The American television series Madam Secretary follows US Secretary of State Elizabeth McCord (Téa Leoni) as she navigates the worlds of politics and world diplomacy. Would the Vatican have a woman Secretary of State? Could it? Not long ago, Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin suggested there is nothing inherently clerical about his job. Or is there?
The Vatican's Secretary of State, one of the pope's principal advisors, must be a cardinal. And cardinals — at least since promulgation of the 1983 Code of Canon Law — must be at least priests. So that leaves half the church out of the running entirely. Women cannot be ordained priests.
But there are three types of cardinals: cardinal bishops, cardinal priests, and cardinal deacons. And in modern times there have been cardinal deacons who indeed were deacons. And throughout history, women have been deacons.
So, is there a chance? Is there any possibility the church will have a woman Secretary of State who is a cardinal deacon?
The only barriers are what are known as 'merely ecclesiastical laws,' laws that regulate the running of the Catholic Church, but are not related to dogma or doctrine. In short, the laws that keep women from being cardinal deacons are laws until the pope decides to change them.
The first step would be to return to the Church's earlier practice of ordaining women as deacons. Ordaining women as deacons would bring them into the clerical state, required to fulfil completely many church offices. The Church's canon laws state that the laity may 'cooperate with' but not 'share' authority in the church, and that applies to many positions.
Restoring women to the ordained diaconate would allow them to hold wholly (the formal word is 'obtain') certain offices now restricted to clerics, such as chancellor and judge.
"More than one pope has called for a 'more incisive' role for women in the church. None has managed to answer."
The diaconate is a ministry of service, and deacons are ordained to ministry of the Word, the liturgy, and charity. But as the church has grown in bureaucratic complexity, so has grown the need for clerical status. And some deacons — males all — already serve in church offices that could be equally open to women if they, too, were ordained.
But the complexity of the discussion is not only about whether women can be ordained.
Some feminists argue against restoring women to the diaconate because they see it as a second-fiddle sop