'Flawed' text on women deacons is published

The international Catholic Women Priests' group has published what it claims is a secret Vatican document which expresses reservations about allowing women deacons in the church.

The group claimed the Vatican International Theological Commission document on women deacons "is prejudiced and flawed".

It noted the Vatican has not officially ruled out women deacons but that its problem was "that for almost 10 centuries women have been ordained deacons in the Eastern part of the Church. The issue of women deacons worries the Vatican because, according to the official Catholic point of view, the diaconate, priesthood and episcopacy are all part of the same sacrament of holy orders."

It added: "Exactly one year ago, the International Theological Commission brought out a secret report on the diaconate."

It claimed that the Commission was "entirely controlled by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith", which deals with matters of Catholic faith and whose prefect is Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. Cardinal Desmond Connell is also on the Congregation.

The Catholic Women Priests' group said, "the Commission's report, which has been kept under wraps until now, contains a controversial section on women deacons. The report has not been officially published so far, but seems to have been 'leaked' in semi-official publications."

The group has published this leaked document on a new web site www.womendeacons.org and has claimed "the International Theological Commission consists of theologians handpicked for their loyalty to the Vatican's way of thinking."

The theologian John Wijngaards, who supports the ordination of women in the Catholic Church, said the document illustrated that the Vatican "ignores modern scholarship, especially scholarship that supports the sacramentality of the women's diaconate."

The document also omitted important facts from the available evidence and dismissed the evidence from the widespread, centuries-old ordination rite, he said. It was "misleading in many of its statements, insinuations and conclusions," he said.

Last week the Belgian Bishops, on their ad limina visit to the Pope, reiterated their wish for the diaconate of women to be reinstalled in the Catholic Church.