Brief History of the Permanent Diaconate
(taken from "Basic Norms for the Formation of Permanent Deacons",
Congregation for Catholic Education and Congregation for the Clergy, Vatican City 1998)

From its outset, patristic literature witnesses to this hierarchical and ministerial structure in the Church, which includes the diaconate. St Ignatius of Antioch(16) considers a Church without bishop, priest or deacon, unthinkable. He underlines that the ministry of deacons is nothing other than “the ministry of Jesus Christ, who was with the Father before time began and who appeared at the end of time”. They are not deacons of food and drink but ministers of the Church of God. The Didascalia Apostolorum,(17) the Fathers of subsequent centuries, the various Councils(18) as well as ecclesiastical praxis(19) all confirm the continuity and development of this revealed datum.

Up to the fifth century the Diaconate flourished in the western Church, but after this period, it experienced, for various reasons, a slow decline which ended in its surviving only as an intermediate stage for candidates preparing for priestly ordination.

The Council of Trent disposed that the permanent Diaconate, as it existed in ancient times, should be restored, in accord with its proper nature, to its original function in the Church.(20) This prescription, however, was not carried into effect.

The second Vatican Council established that “it will be possible for the future to restore the diaconate as a proper and permanent rank of the hierarchy....(and confer it) even upon married men, provided they be of more mature age, and also on suitable young men for whom, however, the law of celibacy must remain in force”,(21) in accordance with constant tradition. Three reasons lay behind this choice: (i) a desire to enrich the Church with the functions of the diaconate, which otherwise, in many regions, could only be exercised with great difficulty; (ii) the intention of strengthening with the grace of diaconal ordination those who already exercised many of the functions of the Diaconate; (iii) a concern to provide regions, where there was a shortage of clergy, with sacred ministers. Such reasons make clear that the restoration of the permanent Diaconate was in no manner intended to prejudice the meaning, role or flourishing of the ministerial priesthood, which must always be fostered because of its indispensability.

With the Apostolic Letter Sacrum diaconatus ordinem(22) of 18 June 1967, Pope Paul VI implemented the recommendations of the Second Vatican Council by determining general norms governing the restoration of the permanent Diaconate in the Latin Church. The Apostolic Constitution Pontificalis Romani Recognitio(23) of 18 June 1968 approved the new rite of conferring the Sacred Orders of the Episcopate, the Presbyterate and the Diaconate and determined the matter and form of these sacramental ordinations. Finally, the Apostolic Letter Ad pascendum(24) of 15 August 1972 clarified the conditions for the admission and ordination of candidates to the diaconate. The essential elements of these norms subsequently passed into the Code of Canon Law promulgated by Pope John Paul II on 25 January 1983.(25)In the wake of this universal legislation, several Episcopal Conferences, with the prior approbation of the Holy See, have restored the permanent Diaconate in their territories and have drawn up complementary norms for its regulation.

The Permanent Diaconate

The experience of the Church over several centuries has generated the norm of conferring the priesthood only on those who have already received the Diaconate and exercised it appropriately.(26) The Order of deacons, however, “should not be considered merely a step towards the Priesthood”.(27)

“One of the fruits of the Second Vatican Council was the desire to restore the diaconate as a proper and stable rank of the hierarchy”.(28) On the basis of the “historical circumstances and pastoral purposes noted by the Council Fathers, the Holy Spirit, protagonist of the Church's life, worked mysteriously to bring about a new and more complete actualization of the hierarchy which traditionally consists of bishops, priests and deacons. In this manner the Christian community was revitalized, configured more closely to that of the Apostles which, under the influence of the Paraclete, flourished as the Acts of the Apostles(29) testifies.

The permanent Diaconate is an important enrichment for the mission of the Church.(30) Since the munera proper to deacons are necessary to the Church's life,(31) it is both convenient and useful, especially in mission territories,(32) that men who are called to a truly diaconal ministry in the Church, whether liturgical or pastoral, charitable or social, “be strengthened by the imposition of hands, which has come down from the Apostles, and more closely united to the altar so as to exercise their ministry more fruitfully through the sacramental grace of the diaconate”.(33)

(14) Cf. Second Vatican Council, Lumen gentium, 29; Paul VI, Apostolic Letter Ad pascendum (15 August 1972), AAS 64 (1972), p. 534.

