St. Paul was famously called to God while commuting to Damascus by horse in the early part of the first century. Louis Sheedy's religious calling came more recently but in equally prosaic circumstances: while waiting for a traffic light to change during his commute to work early one morning in 1994. "Now do my work," came the voice as Sheedy '59, MS'70, waited sleepily at a Boston intersection. An Army veteran not given to hearing disembodied voices, Sheedy shrugged off the exhortation. But the voice repeated the message for five consecutive days. A lector at St. Susanna's, in Dedham, Massachusetts, Sheedy, 65, mentioned the strange voice to his pastor, who asked Sheedy if he had ever thought of becoming a permanent deacon. Sheedy, the father of seven, hadn't the faintest idea what a deacon was.

But before long the soon-to-be-retired director of Boston's Passport Office was learning a great deal about the office of the permanent diaconate, one of the three "degrees" of Holy Orders in the Catholic Church and arguably one of Vatican II's most visible yet poorly understood reforms. The modern-day permanent diaconate came out of the Church's desire to better serve the spiritual needs of priest-poor Third World parishes. According to a 2000 report from Georgetown University's Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA), there were by 1998 approximately 25,300 deacons worldwide. And yet, despite these numbers, as the report suggests, "In many ways . . . the diaconate is still a ministry in development," a calling whose responsibilities and status have not reached full or even consistent definition.

Unlike bishops and priests—the other two "degrees"— deacons can be married, though one of the diaconate's more challenging requirements is the vow not to remarry should your wife predecease you. Another challenge is a demanding four-year spiritual and academic formation program. "I would call it Seminary Lite," says John Boyle '59, a deacon at St. Joseph's Parish in Holbrook, Massachusetts. The first year, called "Aspirancy," gives the candidates a broad overview of Church teaching, including instruction in spirituality and the history and purpose of the diaconate. Sessions are held two or three times a month, and in most dioceses wives are required to participate in this first year of study. A more intensive three years follow, with classes held two nights a week. The curriculum parallels the theological and pastoral training that priests receive in seminary. Scripture, moral and dogmatic theology, and Church history are among the topics covered. A pastoral internship is required. Boyle and Sheedy both served their internships as hospital chaplains. Both were ordained in 2000, along with 20 other married men, by Cardinal Bernard Law.

Like priests, deacons receive the sacrament of Holy Orders, which entails the "laying on of hands" by the bishop. During the ordination ceremony, the bishop recites a consecratory prayer, addressed to God, which includes these words: "You enrich [the Church] with every kind of grace / and perfect it with diversity of members / to serve the whole body in a wonderful pattern of unity. / You established a threefold ministry of worship and service, for the glory of your name."

"Service" is the key word. The Greek verb diakonein, from which the noun deacon is derived, literally means "to serve," and according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, deacons, at the "lower level of the hierarchy," are ordained "in order to serve." They do not participate in the "ministerial priesthood of Christ" in the same way priests and bishops do. Today, deacons preside at baptisms, funerals, and weddings; they can proclaim the gospel and preach. But they cannot hear confessions or celebrate Mass.

Historically, the office of deacon can be traced back to apostolic times, and is alluded to in a number of places in the New Testament. Women, most scholars agree, exercised the diaconal ministry along with men in the early Church. Why women stopped performing diaconal duties is not clear, although some patriarchal bias may have been at work.

Permanent deacons have always existed in the Eastern Catholic and Orthodox churches. But in the Western Church, conflict seems to have arisen between priests and deacons by the mid-first millennium, and by the seventh century the diaconate as a distinct ministry had largely disappeared. Instead, the office of deacon became a step in the process of becoming a priest. In the 1960s the Second Vatican Council called for the restoration of the permanent diaconate, opening it to married men, but not to women, though many scholars hold that there are no theological obstacles to such ordination.

As noted above, the effort at the Second Vatican Council to restore the permanent diaconate was led by bishops from the Third World, who hoped deacons would help address the problems caused by a chronic lack of vocations to the priesthood. At the time, vocations to the priesthood were flourishing in the United States. That situation has changed dramatically, of course, and by 1998, according to the CARA report, there were more permanent deacons in the United States (13,000) than in the rest of the world combined. Roughly 200 deacons serve in the Archdiocese of Boston (28 of them BC graduates). With the number of priests in the United States expected to fall from more than 45,000 today to 20,000 by 2005, some speculate that the American Church will soon have as many deacons as it has priests. But Leo Donoghue, MA'86, the Boston Archdiocese's diaconate director, doubts that will happen.

Donoghue points out that when the permanent diaconate program began in Boston in the mid-1970s, there were close to 40 candidates in each class. In the last decade, the classes have usually been less than half that size. "I am not certain that the number of priests and deacons will even out because our deacons actually have a much shorter time in ministry than priests. Most of our men are ordained at about 55 years old and must retire at 75," Donoghue says, "so our overall numbers do not grow very fast."

