Women's ordination, yet again. (News in Brief: Canada).

Edmonton--A March issue of Edmonton's Western Catholic Reporter reported on Fr. Thomas 0'Meara, O.P., giving some guest lectures at Edmonton's Newman Theological College. Reprinted in Saskatchewan's Prairie Messenger and Toronto's Catholic Register, the latter headed the report as "Married priesthood, women's diaconate, a matter of time."

Only a few weeks earlier the Vatican's International Theological Commission in Rome had confirmed that there is no evidence of women ever having been ordained "deaconesses" in the early Church (see C.L, Jan/Feb 2003). That put a final damper on the idea, long supported by feminists that the early Church had ordained women if not as priest, then at least as deaconesses.

O'Meara rehashed the old arguments in favour of women's ordination (clergy shortage, etc.), and denounced Rome and Pope John Paul for putting an end to the discussion, just as if Catholics have not had to endure this useless chatter for the last 35 years.

Comment

People like Fr. O'Meara think that they are helping women when, in fact, they are putting them down, suggesting that, in order to be a full member of the Catholic Church, women have to be priests or deacon esses. That's insulting to the hundreds of millions of women worldwide who have significant roles in the Church, and those women and men who constitute the Lord's faithful without any formal role at all. Why do Catholic weeklies keep reporting this prattle as if it were hot-off-the-press news?