Handmaids Of The Lord Women Deacons In The Catholic Church

One of the most hotly-debated topics today in the Catholic Church concerns the role of women. Jane Coll upholds as binding the Church teaching that they cannot be ordained as priests. She then explores whether women could be ordained deaconesses. The author takes a new look at this issue and seeks an answer that is compatible with the teachings of Scripture, Tradition and the Magisterium. She has based her work on the premise that the Church cannot introduce any changes that contradict the deposit of Revelation. By discussing the meaning of the Sacrament of Ordination and the role of women in the Church under the teachings of Scripture, Tradition and the Magisterium she indicates that, while the Church could not ordain women as priests, it could ordain them as deacons. However, are such deaconesses part of the sacrament of Order or are they sacramentals? Could the whole issue of women's ordination be side-stepped by creating an order of non-ordained deaconesses with wide parish responsibilities? This book attempts to answer these questions as well as a host of others on this fascinating and topical theme.

Christ wants you to join in His saving work. He has called you to be a holy handmaid, a royal princess, a daughter of the Most High: a fighter alongside your King on the spiritual battlefield for souls. To equip you for this mission, author Julie Onderko here brings you exciting tales about bold female warriors of the spirit, from heroic Old Testament women such as Judith, Deborah, and Esther (who prefigured the most courageous of all, the Virgin Mary) to more recent icons of the Faith, including Saint Clare, Saint Monica, and Saint Faustina. From within their diverse circumstances and vocations, these storied women warriors for Christ will teach you the powerful spiritual tactics that they used in their battles against the devil – and that you can use, too! – tactics that will help you grow holy even as you engage in the profoundest endeavor of all: saving souls for Christ. In the great drama of human history and on a continuing basis, souls are

In this book the author finds evidence that for six centuries, women were ordained as deacons in the Catholic Church. From the 3rd to the 10th centuries, women were ordained as deacons and translations of ancient liturgies show how they carried out numerous sacramental rites and were responsible for the community of faith. Since the Middle Ages, the Church has said only men can be deacons. Whether women can be ordained as deacons is now still under debate.This book will bring a positive encouragement to all who are conscious of the benefits that the ministry of women might bring to today's Catholic Church and looks to the past for inspiration for the future.

Three related essays by experts on the diaconate that examine the concept of women deacons in the Catholic Church from Thistorical, contemporary, and future perspectives.

Women’s Ordination in the Catholic Church argues that women can be validly ordained to ministerial office. O’Brien shows that claims by Roman dicasteries for an unbroken chain of authoritative tradition on the non-ordainability of women—a novel rather than traditional argument—are not historically supported. In the primitive Church, with the offices of deacon, presbyter, and bishop in process of development, women exercised ministries later understood as pertaining to those offices. The sub-apostolic period downplayed women’s ministry for reasons of cultural adaptation, not because it was thought that fidelity to Christ required it. Furthermore, extensive epigraphical evidence, from a wide geographical area, references women deacons and presbyters during the first millennium. Restrictive developments in the concept of ordination from the twelfth century onwards do not negate how, before that, women were validly ordained according to contemporary ecclesial understanding. Repeated canonical prohibitions on ordaining women show both that women were being ordained and how those bans were very selectively implemented. These canons were a cultural practice in search of a theology, and the subsequent theological justifications for restricting ordination to men appealed to supposed female inferiority against the background of priesthood as eminence rather than service. O’Brien shows that the assertion of women’s non-ordainability is a matter of canon law rather than doctrine. As such, that law can be reformed.

In a time when the ordination of women is an ongoing and passionate debate, the study of women's ministry in the early church is a timely and significant one. There is much evidence from documents, doctrine, and artifacts that supports the acceptance of women as presbyters and deacons in the early church. While this evidence has been published previously, it has never before appeared in one complete English-language collection. With this book, church historians Kevin Madigan and Carolyn Osiek present fully translated literary, epigraphical, and canonical references to women in early church offices. Through these documents, Madigan and Osiek seek to understand who these women were and how they related to and were received by, the church through the sixth century. They chart women's participation in church office and their eventual exclusion from its leadership roles. The editors introduce each document with a detailed headnote that contextualizes the text and discusses specific issues of interpretation and meaning. They also provide bibliographical notes and cross-reference original texts. Madigan and Osiek assemble relevant material from both Western and Eastern Christendom.

This book offers a reflection on the development of the commitment of a group of Catholic Sisters to the poor and to social justice, from teaching poor children in a convent basement to being involved in public theology at the United Nations. After a brief discussion of the emergence and definitions of public theology and an analysis of the social teaching of the Catholic Church, it offers insights into the history and modus operandi of the United Nations and the network of NGOs, including faith-based RNGOs, that work closely with it on behalf of human rights and development. The interaction between these three protagonists forms the background for the story of a coalition of Catholic Sisters with NGO status at the United Nations whose determination is to be Gospel women, engaging in public theology in the public square. Finally, it offers some thoughts concerning future challenges and uncertainties facing the United Nations that will impact the Sisters and their commitment to the poor and the planet.

The question of restoring women to the ordained diaconate surfaced during the Second Vatican Council and continued to resound in academic and pastoral circles well after the diaconate was restored as a permanent order in the church in the West. This volume contains twelve essays--five translated from Italian, three translated from French, and four in their original English--that answer the questions about the history and possible future of women deacons. Essays by: Yves Congar, OP Philippe Delhaye Peter Hünermann Valerie A. Karras Corrado Marucci, SJ Pietro Sorci, OFM Jennifer H. Stiefel Cipriano Vagaggini, OSB Cam Phyllis Zagano Ugo Zanetti, OSB