(15) Moreover, he also describes several of the sixty who collaborated with him as deacons: Timothy (1 Thes 3:2), Epophros (Col 1:7), Tychicus (Col 3:7; Eph 6:2).

(16) Cf. Epistula ad Philadelphenses, 4; Epistula ad Smyrnaeos, 12, 2: Epistula ad Magnesios, 6, 1; F. X. Funk (ed.) Patres Apostolici, Tubingae 1901; pp. 266-267; 286-287; 234-235; 244-245.

(17) Cf. Didascalia Apostolorum (Syriac), capp. III, XI: A. Vööbus (ed.) The Didascalia Apostolorum (Syriac with English translation), CSCO, vol. I, n. 402 (t. 176), pp. 29-30; vol. II, n. 408 (t. 180), pp. 120-129; Didascalia Apostolorum, III, 13 (19), 1-7: F. X. Funk (ed.), Didascalia et Constitutiones Apostolorum, Paderborn 1906, I, pp. 212-216.

(18) Cf. canons 32 and 33 of the Council of Elvira (300303): PL 84, 305; canons 16 (15), 18, 21 of the first Council of Arles. CCL, 148, pp. 12-13; canons 15, 16, and 18 of the Council of Nicea: Conciliorum Oecumenicorum Decreta, bilingual edition of G. Alberigo, G.L. Dossetti, Cl. Leonardi, P. Prodi, cons. of H. Jedin, ed. Dehoniane, Bologna 1991, pp. 13-15.

(19) In the first period of Christianity, every local Church needed a number of deacons proportionate to her numbers so that they might be known and helped (cf. Didascalia Apostolorum, III, 12 (16): F. X. Funk, ed. cit., I, p. 208). In Rome Pope St Fabian (236-250) divided the City into seven zones (or “regiones”, later called “diaconiae”) in charge of each of which was placed a deacon (“regionarius”) for the promotion of charity and assistance to the poor. Analogous diaconal structures were to be found in many cities of the east and west during the third and fourth centuries.

(20) Cf. Council of Trent, Session XXIII, Decreta de Reformatione, canon 17: Conciliorum Oecumenicorum Decreta, ed. cit., p. 750.

(21) Second Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution, Lumen gentium, 29.

(22) AAS 59 (1967), pp. 697-704.

(23) AAS 60 (1968), pp. 369-373.

(24) AAS 64 (1972), pp. 534-540.

(25) Ten canons speak explicitly of permanent deacons: 236; 276, § 2, 3o; 288; 1031, §§ 2-3; 1032, § 3; 1035, § 1; 1037; 1042, 1o; 1050, 3o.

(26) Cf. CIC, canon 1031, § 1.

(27) Paul VI, Apostolic Letter, Sacrum diaconatus ordinem (18 June 1968): AAS 59 (1967), p. 698.

(28) Cf. Second Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution Lumen gentium, 29; Decree Ad gentes, 16; Decree Orientalium Ecclesiarum, 17; Allocution of John Paul II of 16 March 1985, n. 1: Insegnamenti, VIII, 2 (1985), p. 648.

(29) Catechesis of John Paul II at the General Audience of 6 October 1993, n. 5, Insegnamenti, XVI, 2 (1993), p. 954.

(30) “A particularly felt need behind the decision to restore the permanent diaconate was that of a greater and more direct presence of sacred ministers in areas such as the family, work, schools etc. as well as in the various ecclesial structures”. Catechesis of John Paul II at the General Audience of 6 October 1993 n. 6, Insegnamenti, XVI, 2 (1993), p. 954.

(31) Cf. Second Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution Lumen gentium, 29b.

(32) Cf. ibidem, Decree Ad gentes, 16.

(33) Ibidem, Decree Ad gentes, 16. Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 1571.