Bishop Emil A. Wcela makes the case for expanding the diaconate to include women (America Media)

Can women receive sacred orders? Let us consult several authoritative sources. Canon 1024 of the Code of Canon Law states, “A baptized male alone receives sacred ordination validly.” In 1994 Pope John Paul II said, “I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful.” And the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has weighed in on the issue more than once. A statement in 1995 read, “This teaching requires definitive assent, since, founded on the written word of God and from the beginning constantly preserved and applied in the tradition of the Church, it has been set forth infallibly by the ordinary and universal magisterium.” And in 2010 the doctrinal congregation stated, “both the one who attempts to confer sacred ordination on a woman, and she who attempts to receive sacred ordination incur a latae sententiae [automatic] excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See.” And so the issue is settled.

Or is it?

Continue Reading at America, The Jesuit Review

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Witness
“Being able to be educated on who St. Phoebe is and giving others the chance to meet her, being part of a community of women who promote an inclusive model of the church, and seeing my own community come alive and heal from division provides a vision of what can and will be possible one day in the Catholic Church.”
Kathleen O'Brien
Maryknoll Bay Area Regional Coordinator in the Mission Formation Department
Witness
“I have witnessed these women become Catholic high school teachers, professors, writers, administer parish life and leaders of prayer services. Women have been my peers and supervisors, except in diaconal ministry. I continue to hold out hope that women’s gifts for ministry and service can and will be acknowledged by the church.”
Fr. Tom Cwick, SJ
Pastoral Minister, North Side, St. Louis, MO
Witness
“I am grateful as a pastor and a part of the BCCs here to learn and journey together with others. As a priest in our community, I am proud to be a part of this ministry to uplift women who are struggling. It is great joy and fulfillment. In my personal life, I have experienced the richness of acknowledging and uplifting the witness of women in the early Church and also in our Church today.”
Fr. Vincent Dsouza, SJ
Pastor and Base Christian Community Leader, India

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