Are Women Deacons Coming to the Catholic Church?

[00:00:16] There's been much talk recently at the highest levels of the Catholic Church about the possibility of women deacons. And now one theologian close to Pope Francis said that he's very favorable to the idea. Are women deacons even possible in the catholic church? That's what we're going to talk about today on Cris Point. Hello, I'm Eric Semi, your host, energy for Crisis magazine. Before we get started, I want to encourage you people to smash that, like, button. Don't just tap it. Don't just hit it. Don't just press it or whatever else you might do, but actually smash it. That's the only way it counts. Also subscribe to the channel, but don't hit the notify button because you have a life outside the Internet. You don't want your phone telling you what to do. You can also follow us on social media at crisis mag and all the different social media channels. Also subscribe to our email newsletter. Just go to crisismagazine.com, scroll down a little bit, ping your email address, and we'll send you our articles right to your inbox every single day. Also, before I get started, if you're watching this live on February 13, or in the first week in which this is up and you live near Detroit, Michigan, you can see me. Yes, that's right, me. I'm going to be giving talks at three different parishes in the Detroit area. At St. Mary, Queen of Creation Parish in New Baltimore, Michigan, on February 20. St. Edward Parish in. Where is that? Lakeport, Michigan, on February 21. And finally, at the Assumption Grotto Church in Detroit itself on February 22 in the evening. So be sure. I'd love to see you there. If you live in Detroit area, live near Detroit, please come. I'd love to see. Like I said, I'll be talking about the topics of my book, deadly indifference. [00:02:01] Actually, speaking of my talk coming up, I had actually planned to do something I hadn't done before, which is to pre record this, because I got a bunch of stuff I have to get ready before I go and get ready for crisis. And I just want to say it was a disaster. It was a good preparation for me for lint, because it was very humiliating, very humbling. I am a computer guy. I was a systems analysis major in college. I was a computer programmer for 15 years. Worked in the Internet industry during a.com boom, all that stuff. And I tried to pre record this, and it was a complete failure. I tried two different times. Both times it failed for various reasons. So I'm going live like I normally do. I'm going to try to get a podcast up next week while I'm gone. That might be pre recorded, but obviously if I miserably fail again, then you will know when you hear nothing from me. Okay, so let's get on the topic at hand, which is transdecanism. Okay. That's not really what it's called, but it's the idea of women deacons. So this has been percolating for a number of years now. I remember a few years ago, Tim Gordon and I actually had a bet on whether or not the church would approve women deacons within that year. I think that was like after one of the synods from like 2000 and maybe 18 or 19. I can't remember now how long ago it was May 2020, and it didn't happen, so I won the bet, but that doesn't mean it's not coming back for more. [00:03:29] And so in the latest senate on synodality, there was discussion about again. And so this has been something that's been coming up more and more now. Recently there was a meeting of the canine. No, that is not a police department's dog division, but instead it's the nine cardinals who are the closest advisors to Pope Francis. He picked them as his closest advisors and they had a meeting about the role of women in the church. Now, this is something Pope Francis has been talking about for a few years now. [00:04:05] He seems to imply or indicate that women have not been treated properly in the church over 2000 years. They haven't had the proper role in the church. Somehow. We don't know what it is or something of that nature, I don't really know. [00:04:22] Anyway, they're having a meeting and they had an anglican female bishop. And for those who are just listening, yes, I did put bishop in quotes because obviously it's not a real bishop. Her name is Joe Bailey Wells and she's a gender equality person and she was going to talk to them. Now, why you would ask an anglican anything when it has to do with running the church kind of baffles me. Unless you want to know how to destroy a church, because if there's one thing the anglican church has done, it's basically had an internal destruction, particularly over the past 50 years. So I don't know why you'd ever ask them how to do things, but apparently they did ask an anglican woman bishop about the role of women in the church. But also another catholic sister was there, salician Sister Linda. Her name. I'm not sure how to pronounce your last name, but it's like Pochet, maybe P-O-C-H-E-R maybe just poacher. I don't know. But anyway, Sister Linda, she's a professor of christology and mariology at Rome's pontifical faculty of educational sciences, auxilium. She was there as well. And she was quoted as saying that Pope Francis is very much in favor of the diaconate for women. I'll repeat that again. This Sister Linda, who was at this, and she's a professor in Rome, she seems to be close to the pope on some level. She said that Francis is, quote, very much in favor of the diaconate for women. Now let's be clear. This is secondhand information. [00:05:57] Sister Linda could have misinterpreted what Pope Francis said. She could be kind of projecting what she thinks onto