKER_01: signed by Pope Benedict,
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  SPEAKER_01: Joseph Ratzinger,
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  SPEAKER_01: which clearly distinguished, it basically says the diaconate is not the priesthood.
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  SPEAKER_01: And it can't say that because it's actually echoing what Lumen Gentium 29 says after
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  SPEAKER_01: the Second Vatican Council that the deacon is ordained to the ministry,
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  SPEAKER_01: not to the priesthood.
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  SPEAKER_01: It also echoes what is in the Catechism of the Catholic Church,
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  SPEAKER_01: describing the diaconate as not part of the priesthood.
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  SPEAKER_01: So that's really one of the core issues in this entire discussion.
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  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, it was in 2016,
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  SPEAKER_01: actually now 10 years ago,
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  SPEAKER_01: that the International Union of Superiors General had their triennial meeting.
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  SPEAKER_01: And at the end of their meeting, typically they would receive an address from the Pope.
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  SPEAKER_01: But by that time we have Pope Francis and Francis said to the sisters
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  SPEAKER_01: that he would accept six questions.
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  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if this is really clearly defined in the book,
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  SPEAKER_01: but the sisters then polled their 26 constellations, they call them.
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  SPEAKER_01: It's a huge organization.
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  SPEAKER_01: I think there's something like 1,500 women who are heads of religious institutes in the world.
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  SPEAKER_01: They polled their constellations and then collated the questions to give the pope.
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  SPEAKER_01: And the first and second questions really refer to women preaching and women deacons.
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  SPEAKER_01: They said, you know what?
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  SPEAKER_01: Women religious today do the work of the diaconate.
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  SPEAKER_01: Why can't we be ordained as we were in the early church?
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  SPEAKER_01: And the pope said, well, that's a good idea.
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  SPEAKER_01: I'll see what we have on that.
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  SPEAKER_01: And he acted very quickly.
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  SPEAKER_01: And in August of 2016,
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  SPEAKER_01: I was among 12 people,
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  SPEAKER_01: the only one from the Western Hemisphere,
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  SPEAKER_01: to be named to the Pontifical Commission for the Study of the Deaconate of Women.
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  SPEAKER_01: And we met for two years.
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  SPEAKER_01: As you must know,
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  SPEAKER_01: if you have two academics,
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  SPEAKER_01: you'll have four opinions, so you can well imagine the conversation among 12.
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  SPEAKER_01: But it was a very, very fine bunch of theologians.
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  SPEAKER_01: The chairman of the theology department of the Pontifical Gregorian University,
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  SPEAKER_01: the President of the Franciscan Seminary over there,
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  SPEAKER_01: members of the International Theological Commission, a professor from Sapientia.
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  SPEAKER_01: There were six men, six women appointed.
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  SPEAKER_01: Not all came,
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  SPEAKER_01: not all stayed,
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  SPEAKER_01: but we presented a fairly interesting, I think, paper that discussed the issues.
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  SPEAKER_01: We finished in June of 2018,
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  SPEAKER_01: and about a month later,
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  SPEAKER_01: I saw an email,
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  SPEAKER_01: I received an email that was a thank you note from Pope Francis to,
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  SPEAKER_01: at the time,
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  SPEAKER_01: Cardinal Ladaria,
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  SPEAKER_01: who was Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith,
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  SPEAKER_01: thanking us for our work.
