First some wonderful news! Dame Sarah Elisabeth Mullally, an Anglican bishop and former nurse, was officially confirmed on Wednesday January 28, 2026, as the first female Archbishop of Canterbury and the first woman to head the Church of England, the mother church of the 85-million-strong global Anglican communion. She has become the 106th Archbishop of Canterbury.

Today however I really want to focus – for the last time since I have addressed this already, but many new readers of my blog have asked me to write about it — on women’s ordination in my Roman Catholic tradition.

According to a 2025 Pew Research Center study, close to 64% of U.S. Catholics believe the Catholic Church should allow women deacons and priests. Officially, however, the Catholic Church still does not approve of women’s ordination.

A Vatican commission studying the possibility of female deacons reported that the current state of historical and theological research “excludes the possibility of proceeding” toward admitting women to the diaconate. In a letter sharing the results of its work with Pope Leo XIV and released by the Vatican on December 4, 2025, the commission reported a 7-1 vote in favor of a statement concluding that the church cannot currently move toward admitting women to the third degree of holy orders, the diaconate. The argument was that “the masculinity of Christ, and therefore the masculinity of those who receive Holy Orders, is not accidental but is an integral part of sacramental identity.”

Well life goes on. We need to build a better future; and women’s ordination is an essential part of that.

First, I offer a bit of older church history. In 1994, to officially stamp-out what he considered a rapidly spreading “deviant behavior” and unorthodox thought and teaching, Pope John Paul II declared women’s ordination a closed matter. In his  letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, he wrote: “Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance…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.” The Roman Catholic prohibition of women’s ordination argued from a perception of divinely-constituted gender roles: the belief that masculinity was integral to the ministry of both Jesus and the apostles. Being a woman is fine, the churchmen said, but if a person is going to act “in persona Christi” (in the person of Christ) that person needs to have male genitalia.

Pope John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI, and apparently Pope Francis have all believed, when it comes to priesthood, that there is an essential difference between being male and being female. They believed that maleness is necessary for priesthood just as water is necessary for baptism. Why? Because, they argue, that’s the way the historical Jesus set it up. All of this is summed up in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (issued by Pope John Paul in 1992): “Only a baptized man (vir in Latin) validly receives sacred ordination.” The Lord Jesus chose men (viri) to form the college of the twelve apostles, and the apostles did the same when they chose collaborators to succeed them in their ministry. The college of bishops, with whom the priests are united in the priesthood, makes the college of the twelve an ever-present and ever-active reality until Christ’s return. The Church recognizes herself to be bound by this choice made by the Lord himself. For this reason, the ordination of women is not possible.”

Interesting. I remember very clearly the official declaration of the Pontifical Biblical Commission in 1976 that no valid scriptural reason existed for not ordaining women. With all due respect, even popes need remedial theological education. Or they at least need well educated and up-to-date advisors and ghost writers. The Pontifical Biblical Commission was formally established by Pope Leo XIII (1810-1903) in October 1902. Its purpose was and has always been to “ensure the proper Roman Catholic interpretation and defense of Sacred Scripture.“

Very often those who oppose women’s ordination argue that Jesus chose only male disciples so therefore all priests and bishops must be men. The historical testimony, however, does not confirm this. The historical Jesus was not a male chauvinist.

Jesus’ disciples were a dynamic group of young men AND women, most probably in their early or late teens. We know from the Martha/Mary account in Luke chapter 10 that Mary, sitting at the feet of Jesus, was truly a disciple. 

In each of the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ Resurrection, there is a common thread: the first witnesses to the reality of the empty tomb were women. 

Yes indeed, among Jesus’ disciples, later called apostles when sent out to preach the Good News, there were men and women. Certainly, Mary the Magdalene was a key disciple and has often been called the “apostle to the apostles.” Paul, in his Letter to the Romans, refers to Priscilla and Aquila. He praises the woman Junia as a prominent apostle and Phoebe, a leader from the church at Cenchreae, a port city near Corinth.

