Author, scholar and Hofstra University Department of Religion Professor Phyllis Zagano, Ph.D., will speak to the Chestnut Hill College community about the advocacy of women deacons, Sunday, November 9, from 2-4 p.m., at the College’s Commonwealth Chateau, SugarLoaf Hill. Her lecture, “A Conversation that Matters: Women Deacons are a Thing of the Past,” will address the historical presences and contributions women deacons have made to the Catholic Church and what the restoration of their ordination could mean for the church in today’s world.
“The fact that the women deacons of history primarily served women and children, assisting in baptism, catechesis, spiritual direction and the sacrament of the sick, is ample support for what women in ministry are doing today. Yet women in ministry are not ‘ecclesial trained (though many have significant theological and pastoral formation),’ ordained, or given faculties by their bishops, even though they may minister on their behalf,” said Dr. Zagano.
“The biggest gift that ordained women would be able to make to the church would be in preaching the homily at mass — a task restricted to clerics participating in the given mass — and share their great wealth of ministerial experience with the people whom they serve and with others,” she said.
Dr. Zagano has taught at Hofstra University for 12 years and writes for the National Catholic Reporter. She has authored more than 10 books in religious studies which include “Holy Saturday: An Argument for the Restoration of the Female Diaconate in the Catholic Church,” “Women & Catholicism: Gender, Communion, Authority,” “Women Deacons: Past, Present, Future,” and “Women in Ministry: Emerging Questions on the Diaconate.” She is a founding co-chair of the Roman Catholic Studies Group of the American Academy of Religion, and a member of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, the Society for the Study of Christian Spirituality, the College Theology Society and the Catholic Theological Society of America.
Dr. Zagano’s lecture, sponsored by the College’s Institute for Forgiveness and Reconciliation, is free and open to the public. For more information, email Catherine Nerney, SSJ, atnerneyc@chc.edu or call her at 215.248.7099.