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  SPEAKER_01: A year later,
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  SPEAKER_01: in May of 2019,
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: the International Union of Superiors General had their triennial meeting,
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: and I was actually there in the aula.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: When Pope Francis gave the sisters what he called the little they agreed upon.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: And a few months later, the sisters showed me what they got.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: And about in early January of 2020,
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: the president of the International Union of Superior General,
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: Jolenta Kafka,
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_01: told the Global Sisters Report,
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: which is part of the National Catholic Reporter,
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: that They had received the history portion of our documents,
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: and they were told in the meeting in May of 2019 they could do
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: with it what they wanted.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: They could publish it if they wished,
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_01: and they were also told that he had more documents that they could ask for.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: Over the years, I've asked them to publish it.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: I've asked them to ask for more, and they refuse.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: I'm told it's in a folder in their offices called Confidential,
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: but It's apparently only confidential to them because
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: the Pope said they could publish it.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: So that was that.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: And the discussion continued.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: The Amazon Synod met in 2019,
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_01: and that synod,
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: two-thirds of the language groups of bishops,
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: it was only bishops, requested women deacons.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: And so in responding in a press conference,
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: the Pope Francis said, I will recall the commission.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: I'll recall the people.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe I'll add a few people to it.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's what he said, but nothing happened.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_01: And then in April of 2020...
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: He named a totally new panel.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: He named 10 people, five men and five women, mostly catechists.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: They really weren't highly published scholars.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not aware that any of them was an expert on this field.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: One or two may have written a thing about it.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: But when I was asked by American Cardinal to take a look at them
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: and review their work,
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: I estimated that the vote would be,
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: at best, Six against 4-4, but more likely eight against 2-4.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: And that was simply based on their public statements and the little they had written.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: So they met.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: It took them a while because of COVID.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: They met twice in September of 2021 and July of 2022.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: And again, nothing was published.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: Their reports were not published.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: And then we have the synod.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: So the Senate starts in October of 2021.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: It meets in Rome in October of 2023, October of 2024.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: At the October of 2023,
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: Synod said,
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: you know what,
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: we want to see the reports of these two commissions,
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: the first and second commissions called by Francis.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: And what happened then is the Synod office says that they've created,
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: actually it turned out to be 15 study groups,
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: five on process, but 10 on issues, what the media calls hot button issues.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: And study group five Would be taking up the question of women in the diaconate.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: And anybody who wanted to send anything in could send it to study group five and to
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: the Senate office.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: So you then have in 2024, study group five, and no one knows who belonged to study group five.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: All the other study groups had names and pictures of who belonged,
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: but anybody knew about study group five was that an official of the Congregation for
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: the Doctrine of the Faith was in charge of it.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: And they put on an interim report, which had nothing to do with the diaconate.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: It spoke about exemplary women in various roles of service,
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: not all ministerial services,
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: actually none of them ministerial services, some of them church services.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we're talking about Joan of Arc.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: Matilda of Canossa was the first one on the list.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: She was, I guess, a princess.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: She ruled the top half of Italy,
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: or the top third of Italy during But none of
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: the women named really did anything involved in ministry.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: And in fact, I think all of them lived after the diaconate for women had gone away.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: So there was nothing there.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: There's no there there.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, the synod met.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_01: People were upset.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: There were discussions, and I recount this during the synod meetings.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Study Group 5, there was a lot of, it seems, some secrecy around that group.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: I know you recount the 2024 meeting of the synod where...
