The Furrow, June 2025: Discerning the Decision point – Next steps on the Synodal Pathway in Ireland

 by Gerry O’Hanlon

There is a challenge to sustain the encounter and the participative nature of synodality, grounded in respectful listening, for long enough to arrive at the point where specific decisions are discerned to be necessary, given the risk that such decision points are inevitably difficult for those of a contrary disposition.

(Conclusion, Synthesis of the Consultation for the Irish Diocesan Stage of the universal Synod, 2022)

Have we arrived at the time of decision point hinted at in this quotation from the national synthesis document? The bishops, priests, religious and laity who will gather in the pre-synodal national assembly in Kilkenny this coming October are well prepared. They have the 15 themes gleaned from the National Synthesis, the two additional ones from the subsequent ongoing consultation process, the Final Document of the Universal or World Synod, the more recent consultation aimed at identifying priorities, and a formation and grounding in the ‘conversation in the spirit’ process which is the preferred tool of discernment.

We may expect and hope for guidance on several key matters –  how to tackle secularism through our faith encounter with Jesus Christ at a time when the Sally Rooney generation of young people are searching for meaning; how to embed synodality, and, in particular, differentiated co-responsibility, more deeply in our parishes and dioceses; how to reach out with missionary hope and meaning to our wounded world, with issues like poverty and inequality, ecology, immigration and threats to democracy crying out for attention. Victim-survivors and their families, of clerical sexual abuse, require ongoing accountability and care. There will be need to continue ongoing formation, so encouragingly exemplified by the 60+ people graduating and being commissioned to leadership in the Killala diocese.

A major concern for the initial Irish consultation which resurfaced time and again in the synodal documents from other parts of the world and from the universal synod, was the role of women. The Final Documents is clear: women and men are equal in dignity through Baptism; their roles are reciprocal (a subtle change in language from the more customary terminology of ‘complementarity’), there is need for a more visible and decision-making role for women at all levels of the Church. This means interval, inter alia, that we avail of all existing provisions of Canon Law to open up these leadership rules for women at Parish and Diocesan levels.

So far, so good. And we can hope and expect that the pre-synodal assembly will reiterate this basic position, and the Catholic Church in Ireland will commit itself to its implementation. By doing so the Church in Ireland and universally is creating a new culture in which the voice of women will be heard at all levels, a good strategic path to change. Nonetheless, as I have written before in these pages, the issue of ordination will not go away. It is totemic and touches and the credibility of all else.

What can be done here? At first glance, nothing. After all the final document itself declares that while the issue remains open, it is handed back to a study group who are expected to report back imminently. However, there is some considerable impatience among the faithful about the efficacy and indeed need for this seemingly never-ending kind of process, and hence the question I pose above: have we in Ireland arrived at a decision point here?

This question was triggered anew for me by a fairly recent interview in the German version of communal with the well-respected German theologian and senior church figure, Cardinal Walter Casper. In the course of this interview Cardinal Casper stated that ‘there are good reasons that make it theologically possible and pastorally sensible to open the Permanent Diaconate to women  . . . each local church would be free to decide whether to make use of this possibility or not. Kasper makes it clear that in arguing thus he is referring to diaconate not as a step to priesthood but as permanent. Nonetheless the line of approach is suggestive and worth exploring.

Kasper’s suggestion – ‘theologically possible’

What might ‘theologically possible’ imply? Well, first despite his careful limiting of the topic to the ‘permanent diaconate’, I think it is probably a recognition from Kasper that the Church’s reasons for the non-ordination of women have, to date, been received as non-persuasive and that this remains a live and even defining issue in many parts of the Church. In this context, the current Study Group, with his focus on identifying historic instances of female diaconate, cannot be conclusive: while it is always helpful in facilitating change to be able to cite historical precedents (part of the principle of ressourcement in Vatican II) the fact that something hasn’t happened in the past, as Yves Congar pointed out many years ago, does not automatically rule it out in the present or the future – we have also to factor in the cogency of reading ‘the signs of the times’, of the principle of aggiornamento, also characteristic of Vatican II.

Paul Francis himself despite efforts in the nineties to rule otherwise,  has questioned the ‘definitive’ nature of current church teaching on this issue. We are not dealing with dogma here and indeed if one takes ‘the hierarchy of truths principal’ of Vatican II seriously, neither are we dealing with something that is at the core of what is fundamental to our Christian faith. In an interesting article written after the 1976 publication of Inter Insigniores, Karl Rahner questioned the attempt by the Magisterium to put the burden of proof on those pressing for change in this issue. After all, if the church asserts so firmly that it does not have the authority to ordain women, where are the scriptural foundations of this assertion (not found in Scripture, for example, according to the deliberations of the Pontifical Biblical Commission of the 1970s, peopled by the likes of Raymond Brown and Carlo Martini)?

