Why you should not be discouraged (or assured) by Pope Francis’ “No”to ordaining women as deacons6/5/2024
Recently 60 Minutes aired an interview with Pope Francis where he offered a succinct “no” to ordaining women as deacons. As expected, the internet went wild with hot disappointment on one side and giddy elation on the other. While each set of responses is understandable, there is something much deeper at work.
While Francis’ “no” appears on the surface to settle this issue, it doesn’t. What it does do is reveal quite plainly that this doctrine has been and continues to be open for discernment. This latest “no” is best seen as one more utterance in a long line of contradictory statements from all corners of the Church. Francis himself grapples. One minute, he is establishing commissions to study a female diaconate, another minute he is noodling the question in an interview, and the next minute he is saying “no” (to ordination specifically, not to women serving in some “deaconess” role where they are not ordained). Layer on top of this his assertion that the ordination of women as priests can be a “subject of study” and his decision to meet with female Anglican bishop Jo Bailey Wells to learn more. What will he say or do next month? While it might appear confusing, this wrestling is a hallmark of a vibrant relationship with God. The inconsistency on this issue only grows when we zoom out to look at the whole of the Magisterium, with some bishops in favor while others decry it, as the vast majority remain silent. Not only this: the very next day after the 60 minutes interview, we are greeted with words from a Cardinal about the possibility of Francis agreeing that women should be ordained as priests! Whiplash, much? Then, of course, there is the Body of Christ, who—regardless of what the Pope or any bishops have to say—has trumpeted a resounding and universal call for a female diaconate, which makes Pope Francis’ “no” all the more curious since he is in the midst of championing a synod process rooted in the values of open sharing and prayerful listening. The more inconsistent the collective Church is on this doctrine, the louder the Spirit clamors for us to recognize that within this inconsistency pulses an invitation from God. But it gets even better. There is no question that people have been feeling great hope about the possibility of the Church ordaining women as deacons, even if hints from leadership indicate that the Church would steer those female deacons into something “other” than male deacons (never a good sign in a patriarchy, but, hey, let’s just take what we can get). Now that Francis has been so blunt, maybe we will finally wake up to the enormity of this rare and willing historic moment when it comes to the ordination of women in the Church. With four months yet before the Synod meetings in October, there is still time to embrace the freshness of opportunity before us. First, the movement to ordain women as deacons must once and for all stop buying into the institution’s framing of the ordination of women as two distinct discernment questions: deacons and priests. It should be quite clear at this point that this strategy will not get the movement where it wants to go. When it comes to the ordination of women, there is one—and only one—discernment question: is God calling women to ordained ministries? To frame the discernment in any other way is disingenuous and will always set the process on the path to an incomplete or even mistaken discernment. The diaconate movement seems to think it has a better chance at success by approaching vocation as two separate questions, but even if this “success” were to materialize, it would only amount to a Pyrrhic victory that impedes the far deeper work of the Spirit to bring about true fullness of life for women in the Church and the world. The gift of Francis’ blunt response is that it spells out the reality that there can only be one movement when it comes to the ordination of women, and that is a united one that calls for the freedom for women to follow their vocation from God, whatever that vocation is. Second, the bishops who are supportive of the ordination of women as priests need to speak up. It is as if they have forgotten who they are for the Church, largely remaining silent when collectively they have the power (and the moral obligation) to guide the trajectory of the Church. Francis is not a king, but the head pastor; and bishops are not his princes, but shepherds invested with a power all their own by the Holy Spirit through their ordination. The only reason Francis can get away with saying “no” to ordaining women as deacons, and—for that matter—excluding priesthood from the upcoming study on the role of women in the Church, is because those bishops who secretly support the ordination of women at all levels are largely remaining silent, rather than boldly—and collectively—claiming their God-given power to lead. The plain, undeniable fact—whether you are on the left, the right, or anywhere in between—is that THE BISHOPS ARE NOT IN COMMUNION ON THE ORDINATION OF WOMEN AS PRIESTS OR DEACONS. No matter how you slice it, the doctrine is not settled, and it hasn’t been for decades. But as long as the bishops keep quiet, the institution can