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: They presented,
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: but the photos that were projected behind them were not really,
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: they didn't line up with the rest of the study groups and it was,
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: people weren't quite sure who was in that particular group.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: There seems to be a lot of secrecy around that issue and a lot of punting between
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: the second commission and the study group.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to say usurped by the Second Commission,
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: but the issue of women, the diaconate, was taken over by them in some ways.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: Well, no, it was punted to them.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: My feeling is that if you recall,
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: a couple of years before, Francis said he needed a theology of the woman.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: I think that that document really is the response to Francis's question about women
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: in the church.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: It had nothing to do with the diaconate.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: At the 2024 October meeting, a very thin report was presented.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: Then they said,
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: I think Matteo,
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: Mancino Matteo was supposedly the chairman,
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: but they had a meeting and he didn't show up at the meeting.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_01: There were a hundred people in the members of the Senate and others who came
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: to this meeting and The only people who signed up were a young priest from Chicago,
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_01: actually, who was an officer of the CDF or DDF.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if it became the dicastery by then.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_01: And a secretary.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: And they handed out a piece of paper in six languages,
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_01: which basically said, if you have any comments, send them to this email.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_01: So there was a kind of upsetment.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_01: And within,
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: I think,
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: two days,
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: The women of the Synod,
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_01: it turned out,
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: about 50 of them met with Pope Francis and let him know what they thought.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know that it helped.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_01: It certainly didn't hurt.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: But in retrospect,
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_01: we find out that everything that was sent to Study Group 5 was sent to
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_01: the Second Commission, which was recalled and met in Rome in February of 2025.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_01: The next thing we see is that just last December,
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: In 2025,
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_01: they put out a report from Cardinal Petrocchi,
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_01: who was the chair of the second study group.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_01: Cardinal Petrocchi is the retired Cardinal Archbishop of Aquila in Italy.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: And it's hard for me to characterize the document.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_01: It was published only in Italian.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: It was published in early December of 2025.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_01: It was dated earlier in September of 2025.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: And it doesn't report substantially, it reports opinion votes.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: And it doesn't report complete opinion votes, because here's what happened.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: When the first commission,
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_01: that commission was named, the second commission was named, they named 10 people.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: At the first meeting,
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_01: one person was sick and did not attend, and he was immediately replaced, okay?
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_01: At the second meeting, two people were sick.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_01: So now you have the one replacement, seven original members, and two original members sick.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: So you have 10 votes from the first meeting, eight votes from the second meeting.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_01: Now you get to the third meeting,
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_01: one of the original members had died,
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_01: one of the sick members returned,
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: the replacement was there,
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_01: and so was the first person Who didn't attend the first two meetings.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: So now you have two meetings.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: So now you have a report that reports on a selected number of votes
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_01: on strangely worded propositions and no vote.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_01: None of the votes.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_01: The votes from meeting number one are by a different panel from the votes
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: of meeting number two, which are different from the votes of meeting number three.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: So...
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: I often say to people,
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_01: if you're an attorney and a judgment like that is handed down,
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: you'd be all excited because it'd have to be overturned on appeal.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: But the fact that it was only published in Italian,
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: I actually translated and wrote a commentary on it in America Magazine in March
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: of 2026.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: They published the translation and commentary.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's embarrassing.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's not even as good as the 2002 International Theological Commission Report,
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_01: which at least had a few footnotes to documents.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_01: So it's an opinion written by a cardinal who I think is trained as a psychologist.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_01: He's retired with kind of a strange collection of votes.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: We don't know.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's this one, that one, this one, that one.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: After that came out,
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_01: then you have the final report of study group five,
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: which eliminates the women diaconate question and is basically a cleaned up version
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: of what was presented as an interim report in October of 2024.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: So that's kind of where it stands.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_01: So where are we now?
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: What do we think about?
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_01: What do we talk about?
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: What will happen tomorrow?
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: Even though the second commission's report perhaps was lackluster,
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: as you just explained,
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: is there a sign of hope just in the fact that Leo allowed it to be published?
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: I know you write a little bit in the book about how maybe it shows that he's open to
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: the discussion continuing through 2028 through the Synodal Assembly because he
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: at least chose to make this public.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: Well, choosing to make that public without making a professional report done
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: by my commission public, I think is a little bit disingenuous.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_01: I think nothing certainly will happen before the Ecclesial Assembly of 2028.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: He was asked,
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_01: in October of 2025 by the female head of the synod team for Europe,
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_01: we want women in leadership, we want to ordain women as deacons.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_01: And he said the question was culture.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: The question of culture.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: The problem is, yes,
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: there are cultures that cannot accept a woman,
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: shall we say, boss, that may be upset about a woman near the sacred.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: But I think the signal culture that is the hardest culture to convince
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_01: that women are made in the image and likeness of God,
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_01: that women are able to represent Christ,
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_01: the single culture that's the hardest is the Vatican culture.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_01: That's the culture.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody ever saw the Pope praying with a female Archbishop of Canterbury before.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, I was like, oh, give me a break.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_01: The rest of the world sees female pastors all the time.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_01: And yes,
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_01: the Archbishop of Canterbury being female is a very big deal,
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: but I think people are a little bit able to understand that women are people too.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_01: In any event,
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_01: what can give us hope, though,
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_01: is if you recall,
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_01: after the Amazon Synod,
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: Pope Francis established or changed canon law,
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: actually,
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_01: to say that any layperson,
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_01: male or female, could be installed as a lector or acolyte.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_01: And some months later,
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_01: he created the office,
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_01: shall we say, of Installed Catechist, a new kind of ministry for laypeople.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_01: Now, what does this mean?
