Pope Francis greets Sr. Carmen Sammut, president of the International Union of Superiors General, during an audience with the heads of women's religious orders in Paul VI hall at the Vatican May 12. (CNS photo / L'Osservatore Romano)
by Joshua J. McElwee
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Catholic sisters could be of greater service to the church in various parts of the world were they able to "go a step further" and be ordained as deacons, says the leader of the global network of some 500,000 Catholic women religious.
"Very often in different parts of the world we are doing most of the work that needs to be done," said Sr. Carmen Sammut, president of the International Union of Superiors General (UISG).
"We are living very much in the periphery ... and priests are very rare in some of the places," said Sammut, speaking in a GSR/NCR interview Friday. "There are services that we can give to the church, especially to the peripheral church where we are, which would be opened if we were women deacons."
