Sir, - Is Soline Vatinel now getting messages from the other side? Phoebe, in whose persona Ms Vatinel most recently presumes to address us (October 23rd), was not a deacon but a servant of the Church at Cenchrae (the Greek for deacon and servant being the same). We must be rather careful when reading the Scriptures to distinguish technical from non-technical terms.
There were indeed women in the early Church who were called servitors or diakonissai. These were not ordained but simply instituted in much the same way as ministers of the word and extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist, male and female, are today. In fact, one of their functions seems to have been the covert bringing of Holy Communion to Christian women living in purdah in imperial and patrician households; another was apparently the rubbing over the body of a newly baptised and confirmed woman the sacred chrism only summarily applied by the bishop for reasons of modesty. With the total Christianisation of the Empire, however, adult baptism disappeared, the clergy could openly move at every level of society and the services of these auxiliary female lay ministers became obsolete.
As a result, both general and regional councils of the Church from Nicaea onward repeatedly discouraged their institution precisely because of the possible confusion of their title with that of ordained deacons. The Acts of the Apostles (6:5) clearly demonstrate that all of the first deacons were male. No Christian who wishes to be faithful to God's word, here or in Rome, can decide to go beyond the exclusively male candidature, whether priestly or diaconal, set before us in the Bible, since the sexes, though absolutely equal, are simply not interchangeable. Otherwise, why should Scripture condemn homosexuality? - Yours, etc.,
Fr David O'Hanlon, CC, Kentstown, Navan, Co Meath.