Fr Anthony Paganoni CS: the diaconate, the wind beneath the Church’s wings

This week, Scalabrinian Father Anthony Paganoni begins a series for The Record revealing hitherto unknown, intriguing facts about that relatively new concept in many parts of Australia, the permanent diaconate. This week he focuses on its genesis

Although the ministry of the diaconate goes back to the early times of the Church, permanent Deacons are a relatively recent phenomenon in the Catholic Church. 
The “International Centre for the Diaconate” (ICD)  is the hub, the focal point of convergence of this growing ministry as well as the launching pad for many projects for the promotion and clearer understanding of the diaconate.
It is based in the diocese of Rottenburg/Stuttgart in Germany.
The ICD seeks to maintain contacts worldwide with those involved in supporting this ministry. 
In cooperation with similar other agencies, it organises meetings and symposia to monitor its progress; it offers and disseminates information to Episcopal Conferences or deacons’ fraternities wherever they exist. It has  an ecumenical outlook, inviting representatives of other Christian denominations to the meetings, particularly Anglicans and Lutherans. ICD emerged in the year 1951 in Freiburg (Germany) from a group of deacons mostly involved in caring for needy persons.
That was ten years before the opening of the Second Vatican Council in Rome. To understand this particular form of ministry, we must remain in Germany.
For some time in Germany, the words diaconate and deacon had already become part of the local tradition.
By 1933 the deacons in the Lutheran Church had already celebrated their 100th anniversary in Hamburg.
In Catholic circles, Gustav von Man, director of the German Caritas, had, on several occasions, voiced the need for a diaconate of charitable services.
But it seemed clear that in the training of deacons the twin value of theological/ecclesial insights and charitable service had to be fostered. The initial nucleus of German deacons was enriched by other groups in Germany and elsewhere in Europe. In 1959 a centre for the International Diaconate was opened in Fribourg (Switzerland) and this paved the way for a concrete proposal to be presented to the Council Fathers in Rome.
In 1965 a conference The Ministry of Deacons in the Life of the Church and in the World Today” was held in Rome.
In 1966, the first issues of the journal  Diaconia Christi  further boosted the expansion of the diaconate in the world.
The most up-to-date map of deacons in the world reveals that there are 34,033 of them (29,720 belonging to the diocesan clergy and 4,313 to other Religious organisations), distributed across 132 countries.
The Second Vatican Council had anticipated that the ministry of deacons would develop in Third World countries to emphasise the presence of the Church among the poor.
This expectation has not been realised, since 82 per cent of deacons are working  in the industrialised countries of the world, particularly in North America.