The People's Ministry

In Detroit, a Roman Catholic advertising executive officiates at the wedding of his daughter. In New Mexico, an Air Force major conducts a Catholic burial service. In the high country of Bolivia, an Indian divides his time between farming and preaching the Gospel. These men are reviving an ancient form of Christian ministry that has been virtually unknown in Catholicism for centuries. They are ordained, permanent deacons.

A deacon is neither a priest nor a layman. He may not celebrate Mass or hear confessions, but he may officiate at baptisms, marriages and funerals, as well as preach. What is more, he can be a married man, provided he has married before becoming a deacon. Unmarried deacons must, like priests, take a vow of celibacy; all deacons make a promise of obedience to their bishops.

The first modern deacons were ordained in Belgium in 1969. There are now about 650 of them in 20 countries, including 275 in the U.S. In Chicago alone, the archdiocese in December ordained 97 new deacons in five neighborhood ceremonies. Nearly 3,000 other men in training in the U.S. and other countries will spread the diaconate from Australia to the Sudan.

Many scholars trace the beginnings of the office to the Acts of the Apostles 6:1-7, which tells how certain men took over tasks that the Apostles, busy evangelizing, had no time for--the distribution of food to the needy, for example. They were thought of as diakoni (servants) of the people. The first martyr, St. Stephen, was one of the original deacons. By the 3rd century deacons were an ecclesiastical force to be reckoned with; one text of the time called them "the ears, mouth, heart and soul of the bishop" because of their closeness to the laity. But eventually, blurred distinctions (and a growing rivalry) between priests and deacons sent the diaconate into decline. In the Middle Ages the office was only a preparatory stage on the road to the priesthood; even now, in seminaries, it remains the last step before priestly ordination.

Christology. The return of the permanent diaconate was promoted by theologians in postwar Europe, finally authorized by the Second Vatican Council and Pope Paul VI. Training for the new diaconate varies according to diocese. Bolivia's program requires that candidates must have served at least two years as missionary catechists before they begin training. The Washington, D.C.-Richmond program requires a heavy three-year schedule of part-time classes ranging from Christology to electives like Ecumenism. Most other American dioceses have settled for two years. In all but a few cases, candidates have other jobs and keep them while in training and afterward.

Despite the training and age requirements (at ordination, candidates must be 35 or older), the diaconate is far more flexible than the priesthood and can accept candidates who would not qualify academically for present-day seminaries. Exactly what the new deacons should be, however, is still a matter of argument both inside and outside the program. Many of the deacons want to function as something other than a sort of assistant priest. One thought, backed by Belgium's Leo-Jo-zef Cardinal Suenens, is that they should serve as "activators of grassroots communities"--an idea enthusiastically received in such areas as Chicago's ethnic neighborhoods (a number of U.S. deacons are members of minorities: black, Chicano, and American Indian). But in practice, deacons perform a range of functions that often includes that of assistant priest. Examples:

-- Computer Scientist Chester Kazek Jr., 46, married and the father of two teen-age daughters and an 11-year-old son, works 40 hours a week as program-library coordinator for the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory in New Mexico. He also spends another 15-20 hours as the assistant pastor of priest-short Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in Los Alamos, where he takes care of all baptisms, will soon perform several weddings, gives instruction to converts and visits the sick. "I always had it in the back of my mind to work for the Lord," he says. As for how his calling affects his work at the laboratory, he says: "I suspect maybe I don't hear as many dirty jokes as I used to."

K Robert Ekhaml is an ex-seminarian now working as a crime-lab analyst for the San Diego sheriff's office. Not yet ordained, he has received a dispensation since he is only 33. The father of two, Ekhaml sees the diaconate as "a distinct vocation which gives me a positive goal." He has been working with the deaf in his off-hours for eight years and will continue to do so as a deacon. "The deaf are deprived of contact with God," he says. "If they go to church, they don't know what's going on. It's like watching TV with the sound turned off."

-- Rene Schaller, 37, once studied theology at Strasbourg and Paris but decided he did not have a vocation to the priesthood. Now a marriage counselor, he is married, has two children and is a driving force behind the international expansion of the diaconate. A deacon since 1970, Schaller has made his "parish" a newly built quarter on the periphery of Lyons. There he is president of a tenants' union, which defends renters in disputes with landlords. He also performs marriages and baptisms for anticlerical couples who resent the presence of priests but are willing to accept the new deacons.

Janitors. There are still many problems for the diaconate to overcome. The program is already far more adventurous than the document that outlined it in its modern form. Pope Paul's 1967 motu proprio (directive given "by his own hand") envisioned the diaconate as a substitute ministry where priests were in short supply. It is the motu proprio that demands, somewhat unrealistically, that unmarried deacons take lifetime vows of celibacy; as a result, few single men have applied. Most of the married deacons resent the Pope's ruling that a widowed deacon cannot remarry, even though that ruling could leave young children motherless (one Detroit deacon has 13 children). Many American bishops would like the Vatican to rescind both stipulations.

Some deacons complain that parish priests see them as "unpaid janitors." Some priests, for their part, resent the fact that a few deacons wear the Roman collar, a practice that local diaconate program directors would like to stop. More important, there is increasing pressure from women to be ordained as deacons, as they are in the Episcopal Church.* Though there are no theological obstacles to such a move--indeed, there seems to be precedent for it among early Christians--Rome is likely to yield only slowly to the concept.

"The diaconate is a step on the road to a whole number of ministries," insists Rene Schaller. "Through us, we want to stimulate ministries of the laity and of women in the church. We want to demonstrate that not only priests can be ministers, but also all the people of God." At a national workshop on the diaconate in Houston in December, Father Eugene Kennedy, a noted Chicago psychologist, predicted that the married deacons of today would be the prototypes for the priests of tomorrow.

Others are already having second thoughts. Seton Hall Professor George Devine warned in a recent issue of Commonweal that a resurgence of the diaconate could create "awful tensions between 'married clergy' and 'celibate clergy' who will preach, officiate, baptize and lead, with many Catholics making their choice between the two for their 'real' clerical leadership." Devine's expectation of tensions is reasonable enough, but it would be sorry evidence of a failure of Roman Catholic nerve should the diaconate experiment be ruined by professional rivalries before it gets a fair trial.

* The Episcopalians have had a "perpetual diaconate" program for about two decades, enrolling over 400 so far. Among them are 25 women.

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