him. She could be outright lying for her own purposes. But I don't think this is a big shock to anybody. I mean, Francis has given kind of mixed signals on this over the years, but he's made it very clear he thinks the role of women should change in the Catholic Church from what it's always been for 2000 years. And obviously the first step of that would be the women diaconate. I also think we should be clear about something else right off the top, and that is that I think everybody knows that women deacons is just step one. Actually, it's not even step one. There's steps before it, like girl altar servers, but it's one step towards the ultimate goal, which is that women could be in every ministerial role in the church, including the priesthood, including the episcopacy. We all know that just having the one, the women deacons is only one step in that process. I don't think there's anybody who's calling for women deacons who also doesn't want women priests and women bishops. At some point they might not admit it publicly, but they do want it. So this is something, though, that, what does it mean that we would have women deacons? Is it even possible to have women deacons in the Catholic Church? And I also note that our brothers and sisters in the orthodox churches, there's a debate going on in orthodoxy about women deacons. Now some, maybe Ortho Bros. Trad orthodox people might, no, no, we can't have that. And I'm not saying they can. I'm just saying there are orthodox discussions about this as let's just, we're going to refrain from that discussion, only talk about in the Catholic Church. Is it even possible of women deacons? Because obviously it's being floated out there as a possibility. [00:07:52] And if it's not possible, could we have an end around? Do something else? We'll talk about that as well. So first, I just want to make clear, let's kind of start at the high level about the sacrament of holy orders, sacraments in general. The first thing to remember is that all sacraments, all sacraments have restrictions on who can receive them. [00:08:16] I say this because we kind of live in a time where it's like all are welcome, seems to be the motto of the Catholic Church. Basically, there are no restrictions on anything. But that's just not the case. The sacraments, every single sacrament has a restriction on who can receive it. Now, some might say, what about baptism? Even baptism does. For example, if you've already been baptized, you can't be baptized. Again, that's a restriction on it. [00:08:43] Likewise, if you're an adult and you don't want to be baptized, and you make that very clear, I don't want to be baptized, then you can't be validly baptized. If some priest pours water over your head and says, I baptize you, name the Father, son, Holy Spirit. It's not a valid baptism because you literally are said, I don't want to be baptized. You have to choose. You have to make a decision to be baptized. Now, there are cases in which maybe somebody dying and somebody's not sure whether or not, but they thought maybe they could. You could try that, maybe a conditional baptism, something like that. Obviously infants are different because the parent can choose for the child, but there are restrictions is the point. And of course, all the other sacraments have even more restrictions on them. The number one being that you can't receive any sacrament other than baptism without being baptized first. [00:09:35] So there's a restriction on who can receive holy communion, who can receive the sacrament of confirmation. [00:09:41] All these different sacraments, you have to be baptized. For example, you can't have a valid confession to somebody who's a Hindu, never been baptized. So there's restrictions. [00:09:52] And these restrictions are kind of divided up into two categories. There's the kind of, I guess you'd call them apostolic restrictions, meaning restrictions have been on these sacraments since the time of the apostles. And basically these restrictions can't change. [00:10:07] So for example, a non baptized person receiving another sacrament, that can't be changed. Then there's also church discipline restrictions. And a good example of that would be the restriction in the west on communion for infants that we restrict communion to those who have reached the age of reason and been properly disposed towards it. Whereas in the east, an infant could receive holy communion. And that's a church discipline that can change. Married men becoming priest is another church discipline that can be changed. In the west, married men cannot become, be ordained priest. In the east they can. So that could be changed. But one restriction that's from apostolic times, and we'll get into this more in a little bit, and therefore can't be changed, is that only men can receive the sacrament of holy orders. Only men can receive the sacrament of holy orders. [00:11:06] And so that's a restrictions from apostolic times. It cannot be changed by the church. No pope, no bishop, no council can change that. Only men can receive the sacrament of holy orders. Period, end of story. Now where we get into a little bit of confusion. [00:11:26] Nuance for the term that most of us don't like to hear anymore is this idea of the ranks or degrees of holy orders, that in holy orders is different from other sacraments in that there are degrees of holy orders. [00:11:42] In baptism, there's only one baptism. You either baptize or you're not holy communion. It's either valid or it's not the sacrament of confirmation. You either have received it or you've not. With holy orders there