keep pretending—steamrolling over the ordination question and all the women within it while upholding a malformed theology that produces speeches like that of Harrison Butker, who genuinely believes in his heart that women’s elementary vocation in life is to be man’s helper through wife-ing and mothering. Even if collectively women are wives and mothers and somehow “maternal” (whatever that means), we are not merely that, which you only need eyeballs in your head to see. But he cannot see, because as long as the Church teaches through the lens of a lopsided theology, it will never be able to properly discern a more full understanding of who God is and what God desires of us. Third, we simply need to stop tolerating this nonsense, the “we” being women and all our allies who know full well that God is—and has always been—calling women to be deacons and priests. Enough is enough already. At any time, we can claim our rightful place in the Church as God intends. Women are the ones doing the vast majority of work in the Church, women are the ones doing most of the catechizing in the Church, women are the ones directing much of the funds to the Church. Want to see the Roman Catholic Church come to a grinding halt? Then all that we and our allies have to do is just stop: stop providing our labor, stop offering our money, and stop lending our support…until they listen. So, rather than get upset by or feel overly jubilant at Francis’ “no” on 60 minutes, take it as one more sign that the issue of the ordination of women in the Church is far from settled. God is a God of surprises, and God ain’t done yet. Not in your wildest dreams. Father Anne was ordained on October 16, 2021, through the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests. She earned a Master of Divinity from Jesuit School of Theology, and her deepest desire is to be a parish priest in the Roman Catholic Church. Image by Annett_Klingner from Pixabay I sent the following letter to Pope Francis in early January. The letter offers feedback on the discernment process used to discern the role of women in the Church. I did not receive a response. Dear Pope Francis,
I am deeply thankful for your leadership and the extraordinary interior freedom you demonstrate each day in the face of immense pressures that the vast majority of us never see. I pray for you daily. As a woman trained by Jesuits and deeply rooted in the Spiritual Exercises, I write to offer important feedback on the discernment regarding the role of women in the Church. As you know, the way a discernment question is phrased profoundly shapes how the discernment unfolds. Only a proper question permits access to the full availability of possible invitations from God. When it comes to the ordination of women, the Church seems to be asking the question: “Can the Church ordain women?” However, this phrasing is problematic because it centers the discernment on the institutional Church rather than on God. Phrasing the question in this way prompts the Church to look primarily at itself—its past behavior and interpretations—for the answer. From the outset, the question narrows the information gathering stage of discernment before it even begins, making a good discernment impossible. Instead, the better question is, “Is God calling women to ordained ministries in the Roman Catholic Church?” This phrasing centers the discernment on God’s action in the life of the Church, and makes the Holy Spirit the protagonist of the discernment. This question inspires the Church to look with fresh eyes and hearts upon the relevant scripture, tradition, and lived history of the Church–as well as any current signs of the times–which will naturally lead to new insights. This question gives the Church the freedom to gather all the information relevant to the question–including information that has thus far been missing from the synodal process. Information such as:
Thank you for the great sacrifice of your ministry and leadership. In prayer, Father Anne + Artist Eric Carson created this beautiful icon of St. Thérèse of Lisieux for the #GodSaysNow campaign. The image is filled with rich symbol. Eric explains:
I am happy to announce that Feedspot chose my blog as one of the 15 Best Catholic LGBTQ blogs and websites. I have a special dedication to a healing ministry with the LGBTQ community. The movement that is driving their persecution at this moment is not of God. All of us in the Christian faith who believe that the LGBTQ community is yet another expression of God's incarnational initiative in the world must raise our voices to be heard. Christian hate is not Christian.
On the Sundays I don’t have Mass myself, I attend in the institutional Church. There are several parishes around town that I haunt. One has a priest who is obviously unhappy with my presence, but I am not clear as to why. Maybe he is opposed to the illegality of my ordination, that is, my disobedience to doctrine and hierarchy. Or maybe he believes that women should not be ordained period. Or maybe he dislikes the masculine expression of my vocation—how I claim the Roman collar, the tradition of celibacy, and the title Father as my own. Whatever the reason, it is clear he wishes I did not exist. How do I know? It is all in the way he blesses me.
