Jesuits.ie: Why not women deacons? (includes links to three podcasts)

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Why not women deacons?

Dr Zagano is Professor of Religion at Hofstra University in New York, the author of many books, and a specialist on the diaconate. She was appointed to Pope Francis’s first commission on the diaconate in 2016.

On December 5, 2025, an opinion piece by her was published in the National Catholic Reporter entitled, ‘Vatican document on women deacons opens door to more confusion’ ». In it, she notes that the Vatican had just published the opinion of the ‘Second Commission for the Study of the Diaconate’, and they had done so in Italian only. What they said was, “Women cannot be ordained as deacons because they cannot ‘image Christ’”. Commenting on the publication Zagano says, “It is in effect a statement that the Catholic Church officially views women as ‘other’”.

Below, from our podcast archive, are links to three short but comprehensive interviews she gave on the diaconate and the issue of women’s ordination to it. These were conducted with Pat Coyle of Irish Jesuit Communications in April 2023, when she was guest speaker at the Loyola Institute, Trinity College Dublin, addressing the topic of synodality.

After her talk, she spoke with Pat Coyle about how a Jesuit priest spurred her in the direction of the diaconate as a field of study. She also outlined the rise and decline of the diaconate, at one time practised by both men and women. And she explained how eventually the ordination of women as deacons became a historically disputed fact and source of controversy to this day.

In the final interview she says, “Unless the Catholic Church will agree that I, too, am made in the image and likeness of God, then the church, particularly the hierarchy, will continue to see the backs of women’s heads as they race out of the church for the last time.”

Interview 1: Ordaining Women Deacons »

Interview 2: Throwing Down the Gauntlet »

Interview 3: Dare We Hope? »