Irish Jesuit bishop says women are not second class citizens
EXCLUSIVE REPORT
The bishop of Down and Connor, Alan McGuckian has unequivocally said that he thinks the door to the female diaconate is shut and that his fellow Jesuit Pope Francis should have said so.
The bishop made the comments during an interview with journalist Martin O’Brien in the St Patrick’s Centre in Downpatrick as part of a series celebrating the centre’s 25th anniversary.
Asked about his fellow Jesuit Pope Francis who seemed to open the door to the female diaconate, the interviewer asked if the bishop was clear on whether the door to female diaconate was open or shut now or if he was ambivalent about it?
“No, I think it is shut and I think Francis should have said so.”
Asked what would he say to a woman who feels a second class citizen in the Catholic Church because she cannot become a priest the bishop replied that he doesn’t believe she is a second class citizen of the Catholic Church and added: “And there is something about the Catholic dispensation. There is something very deep about this understanding of the sacramental nature of things, the bridegroom and the bride and this is so rich and deep that we cannot easily set that aside. We cannot easily set that, I don’t believe we can set it aside and I don’t think we need to. Like the power of Christianity is that we are on mission together to change the world. And the fact that some of us are priests and some of us are not priests, that can’t be the big deal.”
Asked was it a mistake then by Pope Francis opening up the female diaconate debate Bishop McGuckian replied “Francis wanted to hear all voices and he invited all voices. Part of the beauty of Francis and this is part about now our modern world. [In] our modern world we fracture very quickly. We live in a totally fractured world where our spontaneous thing is if we disagree with one another we demonise the other.
“And Francis had this vision and it was a good one and I admire him for it that the followers of Christ have to be different. We have to genuinely listen to one another respectfully. We have to hold, the power of Catholicism is that we will try and hold communion as long as we possibly can. And he wanted us, he called us into this synodal process where everybody could speak and everybody would be listened to and that’s a good thing. It is almost an impossible thing to do. But if we Christians do not model an attempt to do that in the world, the world will the world could be in a terrible state. And indeed I am absolutely certain that the great values of western civilization that have in many ways held the whole world together come from the gospel. They come from Christianity. And to cut off the roots, you know like for secularists when they cut off the branch that is Christianity they’re cutting off the branch they are sitting on and that is our contribution, is to hold fast to the vision of Christ which is one that holds people together and therefore Francis wanted to listen to everybody.”
Asked if he could rule out that at some point in the future the Holy Spirit might guide the church in the direction of ordained female ministry he replied: “I remember when I studied theology, there was an opinion that maybe Jesus didn’t found the Church. You know, maybe it only came later and it was sort of read back into the Matthew’s gospel that Jesus certainly didn’t institute the sacraments, he didn’t institute the Eucharist, the priesthood. The Catholic Church believes that he did. That God founded the Church. That was his intention. Jesus, the son of God, founded the sacraments. It was his intention. The Catholic position is strong on this. Now, will we find out at some other stage that like if Jesus had known better, if he had known more? I’m pretty strong on it.” The full interview is available on the St Patrick’s Centre YouTube channel.