are degrees of the sacrament. Now, it's even more confusing that because holy orders also includes, at least traditionally, it also includes ranks and degrees that are outside of the sacrament. [00:12:11] So, for example, at the Council of Trent, it listed seven degrees or ranks of holy orders. Now, if you're paying attention, try to pick something that you'll notice from this list. Something seems to be missing. The list at Trent includes priests, deacons, sub deacons, acolytes, exorcists, readers and doorkeepers. If you notice, bishops aren't even listed, because bishops are part of the rank, in one sense, of the priesthood, although other lists can often separate the episcopacy from the priesthood. But the point is, you notice that of these priests, deacons, subdeacons, acolytes, exorcists, readers and doorkeepers. Obviously, doorkeepers is not a sacrament, the order of doorkeepers or of readers, or of exorcists or acolytes. And the distinction back in the old days was between the major orders and the minor orders. The major orders were priests, deacons and subdeacons, whereas the minor orders were acolytes, exorcists, readers and doorkeepers. And this often distinguished the differences that the individual had in the liturgy. If you've ever been to a solemn, traditional Latin Mass, you'll notice that three different men are engaged in celebrating the liturgy together. Often it'll be three priests, but they're not being priests. All three of them at the liturgy. One is a priest, one is a deacon, one is a subdeacon. Because remember, a priest has already received the order of deacon and subdeacon, at least that they've been traditionally ordained and received those. And so a priest can celebrate a Mass as a deacon in the traditional Latin Rite or as a subdeacon. And so those are the three. But within that, those are major orders. Subdeacon was never considered a sacrament. [00:14:05] The office of subdeacon was never considered a sacrament. But a deacon has been considered a sacrament, although I will admit that that has been debated in the past, whether or not deacon itself is part of the sacrament of holy orders, it's been basically determined. It is, but there has been debate in the past. You will find certain theologians in hundreds of years going before who might have debated that. Now the important thing is this is from Trent. Now, in today's know, post Vatican II, with a lot of changes made, basically all those orders from sub deacon on down have basically been eliminated. And now you just have three orders, and that is the orders of the episcopate, the priesthood, and the diaconate, and all three are considered part of the sacrament, holy orders. Let me pull up here for you from the catechism of the CAtholic Church. This is paragraph 1554. This is the new catechism from the 1990s. [00:15:06] It reads, the divinely instituted ecclesiastical ministries exercised in different degrees by those who, even from ancient times, have been called bishops, priests, and deacons. Catholic doctrine expressed in the liturgy, the magisterium, and the constant practice of the church recognizes there are two degrees of ministerial participation in the priesthood of Christ, the episcopy and the. [00:15:27] Note there. We're talking about the priesthood, the ministerial participation in the priesthood of Christ. There's only bishops and priests that participate in that. The diaconate is intended to help and serve them. For this reason, the term sacrados in current usage denotes bishops and priests, but not deacons. Now here's the key point. Yet catholic doctrine teaches that the degrees of priestly participation, episcopate and presbyteria, and the degree of service diaconate are all three conferred by a sacramental act called ordination, that is, by the sacrament of holy orders. Note that last part again. Catholic doctrine teaches that the degrees of priestly participation, episcopate and presbyterate, and the degree of service diaconate are all three conferred by the sacramental act of Ordination, the sacrament of holy Ors. So in other words, the diaconate is part of the sacrament of holy Ors. The catechism makes this very clear that the diacon is part of the sacrament of holy Ors. So there is a big confusion here, let's be honest, because there's different ways that these orders are divided up historically, traditionally, and today. You have the priestly ministry, which is the priesthood and the episcopate. You have the major orders, the priesthood, the diaconate and the sub diaconate and the minor orders. The other ones. You have the different orders, but the sacramental ones and the non sacramental ones. So let's be honest. [00:16:54] It can be a bit confusing. But the catechism today makes clear what has always been taught, which is that, and always been practiced, which is sacramentally. [00:17:05] There are three degrees in holy orders, the episcopate, the priesthood and the diaconate. So the diaconate, in other words, is part of the sacrament of holy orders. [00:17:20] So like I said before, the sacrament of holy orders is restricted to men. The diaconate is part of the sacrament of holy orders. Therefore, only men can be ordained as deacons in the Catholic Church. [00:17:38] But you might ask, wait a minute, aren't there deaconesses in the Bible and in the early Church? Doesn't that kind of throw down your argument? Salmons, aren't you just kind of making things up as you go along? I'm glad you asked. No, that's not the case. The fact of the matter is that, yes, there was a term diaconus used in the New Testament church, but I'll explain