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_01: Well, yeah.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, we don't need to have installed women as lectors and acolytes.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_01: They've been doing this forever.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_01: Well, excuse me.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_01: To be installed permanently, formally to a ministry is a big deal.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_01: And in fact,
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_01: in order to be ordained as a deacon,
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_01: you have to be installed as lector and acolyte for a year or so.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_01: And performing these ministries before you're ordained as a deacon.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: That's one point.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_01: Secondly,
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_01: in terms of the acolyte,
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_01: the rubrics require an acolyte to wear an alb and to be on the altar.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_01: And acolytes installed do special things.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_01: Installed acolytes are permitted to purify the vessels, for example.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: Acolytes are ordinary ministers of communion.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_01: The other part about being an installed lector,
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_01: aside from the fact that they would have a certain amount of training,
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_01: is that the lector, the installed lector, reads from the ambo.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_01: And the earliest permissions to have women as lectors specifically said
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: that they had to read from outside the altar rail.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_01: So here we have a point where women and men, laymen...
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: Formally installed,
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_01: can be on the other side of the fence, can be near the sacred, can be at the altar.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: And the point of the catechist, it's a new ministry.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's not to replace the diaconate, but it is a person who is to be a witness to the gospel.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_01: Now, what does that mean?
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it means more than religious instructions,
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_01: but it also implies a certain amount of training and training by the bishops.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_01: I've talked to a couple of bishops about this, and I said, well, you know what?
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_01: The only people who can preach are clerics involved in a mass.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, it has to be a cleric.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_01: The law and the rubrics say,
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_01: basically,
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_01: even if the cleric is unable to celebrate,
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_01: but he's present on the altar,
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_01: you know, say a bishop presiding or an elderly priest, that person can preach.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_01: Well, certainly in the United States,
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_01: but in other places,
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_01: you have Father Missioner,
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_01: Showing up from the sacristy at every single mass and then going back to
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_01: the sacristy.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_01: So now we already have a precedent of someone not,
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_01: certainly a cleric,
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_01: but someone not involved in the celebration of the Eucharist preaching.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I've talked to bishops and said, you know what?
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_01: If you had a catechist installed whom you had trained,
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_01: would you have any problem giving or requesting a derogation?
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_01: For that person to have faculties to preach, he said no.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that's an avenue for lay preaching that we have not fully investigated.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the total of that discussion,
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_01: Michael,
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: does lead itself to the ordained diaconate for women,
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: because as the church becomes used to seeing women particularly vested
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_01: or wearing albs as acolytes,
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_01: perhaps even as lay preachers, I think then the so-called cultures...
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_01: That are upset about restoring the tradition of ordaining women
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_01: as deacons would kind of fold and recognize that yes,
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_01: it's kind of a new area in heresy to say that women can't image Christ.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_00: I like what you said about the role of catechist being almost like a bridge
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: to get people used to this idea,
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: because I know we just saw,
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: I think the Germans,
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: bishops wrote to the dicastery for the doctrine of faith about lay preaching,
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_00: and they were turned down pretty forcefully.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: So there might be a way to,
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: by employing these new ministries, at least have a pathway for more lay preaching.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think it'd be important.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the church is an organization that has rules and regulations.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_01: And how is it possible to certify an individual as a lay preacher?
