"Ordaining women as deacons who have the necessary personal, spiritual, intellectual and pastoral qualities would give their indispensable role in the life of the church a new degree of official recognition, both of their ministry and of their direct connection to their diocesan bishop for assignments and faculties. Besides providing such women with the grace of the sacrament, ordination would enable them to exercise diaconal service in the teaching, sanctifying and governing functions of the church; it would also make it possible for them to hold ecclesiastical offices now limited to those in sacred orders. And as the International Theological Commission document points out, what the Second Vatican Council was proposing was not a “restoration of a previous form” but “the principle of the permanent exercise of the diaconate [italics in the French original and in the English translation] and not one form which the diaconate had taken in the past.” Who knows what new and grace-filled enrichment of that ministry might grow from the ordination of women as deacons?"

"Actually, returning women to the ordained diaconate is an administrative, not a doctrinal issue. The diaconate was created by the apostles. Pope Francis reiterated this very point not long ago in Philadelphia. Women have been ordained as deacons throughout the Church’s long history and can be so ordained again. Pounds of recent scholarship by impressive theologians such as Philippe Delhaye, Cipriano Vagaggini, Corrado Marucci, Yves Congar, Peter Hunermann, Ugo Zanetti, and many others have unearthed the history, done the theological analysis, and made the case. Women can be ordained as deacons."

"It’s been said a few times that we should open new ministries for women. Well, what kind of ministries are we talking about? So I thought I would give three examples we could study. The first is assigning positions that are presently open within diocesan curias and the Roman Curia to women. The second is allowing lay women and men, couples, to share in the preaching responsibility at Sunday Mass, where they could witness to the relationship between the Word of God and their lives as a parents and a married couple. And third, why not look at the question of ordaining women to the diaconate? It’s not a closed issue. There has been no dogmatic statement saying that women cannot be ordained deacons."