Women in Ministry
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Women’s Synod report longer with less to say
Drawing on Acts 10-15 and real testimony, one Synod group offered open questions and discernment rather than closing the door with a pronouncement.
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Church knows women were deacons — will they admit it?
The real question is no longer whether women served as ordained deacons, but whether the church will reconsider what it has already found.
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Tend the flame
Valuing tradition means keeping its living fire alight. A dynamic tradition fosters maturity and freedom.
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Leo’s slavery teaching opens door for women’s ordination
In “Magnificent Humanity,” Pope Leo describes the Church’s condemnation of slavery as a genuine development in doctrine, not a clarification of existing teaching. That admission, echoing Cardinal Newman, creates a powerful precedent for revisiting the supposedly final ban on ordaining women as priests.
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Women’s ordained ministry serves baptised unity — do it now
The first witness to the risen Christ was a woman. Bishop Ludger Schepers argues a Church that honours Mary Magdalene liturgically while barring women from the altar is acting in direct contradiction to its own founding narrative and the witness of Apostle Junia.
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Stars emerge at Würzburg’s Catholic Congress
Seventy-five thousand people gathered in Würzburg for Germany’s Catholic Congress, and from the opening thunderstorm Mass to the closing liturgy, moments of courage and candour cut through — a bishop calling for women in all ministries, a student challenging a cardinal, and a synodal partnership that modelled shared power.
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The theological emptiness of the Petrocchi report
Phyllis Zagano’s analysis in America and in Flashes dismantles the Petrocchi Commission’s conclusions on women’s diaconate, showing they rest on no historical, theological, or anthropological documentation.
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Ancient ordination rites for women deacons sit in Vatican
Medieval liturgical manuscripts housed in the Vatican’s own library describe women being ordained to the diaconate during Mass, with the laying on of hands, invocation of the Holy Spirit and the placement of the stole by the bishop. Zagano’s research brings these forgotten rites back into focus.
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When clericalism becomes narcissism, the altar turns into a stage
Clerical narcissism perpetuates itself when a newly ordained priest is assigned to a pastor who demands unquestioning obedience, creating successive generations of leaders hostile to collaboration.
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From hope to silence: when the Church blinked
A Jesuit bishop reached for a medieval image — bridegroom, bride — to slam the door on women’s ordination. He didn’t stop there. He criticised fellow Jesuit, Pope Francis, for leaving the question open at all. The message was unambiguous: this conversation is over.
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