Pope institutes new commission to study women deacons

By Sr Bernadette Mary Reis, fsp

The daily noon bulletin released by the Holy See Press Office contained an announcement regarding the institution of a new commission to study the possibility of women deacons.

It contained the information that Pope Francis, in a recent audience with Cardinal Luis Ladaria, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, had decided to create a new Commission.

The following people will make up the new commission:

President:

His Eminence, Cardinal Giuseppe Petrocchi, Archbishop of Aquila, Italy

Secretary:

Rev. Denis Dupont-Fauville, Official of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faioth

Members:

Prof. Catherine Brown Tkacz, Lviv (Ukraine)

Prof. Dominic Cerrato, Steubenville (USA)

Prof. Don Santiago del Cura Elena, Burgos (Spain)

Prof. Caroline Farey, Shrewsbury (Great Britain)

Prof. Barbara Hallensleben, Friburgo (Switzerland)

Prof. Don Manfred Hauke, Lugano (Svizzera)

Prof. James Keating, Omaha (USA)

Prof. Mons. Angelo Lameri, Crema (Italy)

Prof. Rosalba Manes, Viterbo (Italy).

Prof. Anne-Marie Pelletier, Parigi (France).

A previous commission had been composed in August 2016, shortly after the International Union of Superiors General had asked the Pope to think about it in an audience they had with him in May 2016.

That commission handed in their research, which the Pope said was inconclusive.

In his final address at the conclusion of the Special Synod of Bishop on the Pan-Amazon Region, Pope Francis indicated that he welcomed "the request to reconvene the Commission and perhaps expand it with new members in order to continue to study the permanent diaconate that existed in the early Church".