For those who are unaware, there is a custom in the Roman Catholic Church that encourages those who are not in communion with the Church for one reason or another to approach the priest (or Eucharistic minister) for a blessing. As you step up, you cross one or both arms over your chest, which signals that you would like to receive a blessing rather than communion. People who regularly avail themselves of this custom are folks who are not Catholic, children who have not yet received First Communion, and people who feel in need of the sacrament of reconciliation. I say this to explain that it is not uncommon for priests to offer blessings in place of communion. You might not realize this, however, by observing my interaction with this priest. First off, he can barely stand to look at me. The moment he realizes it is me, his face goes dark, and he looks down. As he makes the sign of the cross, he mumbles a most insincere blessing, the air curdling with paternal disdain. It is evident that he does not want to bless me, but the tradition ironically forces him to comply. He continues to look down until I walk away. This has happened four or five times now, so I know it is not a fluke. It is an utterly shitty experience for me. One reason is because it is not always like this. At another parish, there is a priest who tries to offer me communion, and when I refuse it out of respect for the institutional Church, he prays a beautiful blessing over me. At another parish, a deacon blesses me with a smile and says warmly, “We are happy you are here.” But the experience with this priest? Not so warm and fuzzy. On the one hand my Italian blood wants to boil. I feel angry and sad and disgusted. This man has been a priest for nearly 40 years, and this is how he behaves toward me? What in the world is his prayer life like? How does he treat others who have sinned in his eyes? Don’t I deserve to be treated with dignity? Even if we disagree on the topic, can’t we agree that we both want what is best for the Church? On the other hand, I feel compassion. He feels triggered. We all know that being triggered is painfully uncomfortable, and we generally are not our best selves when it happens. I recognize for myself that it takes me a minute (or longer, and sometimes much longer) to see that I have become unmoored. In those moments I need gentleness. Afterward I need time to reflect on what transpired within me, time to pray for insight into my own mystery, time to ask God for healing of the wounds that have been pricked. Who knows what triggers him. Maybe I remind him of a harsh woman who had a negative impact on him. Maybe I arouse a deep piece of his own spirit that wants to rebel against the Catholic Church but has been silenced. Or maybe I signal too clearly the end we all know is coming, and he realizes he is not ready to confront the change. As I pondered all of this in my prayer, the Holy Spirit asked, “Have you prayed for this man?” At once the eyes of my heart flew open: the answer was no. I apologized to God and asked for forgiveness. How is my judgment of his behavior any different than his of mine? It isn’t. We are trapped in an unspoken entanglement. When I continued to look at the situation with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, I saw so clearly that I absolutely do not want him to be hurt or unhappy or suffering. Rather, I want him--and all beings--to be free and whole. I want this because this is what God wants, and above all, it is God's happiness I desire. So to be better, I must remain rooted in God's desire, and the only way to remain rooted in God's desire is prayer. So, the next time I inevitably attend Mass at this particular parish with this particular priest, I will approach the priest differently. Rather than being wary and critical, I will take a deep breath, exhale, and ask the Holy Spirit to somehow untie the knot between us. Then, I will step forward, cross my arm over my chest, and receive with gratitude the reluctant blessing. A local church in Albuquerque learned about my ministry with the LGBTQ+ community through my participation in the Pride Parade. They invited me to reflect on the following questions so that they might share my responses in their Church newsletter. I was touched that they asked, and I found the reflection meaningful.
