Forty-seven years ago, the United States bishops provided pastoral reasons for restoring the permanent diaconate.
“Since the Second Vatican Council consigned the decision of the restoration of the diaconate to individual episcopal conferences, the bishops of the United States voted in the spring of 1968 to petition the Holy See for authorization. In their letter of May 2, 1968, the bishops presented the following reasons for the request:
- To complete the hierarchy of sacred orders and to enrich and strengthen the many
diaconal ministries at work in the United States with the sacramental grace of the diaconate,
- To enlist a new group of devout and competent men in the active ministry of the Church,
- To aid in extending needed liturgical and charitable service to the faithful in both large urban and small rural communities,
- To provide an official and sacramental presence of the Church in areas of secular life, as well as in communities within large cities and sparsely settled regions where few or priests are available,
- To provide the impetus and source for creative adaptations of diaconal ministries to the rapidly changing needs of our society.”
(National Directory for the Formation, Ministry, and Life of Permanent Deacons in the United States, #5)
These five reasons are indeed pastoral rather than theological. However, the renewed ecclesiology of the last century realized that both the esse [the existence] and the bene esse [the flourishing existence] of the Church as it subsists in the Roman Catholic communion required a restored permanent diaconate. This was also affirmed through dialogue with the Anglican communion. There are three orders in the sacrament of Holy Order.[1] Lumen Gentium stated this very effectively.
“Christ, whom the Father hallowed and sent into the world (Jn. 10:36), has, through his apostles, made their successors, the bishops namely, sharers in his consecration and mission; and these, in turn, duly entrusted in varying degrees various members of the Church with the office of their ministry. Thus the divinely instituted ecclesiastical ministry is exercised in different degrees by those who even from ancient times have been called bishops, presbyters [the original Latin says presbyterus, not sacerdos=priest] and deacons.”
Lumen Gentium, #28
The transitional diaconate is a very poor instantiation [esse defectione] of the Church with an apostolic three-fold ordained ministry of service and leadership. Vatican II and Pope Paul VI fell short when they left the application of the restoration up to individual conferences of bishop and/or to individual bishops. There are large areas of the Church outside of the United States where the three-fold ordained ministry is represented only by the transitional diaconate of those preparing for ordination as presbyters. This is only one of several important open questions for a renewed theology of the diaconate and of the sacrament of Holy Order.
Some hints of a renewed theology of the diaconate can be found in Cardinal Walter Kasper’s Leadership in the Church. He speaks of the blessing of the order of deacon for the sacramental life of the Church, for its bene esse.
“In conclusion: spiritually motivated, well-trained deacons employed in meaningful tasks are a necessity for the church today. They are neither substitutes for a parish priest [presbyter] nor social workers. They represent the deacon Jesus Christ in a sacramental manner, bringing into our world the love of God, which the Holy Spirit has poured out into our hearts (Rom. 5:5). They are pioneers of a new ‘civilization of love.’ They are a blessing for the church and for the people entrusted to us. This is why we must press on with renewal of diaconia and of the diaconate, translating ever more fully into the reality of ecclesial life the impetus given by the Holy Spirit through the Second Vatican Council.”
Walter Kasper,
Leadership in the Church (New York: Crossroad Publishing, 2003), p. 44.
I was honored to be ordained a deacon for the Catholic Diocese of Portland on September 19, 2010, the same day that John Henry Newman was beatified. I find it rather daunting to be called a pioneer “of a new ‘civilization of love.’” If we follow Pope Francis, we have got to get real, not perhaps “humble,” but rather “modest.” Thus I am willing in a modest way to be a “pioneer” if with Dante the new civilization of love is found in the Paradiso. This would include a long slow crawl up the mountain of the Purgatorio.
People often ask me at what church I do my diaconal work. I say, with several meanings, that I don’t work at church. I join the assembly of the baptized in celebrating the Eucharist! Of course, I also serve as a deacon at the chapel of Saint Joseph’s College. More importantly Bishop Malone commissioned me to serve him and the diocese as a professor of theology and as an actively engaged theologian. He asked me to work on integrating a renewed theology of the diaconate within a renewed theology of the sacrament of Holy Order. It is now almost five years that I have been attending to that commission by reading extensively in the exegetical, historical, and systematic literature. With a view to writing, I have reached some conclusions, but I still have a long way to go, especially with the exegetical and historical material.
In the attached bibliography, I have organized the theological literature I have gathered in the following order and categories.
- Theology of Holy Order
- Church Documents
- Church Documents Pre-Vatican II
- Church Documents Vatican II
- Church Documents Post-Vatican II
- Theology of Church
- Biblical Issues
- Biblical Issues/Acts
- Historical Studies on Holy Order
- Theology of Order: Priesthood
- Sacraments/Liturgical Issues
- Sacrifice and Eucharist
- Theology of Ministry
- Ecumenical Studies/Issues
- Orthodox Perspectives
- Theology and the Laity
- Women and Ordination
I seek all of your help in supplementing and adding to this bibliography. Those of you who work in Bible, history, sacraments, liturgics, etc., please let me know of major omissions and gaps.
Daniel Sheridan is Professor of Theology at Saint Joseph’s College of Maine and former Director of the Online Theology Program.
[1] What is usually called “the sacrament of Holy Orders” in English is singular in Latin, i.e. sacramentum ordinis. The singular makes more sense theologically.
perate in those graces and to return often to the font of those graces. We repeatedly bring our sinful lives before Christ on the cross to redeem us, so that we can live lives that are true to our identity as the Body of Christ, the People of God. (Notice that the first thing we do at Mass is the Penitential Rite. We acknowledge our sins in preparation for our offering of ourselves. We offer a contrite heart.)