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_01: And this new ministry of catechists,
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_01: which has not yet been brought anyplace really that I know of in the church,
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_01: how could that be developed so that the individuals would be so understanding of
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_01: the gospel?
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_01: Because,
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's a kind of interesting idea to have a preacher talk about the gospel
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_01: and not about his latest movie he saw or his mother or something else.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_01: And it could return the interest and the focus of preaching on the gospel.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_01: In the United States,
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_01: there are two dioceses that I know of that install women and men to lay ministries.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_01: The Diocese of Lexington, Kentucky, installs women as,
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_01: Galveston,
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_01: not Galveston,
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_01: Houston,
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_01: San Antonio,
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_01: Bishop Garcia Silla, since 2022 has been installing women as lectors and acolytes.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_01: There are a couple of dioceses,
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_01: Galveston, Houston, and St. Louis, that only install men as acolytes formally.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_01: And one of their websites says,
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_01: well, you know, we're waiting to get instructions from the USCCB.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the USCCB has been studying this for a while.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_01: They have not had any real report from the committee that's run by
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_01: a bishop named Michael Woost from Ohio.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_01: He's an auxiliary bishop.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_01: He's a liturgist.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_01: They may have a report in November of 2025 and would hope to have a, excuse me, November 2026.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_01: But I think the problem is not Lecters and Acolytes,
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_01: the problem is they're doing it as a package and wanting to figure out
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_01: the catechist ministry.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_01: It was some years ago,
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_01: I would say in 2022,
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_01: that the USCCB,
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_01: the US Conference of Catholic Bishops Liturgy Office,
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_01: put out in its newsletter that You can install what you bishop can install women
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_01: as lector and acolyte and just use the same liturgies and change the pronouns,
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_01: which is the same instruction given in the eighth century by Egbert,
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_01: the Bishop of York on ordaining women as deacons.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_00: Amazing historical connection.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it'll come,
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_01: but in terms of a,
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_01: I was asked by the National Catholic Reporter,
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_01: not too long ago, what kind of advice would you give Pope Leo?
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_01: I would say, well, you simply have to say, there's no doctrine.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_01: There's no doctrine against ordaining women as deacons.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_01: We have conciliar documents in the early church that say you can ordain a woman a deacon.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_01: We have papal letters in the 11th century saying you can ordain a woman as a deacon.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_01: We have canon law from the Maronite Church saying,
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_01: From the 18th century that says you can ordain a woman a deacon.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_01: He just has to make it clearly understood that it depends on the culture.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_01: It depends on the territory.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_01: It would depend on the USCCB deciding that bishops in
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_01: the United States could have women ordained as deacons,
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_01: as well as bishops in Salem and Central and South America.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_01: And then when you get that understanding, any bishop does what he wants.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_01: If a bishop doesn't want women as deacons, well, he doesn't have to have them.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_01: No one is forcing him to do anything.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you even bring that up when you write about the Amazonian Synod,
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: where you talk about even parts of the Amazon are moving at different speeds.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know,
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_00: there's freedom among the different bishops to select what path is best
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_00: for their flock.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that just makes sense.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, and, you know, Selam and Sayama have presented an Amazonian rite.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_01: To the dicastery for divine worship in Rome, and that includes a request for women deacons.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I think in terms of tomorrow, what's the hope?
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_01: I would think in terms of the diaconate,
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_01: it's certainly necessary to And could come more quickly in places like Australia,
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_01: Canada, and Central and South America, and New Zealand, actually.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_01: The German argument is a different one and a difficult one because some people,
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_01: many people who argue for the diaconate of women in the diaconate
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_01: in Germany are really arguing about priesthood.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_01: And they still haven't understood that the diaconate does not imply the priesthood,
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_01: as did the church in its first half of its history,
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_01: which is why it kept electing deacons as bishops without making them priests.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_01: But the church,
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_01: the question of synodality is really uppermost in,
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_01: I think, everybody's mind in this respect.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_01: We have to move...
