Reply from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith

Reply from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith

The response was to a letter by the organizations of German Catholic women.
translation by John Wijngaards.

Sacred Congregation for Doctrine

Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
Palazzo del S. Uffizio
00120 Città del Vaticano

Ref. No 26/88-14983

7 May 2002

Professor Steichele
Magdalena Bogner

In a joint letter of 7 March 2002 you have in the name of the Katholischer Deutscher Frauenbund and the Katholische Frauengemeinschaft Deutschlands written to this Congregation and submitted various considerations in favour of admitting women to the diaconate.

This Congregation has taken careful note of what you had to say, but has come to the conclusion that the argumentation is especially based on social and socio-political points of view and that, unfortunately, convincing theological grounds cannot be found.

While assuring you that we will treat the important question of the diaconate of women with the concern it deserves,

I remain with friendly greetings,

your

+ Tarcisio Bertone
Secretary of the Congregation for Doctrine of the Faith

What do we know about the ancient women deacons? RC women called to the diaconate Theologians on the teaching of the CDF The duty of speaking out New book on the ancient women deacons Womenpriests home page

For related online Libraries see:  

The ORDINATION OF WOMEN in the Catholic Church

Catherine of Siena VIRTUAL COLLEGE
THE BODY IS SACRED MYSTERY AND BEYOND

We hope that you have found this document helpful. It costs our small charity on average £10 / $20 / Euro15 to make such a document freely available to you. This is because we have to identify the best scholarship available, retrieve texts, obtain permissions, scan, edit, link and convert documents to html format and run a small office base to make this all possible. We can do this only because we are run almost entirely by volunteers. Please help us build our online library of resources so that more people can access the debate and make up their own minds about women priests. Having benefited from the online library, any donation, small or large, that you can make to support our work would be gratefully appreciated. Click here to learn how to make a donation now.

Find links to related websites in your own country! Make this site one of your favourites Recommend this website to a friend Let us have your ideas and suggestions Create a button and link to our site from your webpage Women's Ongoing Internet Consultation 'Friends' give us a regular contribution We need your financial support!

Please, credit this document
as published by www.womenpriests.org!