Finally, which has led me to change my more cautious assessment in a recent article here, there is Kasper’s illusion to the discretionary authority of the local church at a time when Pope Francis and the final Synod, as well as the important document like The Bishop of Rome are pointing to the need to give further recognition to the doctrinal authority of local churches and Episcopal Conferences, always in union with Rome and the rest of the Church. This new emphasis on the doctrinal competence of local churches and regions opens up new possibilities which are well worth exploring. First, however, of ever I want to look at Kasper’s notion of ‘pastorally sensible’ with respect to the female diaconate.

Kasper’s suggestion – ‘pastorally sensible’

There are several aspects to this. First, the people are ready for it; in fact, arguably the people are ahead of the teaching Church in this matter. There was overwhelming support for the female diaconate in the Irish National Synthesis, fruit of the consultation process here. This has been replicated in many other parts of the world, certainly in the so-called ‘Western World’ but also, famously, in many parts of Latin America as instanced at the Amazonian Senate in 2019. This is not to say that there aren’t other parts of the world, for example, parts of Africa, Eastern Europe  – where even as there is support for the role of women in public life generally, there is resistance to the idea of women in Orders. In this context it will be unjust to foist something on churches which are so resistant. But the beauty of the new opening to decentralisation, to diversity, to local doctrinal authority, is that it allows what is pastorally feasible and indeed necessary in certain regions to be introduced and trialled without forcing it on all.

This pastoral feasibility arguably becomes a necessity in a situation like Ireland’s where there is as is well known, a significant dearth of priests. Why settle for a future Eucharistic famine when the antidote is staring us in the face? Already is clear that women are considerably more present and active in church life in Ireland  – as several have already indicated, we might assume that if permitted there will be a generous response from female candidates for the diaconate.

Perhaps, above all, this makes pastoral good sense because without it the mission of the church, its credibility, is damaged. The Final Document of the Synod speaks about our need to be converted from ‘unconscious bias’. Given the way that in almost other spheres of life women have acquired equality with men, given the non-persuasive nature of the Church’s reasons for denying access to Orders for women, then it does seem to many (both women and men) that the church Is infected with an ‘unconscious bias’ in this area, which hinders its ability to attract members and even its credibility as a working partner with non-members of goodwill.

I recognise that there are some who, and the other side as it were, will argue that diaconate is too little, too late and that it’s simply not worth the effort. I think this is mistaken: we need to be respectful of how change happens, avoid the chaos we see all around us accompanying change in this Trumpian world, and keep faith in the process to date which, respectful of God’s time, is bringing about significant development in a peaceful way. A female diet would be a wonderful symbolic step forward for the Catholic Church.

A decision point

Pope Francis has all the time urged us to speak openly, candidly in this synod process, as well as not to avoid conflict but to ‘caress’ and ‘endure’ it. Our challenge, as the opening quotation from the National Synthesis Document well articulates, is to sustain the participative nature of our encounter and discernment right up to, and after, those decision points which are not so easy to resolve and may cause conflict. When doing this we need to be aware that synodality needs to avoid two constant temptations – firstly, becoming a talking shop only, avoiding difficult decisions and, secondly, imagining that a consensus of ‘the sense of the faithful’ requires unanimity when from venerable tradition it is clear that what is required is rather a significant majority.

I think it would be good if the delegates in Kilkenny next October, and even now the various groups discerning on this in preparation, were to discern if now might be the time for the Irish church to give leadership on an issue which is important to Ireland and, arguably, has gone on for too long in limbo-like state in the Universal Church.

By leadership I do not mean defiance or demand. Rather I mean a respectful (but not deferential) statement by the bishops to the Church in Ireland and to the Holy See, after the Assembly in October 2025, the subsequent year-long consultation among the faithful helped by theologians and other academic disciplines, and the October 2026 full Synod Assembly. This statement would say that the Church in Ireland has discerned the pastoral sense and even necessity of the female diaconate and is requesting the Holy See to allow this to happen.

Of course there are many moving parts in the scenario I have sketched – to name but a couple, the findings of the Vatican Study Group and developments another Churches (the Catholic Church in Germany, as is well known has already declared itself in favour of the female diaconate). But think of what might be achieved: perhaps Pope Leo would be pleased to get this nudge from a Church like the Irish one, perhaps it would give others heart and it would certainly throw new light on the image of the Catholic Church in Ireland itself. The major change in early Christianity happened not through developments in Jerusalem or Rome but in much more peripheral Antioch.

We could keep quiet and let others do all the heavy lifting. That would be easier. Is that what we want, what God wants, where the Holy Spirit is leading? This is what, I would suggest, we need to discern.

Former Irish Provincial Gerry O’Hanlon SJ is a theologian and author of many books, including ‘Theology in the public square’ and ‘A new vision for the Catholic Church’. He is also a member of the ACP Advisory Committee.