In May, Pope Francis remarked that the Catholic Church should study whether women should be “reinstated” as deacons — a proposal that could introduce a role for women in the Catholic clergy that has been open only to men for centuries.
On Tuesday, he made good on that comment made in the spring to a gathering of nuns.
The Vatican announced the members of the new Commission for the Study of the Diaconate of Women.
Seven men and six women will serve on the committee. They include priests, nuns and many professors; several live in Rome, but one, Phyllis Zagano, teaches at Hofstra University in New York. Zagano has written a book titled “Holy Saturday: An Argument for the Restoration of the Female Diaconate in the Catholic Church.”
The chair of the committee will be Archbishop Luis Francisco Ladaria Ferrer, a Spanish archbishop who is a Jesuit like Francis.
As with many of Francis’s off-the-cuff remarks, his statement that the church ought to study the role of women as deacons set off a whirl of debate about what he meant, with conservatives and liberals in the church seeing it differently.
Some expected the committee would focus on the historical role of the deacon, a position which women held through the fifth century. Conservatives argued that the deacon — a role currently open to single and married men, unlike the celibate priesthood — can perform many functions of the priest during Mass. Francis, too, has expressed his opposition to female priests.
Deacons’ other roles include officiating at weddings and baptisms. And some who hope for more opportunities for Catholic women reacted eagerly to Francis’s intention to study the question.
“I can’t underscore enough how groundbreaking this is for the Church,” Boston College theologian James Bretzke said in May. “If women can be ordained as deacons, then this is going to weaken — not destroy — but weaken significantly the argument that women absolutely are incapable of being ordained as priests. So this is opening more than a crack in the door.”
Francis, on the other hand, expressed his annoyance when his May comments were rapidly reported as an opening to the possibility of female deacons. “They said: ‘The Church opens the door to deaconesses.’ Really? I am a bit angry because this is not telling the truth of things,” he said, according to Catholic News Agency.
The Vatican did not elaborate Tuesday on whether this committee will focus on the history or the potential future of female deacons, and did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The members are:
• President: Archbishop Luis Francisco Ladaria Ferrer, S.J., secretary of the congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
• Sister Nuria Calduch Benages, M.H.S.F.N., member of the Pontifical Biblical Commission.
• Professor Francesca Cocchini of La Sapienza University and of the Patristic Institute Augustinianum, Rome.
• Msgr. Piero Coda, president of the University Institute Sophia, Loppiano, and member of the International Theological Commission.
• The Rev. Robert Dodaro, O.S.A., president of the Patristic Institute Augustinianum, Rome, and professor of patrology.
• The Rev. Santiago Madrigal Terrazas, S.J., professor of ecclesiology at the Pontifical University Comillas, Madrid.
• Sister Mary Melone, S.F.A., rector of the Pontifical University Anonianum, Rome.
• The Rev. Karl Heinz Menke, professor emeritus of dogmatic theology at the University of Bonn and member of the International Theological Commission.
• The Rev. Aimable Musoni, S.D.B., professor of ecclesiology at the Pontifical Salesian University, Rome.
• The Rev. Bernard Pottier, S.J., professor at the Institut d’Etudes Theologiques, Brussels, and member of the International Theological Commission.
• Marianne Schlosser, professor of spiritual theology at the University of Vienana and member of the International Theological Commission.
• Michelina Tenace, professor of fundamental theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome.
• Phyllis Zagano, professor at Hofstra University, Hempstead, N.Y.