1. What's been the general tone of responses you get when you attend pride events and festivals? I have been ordained as a Roman Catholic priest for a little over a year and have discovered that a critical piece of my ministry with the LGBTQ+ community is reconciliation. One thing that has continued to surprise me is the impact that a simple, authentic apology can have on someone who has been profoundly wounded by the institutional Church. I find it surprising because the persecution of the LGBTQ+ community has been and continues to be so vicious and cruel that it is hard to believe a simple apology from an individual priest would be meaningful. Yet, time and again, it is. I think this willingness to receive the apology at all speaks in general to the human desire to be seen, and speaks in a special way to the inspiring resilience and heart of the LGBTQ+ community. This community is truly graced as one of the most loving, understanding, and accepting communities I have had the pleasure to experience, and they extend this openness and generosity to all. 2. Do you think your presence and support makes more of an impact specifically because of your ties to religion? Yes. When I put on the Roman collar, I am no longer an individual, but a symbol of the entire Roman Catholic Church. In fact, it is the apology paired with the collar that has the real impact. When I visited a university last fall to give a talk, I met a lovely young graduate student who was raised Catholic. When she came out to her family, they did not accept her. This not only deeply wounded her, but it understandably led her away from the faith. After some time together, I looked into her eyes, called her by name, and apologized for all that she had endured. I explained that the Church was wrong on this issue, that God loved her into being exactly as she is, that she is an expression of God. She quietly cried. I was humbled and moved, taken aback by how these simple words offered some healing. Before we parted ways, she said smiling that she intended to attend Mass when home for Christmas. This interaction captures something that the Church does not seem to understand: when it persecutes people for whatever reason, it not only turns those people away from the Church, it can–and often does–turn them away from God. This is the true tragedy, for God’s greatest desire is to have intimate, dynamic, love relationships with each of us. I do all I can as a Roman Catholic priest to help restore this most central relationship. 3. Were there any big learning curves when you started your outreach to the queer community? While some people desire the apology of the Church, others may want to have space to express their anger. Because in the Roman collar I represent the Church, people sometimes need to use me as a target for the pent-up frustration they feel towards the institution. In other words, it may be freeing, even healing, for someone who has been deeply hurt by the institutional Church to verbally attack or personally insult any particular priest. In these instances, I must submit to the experience and allow it to happen without retaliation, for I am no longer an individual but a stand in for the Church. As a priest it is imperative that in such moments I do not contribute to the emotional and spiritual harm the person has already endured. I enter into this work as a spiritual practice, asking God to help me grow in wisdom and charity. 4. Do you have any particular advice for someone who wants to start reaching out more? The most important thing for any ministry is to pray–to lay ourselves bare before God over and over with the intent of listening to and receiving what God has to say. Pray in preparation for being with people, and once you experience being with them, bring that experience back to prayer. The point of any priestly ministry is to facilitate an encounter with the living God. It is not us but God who heals, who reconciles, who guides, who liberates. As priests we are simply helping to make people present to what God is always and already trying to give them. The only way we can be God’s partner in this work is through an uncompromising commitment to our own prayer life and to our relationship with God. It must come first, always. 5. Have your experiences and relationships with the queer community changed your experience and relationship with God? One thing that the life of Jesus reveals to us is that we have an incarnational God—that is, it is God’s nature to incarnate, and so God expresses God’s self in all of material creation. The LGBTQ+ community is an ongoing expression of the living God. They continue to teach me about God’s resiliency, God’s creativity, God’s goodness, God’s joy. Of all the many gifts the community offers us, I would say its core gift is that it gives to all the world the experience of the unconditional acceptance of our loving God. Above all, though, the LGBTQ+ community reveals over and over the power of the paschal mystery: though they are crucified at the hands of injustice, they continue to rise and claim their rightful place at the altar of creation. This is the resurrection at work–the unstoppable power of God’s Spirit incarnating through the community to bring all of creation into alignment with God’s vision of justice and love. Through their participation in the life of God, they continue to bolster me in my own faith, for I see how profoundly God works through them and I am reminded one again of God’s ceaseless commitment to the good of the world. I went to Mass this past Sunday. In fact, I went to Mass the week before for Christmas as well. Since my ordination in October 2021, I have avoided going to Mass in the institutional Church. You might think it is because I am excommunicated, but that is not the reason. It is important to understand that excommunication does not mean I cannot enter Catholic spaces. I can. What I cannot do is participate: I cannot receive sacraments, volunteer, hold a paid position. I am, as my friend Rev. Shanon likes to say, in time-out: banished to the corner so that I can think about what I have done, feel remorse, and recant. For a person who wants only to participate in the Roman Catholic Church, this is not a fun place to be.
