Remember that scene from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off?
A teacher (played memorably and all-too-perfectly by Ben Stein) takes attendance at the start of class and finds that the movie’s title character is missing.
Something similar seems to be happening in the Synod, but with deacons. Their absence is strikingly obvious.
Bill Ditewig is moved to ask once again, “Where are the deacons?”:
When the 2023 General Assembly of the Synod on Synodality convened, many observers noted the absence of deacons and priests. In the case of deacons, for example, one (“permanent”) deacon was in attendance, along with another deacon soon to be ordained to the presbyterate. Now, the Synod Secretariat has announced an extraordinary 5-day gathering of some 300 priests convening in late April 2024. This assembly is being held, according to the Secretariat, to respond to the desire of the Synod participants to “develop ways for a more active involvement of deacons, priests, and bishops in the synodal process during the coming year. A synodal Church cannot do without their voices, their experiences, and their contribution.” The announced gathering is therefore good news. But once again the same question recurs: Where are the deacons?
If the participants desired “more active involvement” of deacons, where are they? Perhaps more important, why is the participation of deacons so problematic? The words of the announcement and the Synthesis Report are clear enough but, yet again, the actions – or inaction – belie those words. When you tell someone that they are valued and that “their voices, their experiences, and their contribution” are vital, and then do nothing to open the door to those voices, why should the nice words be believed?
Deacon? Deacon? Bueller? Bueller?
It’s become a familiar and predictable scenario.
Small wonder, then, that the author of so many definitive books on the diaconate — including a recent one that challenged the Church to reclaim its diaconal identity with “courageous humility” — can’t help but conclude:
Although the Second Vatican Council, in renewing a diaconate to be permanently exercised, said that the ministries of the deacon are “so very necessary to the life of the Church,” it would seem this statement is no longer to be valued.
Perhaps the more important question is not “Where are the deacons?” but rather, “Why, just why, are deacons not part of the vision of the Synod?”
Good question.
