Pope’s adjustment to canon law welcomed

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This article was published 30/01/2021 (2025 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It didn’t make much of a splash earlier this month when Pope Francis adjusted one paragraph of canon law to formally allow women to assist during Mass with serving the Eucharist and praying and reading the scriptures.

In making the adjustment, the Pope affirmed the ability to carry out those ministries is not based on gender but on membership in the Church.

Specifically, he changed a clause in canon law regarding the ministries of lector (praying and reading scriptures) and acolyte (assisting with the Eucharist) from saying it was open to “lay men” to “lay persons.”

In making the change, he said there was an urgency to “rediscover the co-responsibility of all of the baptized in the Church, and the mission of the laity in a particular way.”

The change also brings canon law into line with common practice. For decades local archbishops and priests around the world have been able, at their discretion, to permit women to serve in that way.

This is the case in both the Winnipeg and St. Boniface and archdioceses, where women have been reading scriptures and helping with the Eucharist for many decades.

Archbishop Albert LeGatt of the Archdiocese of St. Boniface welcomes the adjustment, seeing it as an affirmation of the involvement of all members of the church.

In the beginning, he said, there was a lot of lay involvement in the Roman Catholic Church. But over time “everything became concentrated in the priestly office.”

For him, this underscores that everyone is called to minister and serve. This includes women, who have been involved in assisting with the Eucharist and reading scripture for many years in the Archdiocese of St. Boniface for a long time, he said.

Archbishop Richard Gagnon of the Archdiocese of Winnipeg agrees. For him, the change simply indicates how the Pope is rethinking the role of men and women in the church in “new contexts.”

Women have also been welcome to participate in those ways in the Archdiocese of Winnipeg for a long time, he said, adding all members “are called to be disciples of Jesus sharing in his ministry of teaching, sanctifying, and Christian leadership.”

One Manitoban who is very excited by the change is Therese Koturbash, a lawyer in Dauphin and the Canadian representative to Roman Catholic organization Women’s Ordination Worldwide (WOW) — an organization dedicated to seeing women be able to become priests in the Roman Catholic Church.

For Koturbash, a member of St. Viator’s Parish, the change is more than a minor adjustment; it officially affirms women in the church can “stand shoulder to shoulder with lay men as ministers of communion and lectors at mass and girls can be altar servers,” she said.

It also means local Archbishops and priests who don’t want women to serve in these ways can no longer refer to canon law in excluding them.

Although the Pope has made it clear he is not considering allowing women to become priests, Koturbash sees the change to canon law about lectors and acolytes as an opening to ending the male-only priesthood.

“I think it signals the Pope sees women as equal partners in ministry with men,” she said of her hope for future change.

Right now, she sees it as part of the slow chipping away at the wall that has excluded women in the Church over the centuries — and an encouragement to keep pushing for full equality of women in all ministries of the Roman Catholic Church.

“I have a lot of passion for this issue,” she said of her 20 years of involvement with WOW. “I see it as a justice issue. My ultimate goal is equality of women in the church, the inclusion of women in all realms including the priesthood.”

She draws strength for her conviction from Canadian Cardinal George Flahiff, who was Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Winnipeg from 1961-82.

Flahiff, who died in 1989, was an outspoken supporter of women’s involvement in the Roman Catholic Church, including as priests.

In 1971 he was quoted by the Associated Press as declaring “no argument should be made to exclude women from any service to the Church.”

Rules prohibiting women from full service, he went on to say, are the results of “male prejudice, blind adherence to merely human traditions… or questionable interpretations of scripture.”

For Koturbash, those words and the Pope’s recent decision help keep her going.

“I am confident that women’s ordination will happen,” she stated. “It may not happen in my lifetime. But I want to be strongest link in the chain taking it forward.”

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