In
mid-September, I accepted an award from an American Catholic group called FutureChurch. They wanted to recognize
me for having brought up the issue of women’s roles in the Church during the Synod
on the family last year, particularly their access to the permanent diaconate.
I didn’t know much about this group and readily accepted readily, without
imagining my decision could cause controversy.
Well, it
did. The day I was to receive the award, a blogger wrote to tell me this group
was heretical. He referred to a few interventions by members of the group who seemed
to take issue with some teachings of the Church. At the heart of the accusation
was the group’s public support for the ordination of women to the priesthood, a
position that Pope John Paul II had rejected in quite powerful terms in his
letter Ordinatio sacerdotalis, published
in 1994.
I did not
have time to verify these accusations and decided to accept the award. As I told
the blogger, I felt it was important to practise dialogue in our Church and to build
bridges. As it turns out, I made the right decision. An exchange of emails with
the executive director of FutureChurch in the following days helped me
understand the source of the misunderstanding.
Here is what she wrote me.
FutureChurch works for Vatican II reforms within the Church. Our
mission, vision and all our initiatives focus on the needs of parish based
Catholics. In 1990, when Catholics from across the Cleveland diocese
gathered under the leadership of Fr. Louis Trivison and Sr. Chris Schenk,
FutureChurch educated about the priest shortage and, because we believe the
Eucharist is central to Catholic life, advocated for new discussions of married
priests and women as priests. But we ended our advocacy for women’s
ordination to the priesthood when Pope John Paul II issued Ordinatio
Sacerdotalis because we wanted to continue to work within the Church.
That is a critical distinction that we continue to uphold and it shapes
our work with Catholics and with those in the hierarchy. Thus, we do not advocate for the ordination of women as
priests and have not done so for more than 20 years…
We have chosen to educate and advocate for the ordination of women to
the permanent diaconate, an effort that began in earnest during the 2005 Synod
on the Eucharist where we delivered over 30,000 signatures to the CDF asking
them to open the discussion again after the 2002 ITC [International Theological
Commission] report.
We believe the female diaconate is important because we recognize that
integrating women into our governance and ministerial structures will help us
carry out the work of the Gospel more effectively. For instance, in terms
of violence against women (…) we believe that when women are
deacons, Catholics will hear much more preaching about ending violence
of all sorts against women (…) When women are more fully integrated
into the leadership and decision making structures of the Church, our teaching
and policies will more effectively address these issues of violence against
women and a whole host of other challenges we face.
I uphold the work of FutureChurch as a service to the wider
Church. Our supporters are faithful Catholics – still active and involved
in their parishes. Many have told us that being a part of FutureChurch
has helped them to stay loyal to the Church because it gave them a voice to
speak about their pain as Catholics. We ask questions and work for change
because we love the Church.
Now, one
can agree or disagree with FutureChurch
as to the advisability or even possibility of ordaining women to the diaconate.
However, the International Theological Commission’s 2002 study clearly affirmed
that this was an open question within the Catholic Church. So we cannot call a
group heretical or in dissent for supporting this option.
And we
cannot call a group heretical or in dissent for having held a position which,
at the time, was not against Church doctrine. The fact that the group renounced
that position once the Pope had spoken authoritatively indicates, to the
contrary, that this group regards faithfulness to the Church as a sine qua non of its identity and work.
I hope this
clarification his helpful to all concerned.
