About a year and a half ago, I wrote an article on the Samaritan woman of the Gospels in connection with the Holy Father’s 2021 opening of the ordinary ministry of acolyte and lector to women of good character. Taken alongside his establishment of the ministry of catechist as an ordinary ministry open to both men and women, the question arises, “Will these changes enhance the ministry of the Church in our parishes?”
St. Augustine reminds himself, and us, that hierarchical office in the Church is not for personal aggrandizement. Order is for service; power is a burden, to be accepted with trepidation.
“When I am frightened by what I am for you, then I am consoled by what I am with you. For you I am the bishop, with you I am a Christian. The first is an office, the second is a grace; the first is a danger, the second is salvation.” (Sermon 340)
In The Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare wrote that the quality of mercy is ‘twice blessed’; so, too, the mission of Catholic women in the Catholic Church. Catholic women who work in or for the Church in parish or diocesan forums receive from their labors many blessings and joys. Likewise, the Church is nourished by their talents and insights. Every pope since the Second Vatican Council has recognized the essential and unique role of women in the mission of evangelizing and catechizing the world.
Pope St. Paul VI, on the occasion of the closing of the Second Vatican Council (December 8th 1965) best explained the Church’s embrace of an increased role for women in society and within its own mission. “But the hour is coming, in fact has come, when the vocation of woman is being achieved in its fullness, the hour in which woman acquires in the world an influence, an effect and a power never hitherto achieved.” The development of secular trends towards justice and equality in how women and men interact has impacted the manner in which Catholic women expect their ministry in parishes, schools and chanceries to be respected and valued. Pope Paul spoke of the Church’s needs for women ‘impregnated with the spirit of the gospel’. The saint adds: “As you know, the Church is proud to have glorified and liberated woman, and in the course of the centuries, in diversity of characters, to have brought into relief her basic equality with man.”
In the wake of the Second Vatican Council, and partly driven by that same change in the dignity of women in the Church, renewed appreciation of the sanctity of the lay baptized led to the blossoming of liturgical participation by men who were neither ordained nor those in minor orders progressing towards the priesthood. It is a common misunderstanding to attribute these changes solely to the fruit of the reflections and decisions of the bishops gathered in Rome from 1962-1965. The need for the restoration of liturgical renewal and for the re-establishment of lay participation has its roots after the French Revolution as the certainties of the ancient regime crumbled, leaving the Church as disoriented as civil society. Into that gap stepped men such as Prosper Guéranger of the priory of Solesmes, who influenced Pius X and Pius XI to reopen long-shut doors to lay participation in liturgical celebration.
Post-conciliar recovery of ancient practice and deeper reflection on the royal priesthood of the baptized led to the abolition of the minor orders of porter, exorcist and sub-deacon. Though these offices were of very ancient origin, they did not achieve the status of orders until the second millennium. Through the Motu Proprio Ministeria quaedum, issued on August 15, 1972, Pope St. Paul VI kept the minor orders of lector and acolyte, renaming them ‘ministries’ and confining them to men who possess the age and qualifications established by decree of the conference of bishops.
The Christians who have offered themselves for sacred ministry have come in a variety of personalities and performances. Some have been clerics; some have not. Some have been lovers of poverty like Francis of Assisi; some were scholars like Aquinas; others have been like Cyril of Alexandria and have ruled by fear; some have ravished the children in their care, while others have nourished the innocent and the young. No matter who one may be, saint or sinner, clergy or laity, and no matter how badly an initial call may be betrayed, the call of ministry is universal.
Opposition to the admission of women to the ministries is widespread on the more conservative websites and among some rank-and file priests and seminarians. The usual concern is this is the tip of the spear in a pernicious campaign to have women priests. But matters of discipline are not immutable, and they change from culture to culture and from rite to rite. The inclusion of women in the ministries of lector, acolyte, and catechist is a form of reception of the movement of the Holy Spirit within the hearts and minds of the bishops at Vatican II. The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, states that “servers, readers, commentators, and members of the choir also exercise a genuine liturgical ministry.” (SC # 29).” The Council spoke of God’s people, not God’s men and women. Canon Law speaks of the Chrisifideles, an inclusive word for both genders. According to scholar Richard R. Gaillardetz, “Sacrosanctum Concilium reminded us, not only in its call for the reform of the rites of initiation but in its focus on the whole worshiping assembly, that our primary identity as Christians is not as lay or cleric but as a member of the baptized called to participate in the life and worship of the church.”
The opening up of ministries to women presents the Church with a milestone moment in which to take stock of how far we have developed in recognizing the unique talents and potential of women in the life of the Church. Such a change would have been unthinkable at the time of the post-Vatican II rearrangement of ministries. Perhaps, partly driven by that same change in the dignity of women in the Church, the pope is reading the signs of the times by the light of faith. Admission of women to these ministries must be understood as development on the Council’s teaching on ‘full and active participation’.
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 liturgical celebrations of the Church. The Pope writes that “within the spectrum of renewal traced out by the Second Vatican Council, the urgency is being ever more felt today to rediscover the co-responsibility of all of the baptized in the Church, and the mission of the laity in a particular way.” This mission is imposed at baptism as a constituent part of Christian identity. Pope Francis seemed to emphasize that these ministries of acolyte, lector and catechist have their root in Baptism and Confirmation rather than in Holy Orders. “The choice of conferring these ministries on women as well, which entail stability, public recognition and the mandate on the part of the bishop, makes the participation of all in the work of evangelization more effective in the Church.”
Indeed, the Church needs to rediscover the mission of the laity, and of lay women specifically. What the Church does not need is newly clericalized female ministers, imbued with the same sense of superiority and entitlement which they themselves recognized as inappropriate before they were installed in ministry. It is worth noting that the Pope has also spoken of a seldom-addressed clericalism in discussion of women’s role within the Church. This clericalism in found in some of those Catholic feminists who most condemn male clericalism, is a parallel and equally unacceptable desire to create an exclusive caste of female clerics. When he told journalists, during his flight back to Rome from Sweden in November 2019, that women can do many things better than men, even in the dogmatic field, while adding that women cannot be ordained priests, he was, to cite John Allen of Crux, acting against the “disease of clericalism”.
“Despite the fact that he stands today at the apex of the clerical pecking order, there’s a sense in which Pope Francis is the most anti-clerical pontiff in Catholic history ….one has the sense when he uses the word ‘clericalism’ that he’s virtually talking about the sin against the Holy Spirit.”
In an interview after assuming the papal ministry, the new pope was asked if he would consider naming a woman cardinal. In his answer the Pope said, “I don’t know where this idea sprang from. Women in the Church must be valued, not clericalized. Whoever thinks of women as cardinals suffers a bit from clericalism.” If we only interpret this admission of women of valor in ordered ministry through the hermeneutic of encroaching feminism, we do injustice to the spirit and documents of the Second Vatican Council. In truth, it is not a disruption of Church praxis and teaching, but a continuation of the Tradition.
Image: Vatican Media. Pope Francis installed 10 laypeople, both men and women, into the ministry of Catechist on January 23, 2022, in St. Peter’s basilica.
Father Tim Kelly is a priest of the Diocese of Tyler in Texas. Ordained in 1999, he has spent most of his ministry in parishes in "Deep East Texas." He spent three years studying Patristics in Rome and two years teaching at St. Mary’s Seminary in Houston. Fr. Kelly’s interest is in the history of theology -- the forces which shape how the Catholic Church expresses herself in any particular moment of history.
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