St. Phoebe and the Diaconate

The ministry of St. Phoebe is an example to all.  She was a deacon of the early Church, sent by St. Paul from Corinth to the Christian community in Rome. We seek her guidance as the Global Synod works to prayerfully consider the roles of women in the Church today.

"Enlarge the Space of Your Tent," the Working Document for the Continental Stage of the Synod, notes that participants in the local listening sessions around the world expressed a desire that women fully participate in the life of the Church.

The call for a conversion of the Church’s culture, for the salvation of the world, is linked in concrete terms to the possibility of establishing a new culture, with new practices and structures. A critical and urgent area in this regard concerns the role of women and their vocation, rooted in our common baptismal dignity, to participate fully in the life of the Church. A growing awareness and sensitivity towards this issue is registered all over the world. [ . . . ]

After careful listening, many reports ask that the Church continue its discernment in relation to a range of specific questions: the active role of women in the governing structures of Church bodies, the possibility for women with adequate training to preach in parish settings, and a female diaconate.

Phoebe’s experience teaches that both the notion and practice of a female diaconate date back to the earliest days of the Christian Church. The restoration of this ministry has been a topic of discussion at the highest levels of the Church since the Second Vatican Council. Beginning in 1997, two subcommittees of the International Theological Commission have considered the question.

In addition, Pope Francis named a Papal Commission to study the question of women and the diaconate in 2016. In 2018, at the Amazon Synod, the participants directly requested a permanent diaconate for women, emphasizing the fundamental role of religious and lay women in serving the people of the Church in that region. Pope Francis named a second Papal Commission to consider the issue in 2020.

The discernment will continue in October, at the first General Assembly of the Global Synod. The Instrumentum Laboris, the workbook for the sessions, identifies three priorities arising out of the listening phase: how to cultivate a communion that radiates, how to foster co-responsibility in mission, and what kinds of structures, procedures and institutions can nurture participation in a missionary synodal Church. Women’s full participation in the Church remains a focus for continued discernment, particularly under the priority of co-responsibility in mission.

Worksheets offer prompts and questions for consideration. One worksheet asks, “How can the Church of our time better fulfill its mission through greater recognition and promotion of the baptismal dignity of women?” In considering a response to this question, the worksheet further prompts: “Most of the Continental Assemblies and the syntheses of several Episcopal Conferences call for the question of women’s inclusion in the diaconate to be considered. Is it possible to envisage this, and in what way?

One way, of course, is the example of Phoebe. We think of her and pray for her guidance and intercession as the global Church continues to study and deliberate the question of restoring women to the ordained diaconate. We pray for the members of the Assembly as they discern the next steps the Holy Spirit invites us to take on our journey together as a synodal Church.

Ruth Robinson, Worship Commission member