Study: Most US major superiors think women deacons ‘theoretically possible’

Light of Truth

A major new study has found that more than three-quarters of the leaders of religious orders of priests, brothers and sisters in the U.S. believe it is “theoretically possible” to ordain women as deacons in the Catholic Church.

Nearly as many, according to the just-released report from the Centre for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University, believe the church “should authorize” the ordination of women to the diaconate.

The study was released by CARA on August 2, the second anniversary of Pope Francis creating a commission to study the women’s diaconate. It surveyed all 777 leaders of Catholic men and women religious orders in the U.S., and got responses over a four-month period from 385, or just below 50 percent.

Among the findings:
• 77% believe it is “theore-tically possible” to ordain women as deacons;
• 72% say the church “shou-ld authorize” such ordinations;
• 76% say ordaining women as deacons would be “very much” or “somewhat” “beneficial to the Catholic Church’s mission”;
• 45% believe the church will return to the practice of ordaining women as deacons.

The new CARA study, which focuses only on attitudes of leaders of religious orders, follows an earlier study by the group on the wider attitudes of U.S. Catholic women. That study, released in January, found that 60% of women thought the church should implement a women’s diaconate.

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