Still, the excommunication is not what has prevented me from going to Mass. What kept me away was the conundrum I faced each time I considered attending. If I go in clerics, I become a distraction to those who have gathered to focus on God. If I attend in plain clothes, it is a betrayal of self at the deepest level of my being. *Sigh.* What’s a girl to do? I prayed and prayed for weeks before ordination, and every day since. Each time I brought it to prayer, it was the third way that emerged: stay home. And so, I did. Until recently. The last few weeks a new movement is surfacing in my prayer: return to Mass. Why now, I wonder? Perhaps it is because I deeply miss gong to Mass. I was a daily communicant for many years before getting on the path to ordination. Yup, I went to Mass every. single. day. The Eucharist sustained me in all aspects of my being. My relationship with the Eucharist is so deep that even in its absence it remains at the center of my life. I want to be near it, even if I am denied communion. Or maybe it’s because I miss being part of a parish. The love and the prayer. The characters and craziness. The formation and the service. The pure fire for God. A parish is a place electric with the joy and challenge of walking with people who come from different backgrounds, political affiliations, positions on doctrine, yet are all deeply Catholic–tied together by a vibrant faith in God that beats at the heart of community life. I miss this. Though I am denied participation in a parish, I can at least witness it in some way, be near it, be reminded that it is an ongoing reality. The truth is I do not like being outside the institutional Church. You might think it's because my gifts are largely wasted since I have little opportunity to minister as a priest. Or because I have to spend rivers of time on things male priests do not as I work for reform. Or because I struggle with a lack of resources, like adequate health and dental care. Yes, these things get me down sometimes, but they are to be expected along such a path. What has troubled me over the months is that I find myself too often in spaces that are anti-establishment. Where loving critique is traded for bitterness, even hatred. Where ritual and theology have drifted so far from the current teaching, they are no longer Roman Catholic. I truly understand such responses to the monstrosities that the Church has committed, and I acknowledge they have an important prophetic function that the Church must receive. But for a person who wants only to participate in the Roman Catholic Church, even with all its failures, this is not a fun place to be. It can cause me to feel depressed at times. This does not mean I am not overflowing with gratitude. What I am denied in belonging, I am gifted in freedom. Like presiding over the Catholic rite of marriage of two lesbians, or officiating the wedding ceremony of two atheists—two experiences that are simply not possible within the institutional Church. And though I am starving for opportunity, I do get to do some priestly ministry. Ministry like anointing a friend, saying Mass, hearing a confession or two, presiding over adoration. I am acutely aware that this has not been possible for generations of women before me, and for many who walk alongside me right now, women who eagerly wait for the Church to right this terrible wrong. I do get to live out my call, however limited, and I do so with every single one of these women—past and present—in my heart. A year into full-time ministry, though, I realize that these gifts are not enough to sustain me. I need the presence of the institutional Church in my life: it is who I am. And God has prepared me to re-engage. Last year, I entered multiple Roman Catholic institutions to argue for women’s ordination. I braved a room of Jesuit priests to attend the wake of a friend. I went to Mass once at a local parish in Albuquerque just to see how it felt. These experiences have formed me to better handle the stress that comes with simply attending Mass: with not knowing how I will be treated when I enter the building; with receiving the confusion or discomfort of the priest who offers a blessing instead of communion; with enduring the long walk back to my pew as everyone straight up stares at me. This kind of thing is hard on me. But what these last two weeks have revealed is that while the experience does not get easier exactly, it does become more familiar, and that familiarity better equips me to navigate institutional spaces. And this is good news. Because when it comes to the work of opening people’s hearts and minds to the truth that women are called to priesthood in the Roman Catholic Church, one of the most compelling images that Catholics can see is the female Roman Catholic priest standing before the male priest being denied communion over and over again. This is what the movement in my prayer is really about. While I may receive some sort of nourishment by going to Mass, the call to return is at its heart the desire of the Holy Spirit to teach. So, with great love and respect, I comply. |