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_01: As a group, but not in lockstep.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_01: In the Navy, they have an expression, steer your own course, but stay within the fleet.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's what synodality means in terms of your reference to bishops
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_01: in Central and South America, understanding what to do in their own flocks.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_01: You steer your own course, but you stay within the fleet.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_01: You do what's necessary for you, for your people.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I think at this point,
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_01: what's necessary for the people of God in the United States is for the USCCB
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_01: to recognize and fully argue that women are made in the image and likeness of God.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I really blame worldwide.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's not just Catholics that suffer when you have a Vatican document, which...
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_01: The Petrochi Report,
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_01: which is the report of the Second Commission that we discussed earlier,
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_01: the Petrochi Report basically implies that women cannot image Christ.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_01: It talks about the nuptial meaning of salvation, which no one I know has ever heard about.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_01: No one knows what they're talking about.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_01: But it almost denies the resurrection.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's almost a neo-Arianism.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_01: And when you do that,
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_01: When you say that women are,
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_01: as they did in the really four-century-long creole de femme in Europe,
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_01: the question of whether women are the same species as men,
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_01: when you indicate that women are somehow a subspecies or second rate,
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_01: you're not only speaking to Catholics, you're speaking to the whole world.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_01: And so I would blame the Catholic Church for supporting, really,
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_01: encouraging wife beating,
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_01: encouraging dowry burning,
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_01: encouraging FGM,
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_01: female genital mutilation, encouraging all sorts of horrible things.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_01: In some countries, women can't go out the door without a male escort.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_01: They don't have freedom to choose whom they marry.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_01: There are terrible things.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_01: Women, really, until the last century, were considered chattel.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_01: In many countries, and still are.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know the number,
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_01: but there are a significant number of countries where women are considered chattel,
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_01: are owned by the males in their families.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_01: So if the church is going to encourage the world to believe in the humanity
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_01: of women, the church has ways it can move.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_01: It needs to overcome the roadblocks which are embedded in In the psyches of some,
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_01: to my mind,
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_01: very malformed clerics and others who have misunderstood not only the history of
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_01: the church, but the present today and the future.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_00: There's a very strong refutation of the iconic argument so-called in your book.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_00: You write, it's beyond offensive to imply that women cannot signify the risen Lord.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_00: And based on what you're just saying, it's not even just offensive.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's almost heretical, as you're saying.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_00: So I wonder,
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_00: Phyllis,
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_00: if you could,
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_00: just as some clarification for our listeners,
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_00: just speak a little bit about the distinction between ordination and installation,
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_00: those two things and how they play into this conversation.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_01: As the church developed,
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_01: people had different jobs, and they were certified, recognized different ways.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_01: And so when you get to Middle Ages,
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_01: you have a couple of minor orders,
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_01: four minor orders, porter, lector, acolyte, and exorcist.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_01: And you have major orders, subdeacon, deacon, priest.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_01: And eventually that kind of got solidified into what they call the cursus honorum,
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_01: the course of honor.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_01: The first thing you did was you were made a cleric.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_01: You had tonsure.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_01: Well, all of a sudden, when this is happening in the 12th century, women are out.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_01: And then there's a minor blessing,
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_01: usually in the sacristy,
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_01: when a cleric who's going through the steps is blessed as a porter electorate.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_01: Then an acolyte and an exorcist.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_01: And then you have the ordination to the major order of subdeacon and the major order
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_01: of deacon and the major order of priest.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_01: We don't have bishops ordained until after Second Vatican Council.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_01: They were always consecrated.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_01: So go figure.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_01: In any event, at the Second Vatican Council after it, Pope Paul VI collapsed the minor orders.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_01: So he collapsed the duty and title of Porter, Lecter,
