Let’s please all take a breath about “women deacons.”

he Nation­al So-Called Catholic Reporter falls down in a parox­ysm of joy: “Pope Fran­cis has announced he will cre­ate a com­mis­sion to study the pos­si­bil­i­ty of allow­ing women to serve as dea­cons in the Catholic church, sig­nal­ing an his­toric open­ness to the pos­si­bil­i­ty of end­ing the glob­al institution’s prac­tice of an all-male cler­gy.”

Now, let’s get one thing straight here before peo­ple rush through the streets throw­ing con­fet­ti in the air; or plung­ing dag­gers into their chests and pitch­ing them­selves over the near­est cliff.

What Pope Fran­cis is talk­ing about is the possibility—I empha­size pos­si­bil­i­ty—of reviv­ing the ancient order of dea­coness; which no one, ever, thought of as female “cler­gy.” (At least, not in the sense that term is com­mon­ly under­stood today. More on that below, cour­tesy of the Catholic Ency­clo­pe­dia.) So when you hear words like “ordain women,” or when you read breath­less arti­cles that “women dea­cons” will soon be serv­ing in one and the same capac­i­ty as male dea­cons, your cow detec­tor should be moo­ing at a loud pitch. This is the pro­gres­sive Catholic media doing its typ­i­cal pant­i­ng rou­tine.

Dear read­er, I keep telling you that you can’t just read the head­line and then reach for your con­fet­ti or your dag­ger. Buried deep with­in the arti­cle at So-Called is this:

The pope respond­ed that he had spo­ken about the mat­ter once some years ago with a “good, wise pro­fes­sor” who had stud­ied the use of female dea­cons [i.e., Order of Dea­coness] in the ear­ly cen­turies of the church. Fran­cis said it remained unclear to him what role such dea­cons had.

“What were these female dea­cons?” the pon­tiff recalled ask­ing the pro­fes­sor. “Did they have ordi­na­tion or no?”

“It was a bit obscure,” said Fran­cis. “What was the role of the dea­coness in that time?”

“Con­sti­tut­ing an offi­cial com­mis­sion that might study the ques­tion?” the pon­tiff asked aloud. “I believe yes. It would do good for the church to clar­i­fy this point [i.e., what role in the ear­ly church dea­coness­es had, and whether that con­sti­tut­ed “ordi­na­tion”]. I am in agree­ment. I will speak to do some­thing like this.”

So all this means is that the pope is putting togeth­er a com­mis­sion that will study what dea­coness­es did in the ear­ly Church and whether that was “ordi­na­tion” or not. All the pope is doing is seek­ing answers on an his­tor­i­cal point. Seek­ing a greater role in the min­istry of the Church for women, in keep­ing with ear­ly Church cus­toms, would be wel­come, par­tic­u­lar­ly from a pope who has called for a “deep the­ol­o­gy of women.” That would be great. We should all rejoice to see that. But “the min­istry of the Church” is larg­er than the priest­hood, so let’s not have street par­ties or faint­ing fits. Remem­ber that the pope, in a sto­ry also report­ed by So-Called, has affirmed that women can­not be ordained.

And indeed the Catholic Ency­clo­pe­dia gives us some use­ful infor­ma­tion here:

The Apos­tolic Con­sti­tu­tions express­ly attribute to [dea­coness­es] the duty of guard­ing the doors and main­tain­ing order amongst those of their own sex in the church, and they also (II, c. 26) assign to them the office of act­ing as inter­me­di­aries between the cler­gy and the women of the con­gre­ga­tion; but on the oth­er hand, it is laid down (Con­st. Apost., VIII, 27) that “the dea­coness gives no bless­ing, she ful­fills no func­tion of priest or dea­con”, and there can be no doubt that the extrav­a­gances per­mit­ted in some places, espe­cial­ly in the church­es of Syr­ia and Asia, were in con­tra­ven­tion of the canons gen­er­al­ly accept­ed.

But So-Called goes on and on as though women priests are at the very door; and you can read it all if you like, but I would not advise it. The real sto­ry here is get­ting lost: Pope Fran­cis is seek­ing ways to empha­size the dig­ni­ty and the holi­ness of women, the indis­pen­si­ble role they play in the body of Christ; that their dig­ni­ty and holi­ness is equal to the dig­ni­ty and holi­ness of men. Women are not a foot­note or an after­thought, a mere pres­ence to be con­ced­ed. Women can be dea­coness­es, doc­tors of the Church, the­ol­o­gy pro­fes­sors train­ing priests. They are not less.

So I love the thought of bring­ing back the order of dea­coness. But this is not about priest­hood or ordi­na­tion, and those who try to tell you that it is are sell­ing you an agen­da dressed up as ela­tion or fear.

•••

Update: Catholic News Ser­vice adds a fur­ther clar­i­fi­ca­tion. “Asked about dea­coness­es in the New Tes­ta­ment and the pos­si­bil­i­ty of the mod­ern church admit­ting women to the per­ma­nent dia­conate, Pope Fran­cis had said his under­stand­ing was that the women described as dea­coness­es in the Bible were not ordained like per­ma­nent dea­cons are. Main­ly, he said, it appeared that they assist­ed with the bap­tism by immer­sion of oth­er women and with the anoint­ing of women.”

A good schol­ar­ly treat­ment on the sub­ject is Dea­coness­es: An His­tor­i­cal Study, by Fr. Aime Georges Mar­ti­mort.

The Vat­i­can’s doc­u­ment on the sub­ject can be found here.

A full tran­script of the pope’s remarks can be found here.