No need for deaconesses: Müller

The Tablet
July 4, 2013

The Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) has questioned the notion that a special office could be created for women deacons.

Archbishop Gerhard Müller said that in order to create a specific, non-sacramental office for women deacons, it would be necessary to prove that such an office was necessary. He was responding to a proposal by Cardinal Walter Kasper to create a specific deacon's office for women an expression of the common priesthood of all the faithful.

He pointed out that women were already doing charitable and catechetical work besides being pastoral assistants and recalled that, according to Church teaching, only men could validly be ordained as deacons.

"One would have to prove that a specific, non-sacramental ministry for women analogous to that of women deacons in the Early Church was necessary today," Müller concluded.