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_01: Acolyte,
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_01: and Exorcist,
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_01: and the Major Order of Subdeacon into two installed offices, Lecter and Acolyte.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_01: And so installation is a formal liturgy,
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_01: it's a blessing,
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_01: it's not an ordination,
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_01: and people are generally,
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_01: if you want to listen to Trent, Our permanently lectors are permanently acolytes.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_01: That's what Trent wanted.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_01: But the hangover of the cursus honorum is still in our church,
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_01: so you have to be a lector and then an acolyte in order to be ordained a deacon.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_01: Ordination now is a sacrament, and there are three grades, deacon, priest, bishop.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_01: But as we mentioned at the top of the hour,
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_01: In 2009,
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_01: with a document called Omnium and Mentum,
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_01: Pope Benedict XVI codified the distinction between the deacon and the priest
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_01: and bishop.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_01: And that is, there's no really history of connection.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_01: There's some attempt to conjoin the deacon and the priest and As the discussion
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_01: of women deacons percolates, but that was absolutely shattered in 2009.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_01: So it's just not there.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_01: So that would be the distinction.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, the subdiaconate is no longer there, so we don't have to worry about that.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_01: And that really only went out 60 years ago, the subdiaconate.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_01: So I can see Francis's wisdom,
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_01: and I think also that of Pope Leo, because he's quite synodal himself.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_01: And in Peru,
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_01: when he was the bishop in Checulejo,
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_01: had no problem having women managing parishes and operating in quasi-diaconal ways.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_01: But there's one thing that we need to return to.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_01: After the Amazon Synod, Pope Francis presented a document called Great Amazonia, Dear Amazon.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_01: And in it, he also spoke about parish life coordinators.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's Canon 517, Paragraph 2.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_00: I was going to ask you about this.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_00: This is good that you bring this up.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_01: So that canon allows an individual not ordained and possibly not installed,
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_01: a religious married person, male or female, to be the coordinator of the parish.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_01: I have seen this in action.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_01: I remember in South Pasadena,
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_01: California, actually about 10 years ago, there was a woman running the parish.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_01: She hired, she actually had two priests in residence.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_01: She had a huge staff.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_01: And the person is the animator of And this is the example I've written about,
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_01: if Sister Mary is running the parish,
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_01: and this is the Pope's recommendation,
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_01: make her a parish life coordinator,
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_01: make it an official title, and by implication, give her a salary.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_01: If sister has a vocation to the deaconate, fine.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_01: If she doesn't, fine.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_01: She's in charge of the parish.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_01: And that's an important thing because suppose actually
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_01: the Amazonian discussion includes the ordination of married men as priests.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_01: Suppose Jack the plumber,
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_01: who's a deacon,
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_01: gets ordained a priest and the ordinary response would be,
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_01: well, we've got Jack now, he's the pastor.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_01: And the church needs to understand, no, Jack is the sacramental minister.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_01: He was the sacramental minister as a deacon.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_01: Sister Mary is still in charge of the parish, whether she's ordained as a deacon or not.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_01: And that, I think, is an interesting way to think about things.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_01: I remember years ago talking to the bishop in Albany.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_01: He had 10 really cats and dogs.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_01: He had male religious,
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_01: female religious,
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_01: married woman, married man, layman, running parishes out in the hinterlands.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's a big diocese in terms of square miles.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_01: And he said that the canonical pastor,
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_01: you have to have a canonical pastor when you have a parish life coordinator.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_01: The canonical pastor was the vicar general.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_01: Because he wanted it to be known that the parish life coordinator was running the parish.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_01: I think you find the United States in a lot of areas,
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_01: particularly in the Northeast,
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_01: where there are twinning parishes and you have priests who are supposedly
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_01: the pastors of two parishes.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_01: And inevitably,
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_01: two of them die and one lives,
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_01: you know, because it's impossible to have a single head.
