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s2smodern

What are the stakes for the Church?

On March 6 and 7, the Centre Sèvres organized two conferences on the theme of the feminine diaconate with Fr. Bernard Pottier SJ, theologian, member of the International Theological Commission and of the Commission on the feminine diaconate instituted by Pope Francis, and Joëlle Ferry, Xavière, professor emeritus at the Institut Catholique de Paris. Fr. Étienne Grieu sj, president of the Centre Sèvres, relates these evenings.

Study commission

In August 2016, Pope Francis relaunched the reflection on the possibility for the Church to ordain women deacons, with the creation of an official Study Commission on the feminine diaconate, in which Fr. Bernard Pottier sj, participated. The role of this Commission was to study the role of women deacons in the early Church and to reflect on the possibility of restoring this practice.

From the work of the papal commission it emerges - it was no secret! - that there was indeed a female diaconate: more important in the East than in the West, we see the last traces of it in the 12th century. Were these women ordained ministers or lay people with a specific mission?

Two conferences at the Centre Sèvres

Fr. Bernard Pottier SJ provides the arguments that lead us to believe that they were indeed ordained. He points out that it is also a question of interpreting facts that appeared in a completely different context than ours, with necessarily other problems than those of today.

Joëlle Ferry insists on the sign that women's access to diaconal ordination would represent today. Very active in the Church, they become invisible in the liturgy, as if the major actors in the relationship with God were men. This absence weighs heavily.

It is undoubtedly to this that we owe, in the life of the Church, the existence of a real "glass ceiling": from a certain level upwards, all important decisions are taken by men. The Church can quite easily re-establish a female diaconate. But here we feel a deep hesitation. No doubt we need the boldness of the Spirit!

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s2smodern