As Donoghue suggests, the diaconate, like the priesthood, has its own demographic problems. According to CARA, half of all deacons are 60 or older, many of them retired from secular careers. Twenty percent are over 70. The prohibition against remarriage after a spouse's death doubtless deters younger men. And so too may the demands of an active ministry, carried out on a volunteer basis—particularly when it comes to men with young families and at the beginning of their careers. "People who think that an end of celibacy would solve the vocation crisis should talk to deacons' wives," says John Boyle. "My daughter says that it would be like being married to a doctor without the money."

The Church, in fact, requires a wife's explicit endorsement before accepting a candidate for deacon into the program. Louis Sheedy says he agrees with this policy. His wife, Diane, is now called "Mrs. Deacon Lou" by many at St. Mary's, Sheedy's new parish in Dedham, Massachusetts. "You couldn't be successful if your wife isn't supportive," Sheedy says. "This has been an incredible association between the parish and priests and me and Diane. She's been a very good sounding board. It's a two-person job." But how that "two-person job" fits into the Church's traditional understanding of ministry is uncertain, even controversial for some.

The restoration of the permanent diaconate by Vatican II was in part an effort to reclaim the "authentic differentiated nature of the sacrament," according to Fr. Robert Imbelli, professor of theology at BC. That effort, Imbelli points out, also led to the reinstitution of other ministries now open to the laity, such as lector and acolyte. In the course of the Church's long history, says Imbelli, "the priesthood had usurped the whole of the theology of Orders." At Vatican II, Imbelli says, one of the ideas behind resurrecting the permanent diaconate "was that people in positions of leadership in the professions would provide leadership for the Church's social ministry in the secular world." Similarly, the deacon's liturgical role, in proclaiming the gospel and dismissing the congregation at the end of Mass with the exhortation to go out into the world, is meant to articulate the social aspects of his ministry. But the shortage of priests has inevitably meant that deacons—who wear their stoles over one shoulder to publicly distinguish themselves from priests, but who are now routinely seen proclaiming the gospel, preaching, distributing communion, and performing baptism—are best known to lay Catholics as liturgical actors. "The temptation is to use deacons as auxiliary priests," Imbelli says.

Indeed, concerns about the proper relationship between the permanent diaconate and the priesthood are widespread in certain theological circles, and it is rumored that Rome is in the process of preparing a statement on the question. "The whole theological understanding of who a deacon is has yet to be fully worked out," Imbelli says. "The theology is still struggling to come to grips with the practice."

That observation would seem to be confirmed by the experience of Sheedy and others. "Even though we're deacons, they continue to call us 'Father,'" Sheedy says of parishioners. "Many in the Catholic community don't have a good idea of what a deacon does and what a deacon is."

At St. Joseph's, Boyle, 68, a retired lawyer, has had similar experiences. "As there are more deacons in active ministry, [Catholics] are becoming more aware, but still most are confused," he says. "When we are vested, most call us 'Father,' even when we have just given a homily in which we talk about our family."

Boyle says that in fact many men are drawn to the diaconate as a way to help overworked and beleaguered priests. "It was our concern for their welfare that prompted us to seek ordination," he says. "We know that we cannot replace priests, but we can supplement them and support them. All the deacons I know love the priesthood and priests. I don't believe the stress and strain under which [priests] function is fully understood by the laity or the episcopacy."

Both Imbelli and Sheedy think deacons can play an important part in helping to restore the laity's trust in the Church in the aftermath of the sexual abuse scandal. Deacons' commitment to the Church and their experience of the secular world, both say, put them in a unique position to address the everyday concerns of the laity. For example, Sheedy says his counseling of laid-off workers is helped immensely by the fact that he has "been through that sort of thing. Priests haven't." The same may be said for the raising of children and the understanding of sexual life within marriage. "It seems to me that the men of the diaconate and their wives could be a potent resource," Imbelli says. "But the question remains whether the bishops will be creative and confident enough to draw upon this resource."

Sheedy agrees. "We as deacons owe it not just to the hierarchy but to the people in the pews to tell it like it is. To say when something is wrong. Yes, we can help heal the Church. But of course we must be asked to perform that function."

Boyle is more circumspect. "I believe we deacons can preach on behalf of priests in a manner that would seem self-serving if it came from a priest. I have done so and people have thanked me," he says. "As far as healing the rift with the 'official Church,' I don't know. If by the 'official Church' you mean the bishops, I believe the issue is still in doubt. Many [deacons] are conflicted. We are trying to reconcile our promise of 'respect and obedience' to the [bishop] with our disappointment in the failure of the official Church to protect the children. This has been a difficult time for deacons as well as priests."

Paul Baumann

Paul Baumann is executive editor of Commonweal.

Photo: Louis Sheedy (left) and John Boyle at St. Mary's Church in Dedham, Massachusetts. By Lee Pellegrini

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