Right now, amid a global medical and economic emergency, few editors want stories on complicated religious debates about doctrines and church traditions, nor will distracted readers pay much attention.
Enter the futures file, where religion writers squirrel away material for later coverage when we all get a breather. Here are two key themes from last week.
An important Vatican announcement said Pope Francis has dissolved a study panel that couldn’t agree on whether women should join the order of deacons, and has appointed a completely new commission to undertake the task. This will remain a good situationer months from now because women’s role in the church is perennially interesting and no commission report will appear that soon.
The new study could be the most important — and controversial — result of last October’s synod on the Amazon region.
Francis shelved the proposal there to allow married priests in special situations of dire clergy shortages. Deacons could help fill the gap and some said women should be included. Analysts figure that women deacons are more likely to be approved under the liberal Francis than future popes.
Deacons used to be only men on the path to ordination as priests. But the Second Vatican Council restored the ancient order of “permanent” deacons, including married men. They can perform most duties of priests (e.g. leading worship, preaching, teaching, pastoral and charity work, baptisms, weddings, funerals) except for three sacraments: celebration of Mass, hearing confessions and anointing of the sick.
The starting point for writers is a 30,000-word report from the International Theological Commission in 2002.
Also keep on hand National Catholic Reporter articles on the 2020 news here and also here.
The 2002 report acknowledged there were female “deaconesses” in the early Christian centuries but that their functions in church life and, especially, worship “were not purely and simply equivalent to” those of male deacons. Thus, present-day church leaders will need “to pronounce authoritatively” on whether women should be ordained ministers.
The new 12-member study group includes author Catherine Brown Tkacz of Spokane, Washington, who has written in favor of the all-male tradition for deacons. She is among five women on the panel who are professionally trained theologians. Two U.S. deacons were named, Dominic Cerrato of the Steubenville, Ohio, diocese, and James Keating of the institute for Priestly Formation in Omaha.
A second major development last week occurred in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as top authorities issued the sixth formal “Proclamation” in its history, titled “The Restoration of the Fulness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.” The LDS columnist for Religion News Service, Jana Riess, thought the event “came across as slightly tone-deaf” at a time of massive Covid-19 suffering.
To be fair, though, the LDS church has not been inactive amid this crisis. Also, faiths necessarily operate according to their own internal rhythms. The “Proclamation to the World” marked an all-important date for the faith, the 200th anniversary of the “First Vision” to founder Joseph Smith that was the start of his new religion.
This story has less compelling future legs than Francis and women deacons. But it’s worth a second look when things calm down because it helps explain the controversial relationship between the ever-expanding LDS church and Trinitarian denominations that consider themselves to be Christian. For instance, why do LDS congregations cooperate with other churches in meeting social needs but never join local and state councils of churches?
As the Proclamation states, while the 14-year-old farmboy was praying, “God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, appeared to Joseph and inaugurated the ‘restitution of all things’ (Acts 3:21) as foretold in the Bible. In this vision, he learned that following the death of the original Apostles, Christ’s New Testament Church was lost from the earth. Joseph would be instrumental in its return.” Subsequently, three of Christ’s apostles appeared to Joseph and restored authentic “priesthood authority” on the earth.
The belief, simply put, is that all true Christianity disappeared around A.D. 100 and was uniquely restored 17 centuries later by Smith’s church.
Now, here’s an anecdote about future files.
Old hands on the religion beat will never forget 1978. In the span of four months, the LDS church lifted the longstanding ban on males of African descent in its priesthood, Pope Paul VI died, followed by maneuvers on his successor, then John Paul I’s election, his sudden death, more maneuvers and then the historic election of Poland’s John Paul II. (No credit to The Guy, our Time magazine Rome bureau had uniquely identified him as a candidate.)
Since The Guy did little but work for months, Time kindly tacked a couple extra weeks on a delayed vacation. Lest I forget something important during the long break, I culled materials for next projects upon my return. On my first day back, a sheet of paper atop this futures pile said in bold red letters:
JONESTOWN
That’s right. My next big story idea was to learn what the Rev. Jim Jones and his Peoples Temple devotees were up to after more than a year in the jungles of Guyana.
However, the week before I returned from my break, the unbelievable murder-suicide of 909 members had taken place. The future had already arrived.
If the other big news had not intervened, we’d have investigated Jonestown earlier that year, and it’s quite conceivable a Time foreign correspondent would have died instead of Congressman Leo Ryan.