Pope closes to women deacons, 'time is not ripe'

The Pope closes the doors, at least for the moment, to the ordination of women deacons. It is one of the most sensitive topics within the work of the Synod, so much so that in the last few hours ill-feelings had leaked out about a lack of attention to the proposals by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. The Cardinal Prefect, Argentinean Victor Manuel Fernandez, responded today: "The Holy Father has expressed that at the moment the question of the female diaconate is not ripe and has asked that we do not discuss this possibility now".

Meanwhile, the fourth encyclical of Pope Francis to speak to "a world that seems to have lost its heart" was announced today. It is entitled Dilexit Nos (He loved us) and will be published on Thursday 24 October. The issue of the role of women in the Church risks igniting new controversy. It was precisely on women that there had been an open protest by the Catholic University of Leuven during Pope Francis' last trip to Belgium and Luxembourg. The Pontiff, in the press conference with in-flight journalists, had replied, however, leaving no room for news.

Several movements outside the synod, such as 'WeChurch', emphasised the urgency of admitting women to ministries. "If this does not happen soon, the Church will lose credibility and the faithful," they said at a press conference earlier this month, as the work of the Synod got underway. But Cardinal Fernandez takes a different view. Acting as spokesman for the Pope's position today, he said: "Thinking about the diaconate for a few women does not solve the question of the millions of women in the Church" and "rushing to ask for the ordination of deaconesses is not the most important response today to promote women". He then listed the spaces that had already been opened, from catechesis to acolyte, by the Pope and the Vatican but which were not used by the local Churches. "Reality is greater than the idea," he commented, assuring, however, that the debate on the issue could continue.

Pope Francis' new document will arrive on 24 October. "Dilexit nos" is an Encyclical on the Sacred Heart, as he announced last 5 June. "I believe that it will do us much good to meditate on various aspects of the Lord's love that can illuminate the path of ecclesial renewal; but also say something meaningful to a world that seems to have lost its heart," the Pontiff emphasised at that general audience. The devotion to the Sacred Heart was born in 1673 when Sister Margaret Mary Alacoque, born in Burgundy in 1647, "began to receive visits from Jesus who asked her to have particular devotion to His Sacred Heart," the Dicastery of Saints explains. Margaret Mary died on 17 October 1690; a shrine dedicated to the Sacre Coeur was built in the Montmartre district of Paris between 1875 and 1914 and consecrated in 1919.