what that meant. And in the early church, I'll explain what that meant and why that's not part of the sacrament of holy orders. And so first, for example, let's go ahead and look at romans 16. This is St. Paul writing to the Romans, and he notes, I commend you our sister Phoebe, a deaconess. The Greek is diaconon of the church at Sincare, that you may receive her in the Lord as befits the saints, and help her in whatever she may require for you, for she has been a helper of many and of myself as well. So Phoebe is called by St. Paul, a deaconess. Now I want to make it clear that the term diaconon here, deacon diacon in Greek just simply means servant. [00:18:46] It's a term that the church took on, but it had a greater meaning than just the sacrament of holy orders. Deacon. Eventually it came to be reserved for that in the church. But it's not to say that the term meant much more in the greek speaking world back then. It just meant a servant. So you could be just a servant at somebody's house and you're going to be called a diaconon potentially, if you're a slave. I think it's doulos. Oh, man. My Greek comes and goes. To be honest, at my age, I think that's the greek term for slave. But it could be a diaconon as well. Diaconon, female form of the term of diaconos. And so, yes, phoebe is called a deaconess. Does that mean then that all of a sudden Phoebe was this ordained deacon of the church? No, it does not mean that, because we see this a little more clearly in St. Paul's letter to Timothy, his first letter to Timothy. So we'll go to chapter three of that. And here he's describing the role of the deacon much more in detail. So this is much more important. This isn't just like a throwaway line like about Phoebe. This is describing what deacons are. St. Paul writes, deacons likewise must be serious. Not double tongue, not addicted to much wine, not greedy for gain. They must hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience and let them also be tested first. If then they prove themselves blameless, let them serve as deacons. So that description of deacons so far could be men or women. There's nothing about it that restricts it to men. However, look at the next line, says the women likewise must be serious. No slanderers, but temperate, faithful in all things. So he's saying the women likewise. [00:20:35] And so a lot of people debate. What does he mean by the women? The greek term there is not diaconon, it's gunakas, which is just a term for women. But you'll notice in a lot of bibles, they will actually have a footnote. A lot of Catholic Bibles too will have a footnote for women. And they will say, meaning deaconesses, that is isegesis. That's not exegesis, that's reading into the text. [00:21:00] Because then he continues on, St. Paul does this. Let deacons be the husband of one wife and let them manage their children and their households well for those who serve well as deacons, gain a good standing for themselves and also great confidence in the faith which is in Christ Jesus. So you see clearly here, he's describing deacons and he talks about women. He goes back to deacons and says they have to be the husband of one wife. Well, clearly a woman can't be the husband of one wife. St. Paul did not live in the 21st century of transgenderism, so don't go down that path. [00:21:32] A lot of people wonder what that line is that he inserts in there about women, and they think it means the wives of deacons. And I think that's a pretty good, from context, interpretation of what he means, because he says the women, likewise, meaning probably the wives of the deacons, must also be serious, not slander. So he's talking about deacons, the men and the women. Their wives must also be good and faithful servants. [00:21:56] And then he goes back to the deacons being husband of one wife. So I think that's pretty clear there that women were not deacons. Now, there was a term diaconus in the early church, and that was women who did serve in the church. But again, the term deacon in Greek is broader than just the holy orders, the sacrament of holy orders. And so there are no examples, no matter what you may hear, there are no examples of sacramental women deacons in the history of the church. None. No examples of sacramental women deacons in the church. And so I think that we need to make it clear that the priesthood, I'm sorry, holy orders is restricted to men alone, and women cannot be bishops. They cannot be priests, they cannot be, will be. I do want to be, in the interest of fairness, I do want to say some people might try to bring up St. John Paul II and his restriction on the sacrament of holy orders to men. However, when he wrote, he did mention priestly ordination, he says, I declare that the church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women, and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the church's faithful. And that was in 1994. Artinacio sacred. [00:23:30] That's when he said that. Notice he does say priestly ordination on women is not possible. That does not mean that he's saying that diaconal ordination is possible. It's just simply he's restricting his comments to this. And this is where we get in some problems with understanding how church teaching works. It's not a matter of, we wait until a pope makes a definite declaration, then it's church teaching that's infallibly held. [00:23:57] That's not how it works. What the pope was doing, what J. P. Two was doing, was he was making it very clear what the church has always taught. In fact, let me go back to that quote real quick before he said that. He