The Synod, the diaconate, and women
Not long ago, Cardinal Walter Kasper told the international Catholic journal Communio that the diaconal ordination of women was theologically possible and pastorally sensible.
Phyllis Zagano
Phyllis Zagano, PhD, is Senior Research Associate-in-Residence and Adjunct Professor of Religion at Hofstra University. She holds a BA from Marymount College, Tarrytown, New York; a PhD from the State University of New York at Stony Brook; and three master’s degrees, in communications (Boston University), literature (Long Island University), and theology (St. John’s University). She is the author or editor of twenty-six books in religious studies, and hundreds of articles and reviews. Her papers are collected at the Gannon Women and Leadership Archives, Loyola University, Chicago, Illinois.
Her groundbreaking study, Holy Saturday: An Argument for the Restoration of the Female Diaconate in the Catholic Church (Crossroad, 2000), won both Catholic Press Association and College Theology Society Annual Book Awards.
Her most recent book, Just Church: Catholic Social Teaching, Synodality, and Women (Paulist Press, 2023), examines synods past and present in relation to the application of Catholic Social Teaching to questions regarding women in the church. Other recent books include Women Religious, Women Deacons: Questions and Answers (Paulist Press, 2022) and a book for pre-teens entitled Elizabeth Visits the Abbey (Clear Faith Publishing, 2022).
In addition to the many honors through her life, in 2016 Zagano was appointed by Pope Francis to the Papal Commission for the Study of Women in the Diaconate, which met four times in Rome between November 2016 and June 2018.
Not long ago, Cardinal Walter Kasper told the international Catholic journal Communio that the diaconal ordination of women was theologically possible and pastorally sensible.