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_01: It just doesn't make sense of three different cultures.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_01: If you've got the Italian parish next to the German parish and a German pastor,
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_01: well,
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_01: the Italians are not going to give them a parish life coordinator,
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_01: and then the parish will live and the German pastor can be the sacramental minister.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's a gross example, but different parishes have grown.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_01: In different socioeconomical groupings and relationship to other areas.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I know I can think of a couple of areas in New York State where it just doesn't work.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_01: And it's a shame because vibrant parishes without a pastor,
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_01: even if they have a priest in residence,
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_01: don't have an individual to focus the energies of the parish to say,
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_01: you know, this is us and we're going to have a parish party.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_01: And we're going to do this.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know,
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_01: it's just,
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_01: even when they're not that far apart,
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_01: one example I give you,
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_01: they may be 10 miles apart, and it's just failing, just totally failing.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_01: But again,
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_01: in terms of bringing hope,
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_01: as long as we have a synodal discussions,
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_01: and as long as the bishops who are not supporting synodality retire,
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_01: I know there was one cardinal at the most recent consistory of cardinals that said,
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_01: well,
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_01: you know, as soon as we get rid of the synodality business, the better.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know,
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_01: as long as we have intelligent clerics,
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_01: specifically bishops,
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_01: who are not threatened by lay involvement,
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_01: and as long as we have lay people with the energy to get involved,
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_01: which is the other problem,
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_01: the Vatican II people are getting older and they don't care.
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_01: And as I said earlier,
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_01: they're tired of listening to fellas preach about their movies that they saw
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_01: or their mothers.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_01: And you just can't,
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_01: even just the other day, a woman said, oh, we have a new priest in the parish.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_01: I so want to go back to mass, but I can't stand the pastor.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_01: And it's, you know, it's too hard to listen to him talk about Trump.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I mean, just anyway.
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there are some good resources springing up around.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_00: There seems to be a hunger for women preaching or just lay preaching in general.
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_00: I've seen a lot of resources over the past few years that are connecting people with
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_00: that and just meditating on the scriptures in a way that I think is necessary.
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_00: So this has been great, Phyllis.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_00: We're kind of at the top of the hour.
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_00: I believe the book was sent out to several bishops in this country.
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm wondering if you've gotten any feedback from bishops about the book.
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_01: The book is The Vatican and Women Deacons, and it's really a deeply researched book.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_01: It had research from archives in several countries.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_01: Every bishop in the United States and a few auxiliaries have received the book.
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_01: A couple of them have said they received it.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_01: And in response,
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_01: I've written to a couple of them and said,
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_01: would it be possible for us to talk about lectors,
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_01: acolytes, catechists, and deacons by Zuma in person?
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_01: Two of them have said, oh, we're too busy, too busy to talk to you.
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_01: And that to me is emblematic of dismissal of women and the dismissal of synodality.
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_01: And a couple of others, you know, I'm on vacation, let's get together soon.
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_01: And in response to the follow-up letter, seven of 194 bishops responded.
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_01: So if you want to have a gauge on whether the bishops care about women in
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_01: the church, I will say, I think you're in Connecticut.
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_01: And the letter and book to Frank Caggiano bounced.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_01: So apparently it was a bad address.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_01: So we'll try and try again.
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, well, it is deeply researched.
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_00: I can attest to that having read it.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_00: you just did heroic labor for all of us to bring these historical threads together,
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_00: not only with the history of the diaconate itself,
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_00: which you go into the early church,
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_00: but really bringing us up to speed on all of these various commissions and just how
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_00: the arguments developed over 50 years.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_00: And God bless you for carrying on the good work and presenting it to us
• 52:01
  SPEAKER_00: as we go forward into 2028.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_00: And hopefully the Synod will As they say, what the Holy Spirit wills cannot be held back.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_00: And thank you for dedicating the book to people of the Synod and people of a synodal heart.
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_00: It was, I think, a great keystone for the reading experience.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you.
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_01: And good luck to you with all your good work.
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Phyllis.
• 52:20
  SPEAKER_00: God bless.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 52:39
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• 52:42
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• 52:46
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  SPEAKER_00: We thank you for taking some time to listen with us today.
• 53:35
  SPEAKER_00: And we invite you to continue to join us in discovering Tomorrow's American Catholic together.