says it's part of the church's divine constitution itself, by I'm sorry, this isn't part of this quote. He mentions it earlier. Basically, this is something that has always been held. Men as priests has always been held. He's just confirming because there had been some challenges to it. That's how popes work is. They're more reactionary than anything else. [00:24:31] The pope is saying, okay, some people are starting to confuse this. I'm going to make it very clear what the church teaches. It doesn't mean the church doesn't teach it before that. And so in the case of women deacons, there's no examples of sacramental women deacons in the history of church. There's been no support of it, no push for it. [00:24:50] Basically, that means it's always been held. [00:24:55] It's basically an infallible doctrine because the church has always held it. [00:25:00] We don't need a pope to say it outright for it to be infallibly held. So let's just make that very clear. Women cannot become deacons. They cannot be ordained in the sacrament of holy orders as deacons. I actually want to make sure that's clear how I said that, because I said first, women cannot be deacons. But that's actually not true. Women can be called deacons. In fact, that's what I want to talk about now is break down what I think might actually happen here. [00:25:29] Women cannot be ordained to the sacramental order of the diaconate. It doesn't mean they can't start trotting out women wearing diaconal garb or doing things that deacons do in the modern church. What does a deacon do? Basically, they serve the bishop. They assist at the liturgy. Often their duty is to read the gospel. In fact, if you have a deacon celebrating mass, he has to read the gospel, and he has precedence over the priest or the bishop who might be celebrating. It's the deacon who reads the Gospel and he can preach. A deacon is allowed to preach. [00:26:10] Honestly, those things should always be restricted. But I could see a situation in which they have a woman dress up as a deacon, where they even have a little ceremony for her to say, now you're in the order of women deacons. [00:26:28] She could assist at the liturgy, she could even read the Gospel, heaven forbid, and they could have her preach. None of those things should, should happen. But I could see them doing that, all the while never having it claimed. That's the sacramental order of deacons, kind of just sidestepping that, because this is how they do things. When I say they, I mean the modernist. Let's be clear about this. I mean, the people in the church who are trying to remake the church, they don't just come out and change something that's always been held. They redefine things. We saw that just recently with the whole blessing of same sex couples. They tried to redefine what blessings are. They tried to make it like, oh, it's not a liturgical action. It's not really doing this or that. Let's just redefine it. We'll call blessings something else. We'll call something else blessings, I should say, and then we'll just say, oh, yeah, it's not the same thing. What are you all complaining about? They do this all the time. [00:27:31] This is the mo. [00:27:34] So I could very well see a situation in which they will gradually include more things for women to do that are what deacons are doing today. [00:27:43] And part of that is because I think that they understand holy orders completely as what you do a job, not what you are. [00:27:55] When you're a priest, you don't have a job of preaching, of celebrating mass, of running a parish. [00:28:04] You might have those tasks to do, of course, but being a priest is what you are. You're in Persona Christi. [00:28:12] A deacon also has a certain ontological, not quite the same as the priesthood, but is an ontological reality. When you're ordained a deacon, it changes who you are. Now you're part of the service to the church in a way that a layperson is not. [00:28:29] So a deacon is part of the clergy. [00:28:33] It's not just he does certain things, although he happens to be the one who holds the chalice for the priest or something like that, or he reads the gospel. That's not essentially what a deacon is. [00:28:44] But the modernists, they do see these vocations as jobs, what people do, not what they are. [00:28:53] So they'll just continue to give women the tasks that have been reserved to deacons. They might even call them deaconesses, but they're not going to be part of the ordained order of the diaconate. And so I would say that as Catholics, we cannot support this. If you have a parish that starts doing this, you need to leave. I know I say this kind of flippantly, and I understand it's not as easy as I might make it, especially if you don't live in a big city where there's lots of options. You live in a rural area where maybe there's only one parish available within, like, an hour. Okay, I get it's hard, but you really should not attend a parish where a woman is doing the jobs of a deacon, because what it does is it sends a message. It undermines the actual diaconate without explicitly contradicting it. That's what they do. They undermine the teachings of the church without explicitly contradicting it. I mean, if we don't know this playbook by now, we're not paying attention. [00:29:58] And so we can't support that. We cannot support this kind of pseudo deaconess, the pseudo diaconate that women would have. Now, that all being said, now I want to say, I think most people who have listening to this are with me on all that. Maybe some are not. I pray that you kind of think about what a deacon