As far as ordination is concerned, as I have often written, the historical Jesus did not ordain anyone. Ordination came several decades after Jesus’ Last Supper. When it was established, it was not about sacramental power. It was simply a form of quality control insuring qualified and competent ministers.

In the early Christian communities, long before ordination came into being, male and female leaders, selected by the communities, presided at Eucharistic celebrations. There were male and female ministerial leaders. Much later in the history of the church, misogyny slipped in and an all-male clerical culture took over. Priesthood then became male-hood.

A major development in the contemporary experience of women’s ordination came in 2002 with the ordination of the “Danube Seven,” a group of seven women from Germany, Austria, and the United States who were validly ordained as priests on a ship cruising the Danube River on 29 June 2002. It was an historic moment. A year later, two of the original group were ordained bishops.

The Danube Seven launched what has become a prophetic Roman Catholic women priests movement.

Although officially excommunicated, the RCWP (Roman Catholic Women Priests) and ARCWP (Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests) are two branches that have developed from the ordination of the seven women on the Danube. Both groups have members in the U.S.A., and both are international. RCWP women priests and bishops minister in over 34 U.S. states and are also present in Canada, Europe, South and Central America, South Africa, the Philippines, and Taiwan. Today there are 270 Women Priests and 15 Women Bishops worldwide.

Some Roman Catholic observers suggest that it might be better right now to focus on women’s ordination to the diaconate. This was the focus of the 2011 book: Women Deacons: Past, Present, Future, by Gary Macy, Phyllis Zagano, and William T. Ditewig. Right now, however, Pope Leo XIV is not inclined to move in that direction.

In an interview with Elise Ann Allen of Crux a few months ago, Pope Leon ended up talking about about women deacons. “At the moment,” he said “I do not have any intention of changing the teaching of the Church on the topic.”  Nevertheless, there is ample evidence of women deacons in the East from the earliest days of the Christianity to this day. We know women deacons existed early in the West as well. In fact, there is ample evidence of women deacons for over half of Christian history, until the twelfth century.

The historical diaconate was both male and female.

“Study after study has investigated the evidence concerning women deacons in both the Eastern and Western Churches, leaving little doubt that women deacons existed for centuries in Christianity.” Gary Macy, American theologian and historian specializing in medieval Christianity and the history of women’s ordination in the Western Church. He is professor emeritus of Theology at Santa Clara University.

The earliest reference to women as deacons appears in the Letter of Paul to the Romans: “I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church at Cenchreae, so that you may welcome her in the Lord as is fitting for the saints, and help her in whatever she may require from you, for she has been a benefactor of many and of myself as well.”  (Rom 16:1–2)

The most famous woman deacon in the Western Church was Queen Radegund, from the German land Thuringia, the wife of King Clothar I (511–58). She dramatically left the king in about 550 and demanded that she be ordained a deacon by Médard, bishop of Noyon in northern France, who, despite his fear of the king’s retribution, complied.

So, women deacons were there, working in both the Eastern and Western Churches for centuries before slowly disappearing from the scene around the twelfth century. Historians are sure they were there.

The ordination ceremony for the ordination of a woman deacon was dropped in the thirteenth-century Roman Pontifical — the official liturgical book of the Roman Rite in the Catholic Church containing rites, ceremonies, and blessings performed primarily by bishops — and does not appear again. Not surprising, the twelfth century also contains the last reference to a woman deacon, Heloise of Paris. By the thirteenth century, this office had disappeared from the Western Church. So, women deacons were there, working in both the Eastern and Western Churches for centuries before slowly disappearing from the scene around the twelfth century.

It seems that the major reason women stopped being ordained deacons in both the East and West was the gradual introduction of purity laws found in the Hebrew Scriptures. I call it religious misogyny. Menstruation and childbirth, very strangely,  were seen as impediments to women serving at the altar or to their eventually being ordained.

This is not the end of the story. With correct history, courage, and conviction, we move forward.

 

• Jack

 

Dr. John A. Dick – Historical Theologian

Email: jadleuven@gmail.com