is and what their purposes is. [00:30:25] I want to get something a little more controversial, maybe not with my audience, I don't know. But that is, this is just another example of the problem of blurring the distinctions between men and women that happen not just among modernists, not just among progressives, but also among conservatives. [00:30:46] Your best conservative, Nova Soro parish still often has women girl altar servers, has women doing the readings, have a whole army of women eucharistic ministers. So you have lots of women up in the sanctuary. [00:31:02] That is all simply prep for what we have now, for trying to get women deacons, women priests, women bishops. Because what it does is it subconsciously just seeps in that there's no difference between the men and the women up there. Women can do it just as well as men. Because, again, if you just look at the holy orders as what you do, then all you care about is how well do you do that? And a woman could preach just as well as a man, I would be willing to bet there are women who could preach better than men. St. Teresa of Avila could probably, if she was asked, if she had to, could give probably one of the greatest homilies ever given. I would listen to her as well, by the way, forever. If St. Teresa of Avila is preaching about prayer, preaching about spirituality, my goodness. But she would never do it, of course, because she's a saint and she understands that's not. Her role, isn't to get up there and preach during mass. [00:32:00] And so we need to resist all the little things have come before this that undermine the distinctiveness between men and women. Men have very specific roles in the church, and women have very specific roles in the church. Now, the modernists, the liberals, the progressives, the feminists, they want to make it where it's all about power, that the men have the power in the church and we don't. Now, that's ridiculous. First of all, in today's, church. It's particularly ridiculous because women practically run most parishes. But even historically, it's ridiculous because power is not just simply. What's your position in the church? Are you at this rank or are you at this rank? That's all that matters. Power is influence over the church. Are you telling me St Teresa of Avila had no influence over the church? Are you telling me St Catherine of Sienna had no influence over the church? Are you telling me St Trezza Lasou, a girl who spent her whole life, half her life, in a convent, her short life, died at the age of 24, didn't have influence on the Catholic Church? Give me a break. And of course, the trump card always. Who's had the more influence? What human being has had more human person has more influence over the Catholic Church than any human person in the history of mankind, or womankind, or whatever you want to call it. That's the Blessed Virgin Mary. So don't give me this crap that women don't have influence or power in the church. It's different, though, and it should remain different, because men and women are made differently. We're not the same. We're not made to be the same. Men are made to be up there to lead, to be the spiritual fathers. Women are intended to be spiritual mothers, which is practiced differently. I'm a big believer. I am so fortunate because my parish, we have an order of nuns attached to it that has such a powerful influence over our parish, and it really changes the dynamics. I've never been in a parish before that had an order of nuns attached to it, and I didn't know what I didn't know. And you don't know what you don't know if you've never had it happen. It has a huge influence for good, by the way, for great good. And it just gives a motherly influence to coincide with the fatherly influence of the priests who run the parish, who are our spiritual fathers. They are an authority over everything that happens. But then you have the sisters who have such a feminine influence as well. So there are roles, but none of those sisters are going to get up there and want to celebrate the mass or preach or anything like that. They don't need to. But don't tell me they don't have a huge impact on the people in the parish. That's what we need to get back to, is we need to be encouraging our daughters, our sisters, to look into the religious life of traditional religious orders, ones that embrace these proper roles. [00:35:03] And I think that's what we really need to do, because when we do that, we have a balance. A balance in church. That's the role of women. They don't need to have the canine getting together talk about the role of women. Just look at how they've had influence in the past. That's what we want to do. So we need to affirm traditional religious orders of sisters. We need to affirm the place of men in holy orders and in the Catholic Church. And only men should be in the sanctuary. Frankly, they're the only ones who should be at the altar. Preaching, even reading the readings. Distributing holy communion only should be the orders. I realize that's a long ways away. I know Gingra or Yukesk ministers isn't happening tomorrow or girl altar servers, but it really is something that long term is needed to reinstate the proper role of men and women in the catholic church. Okay, I'm going to end it there. I kind of went off there at the end, but I really do think that this women deacons is just another infiltration, so to speak, of undermining the true role of men in the church and the true role of women in the church. So I think we really do need to resist it as much as possible. Okay, everybody, until next time. God love.