From OSV News:
The number of permanent deacons in America is holding relatively steady, but more than a third of them are also at or approaching the required retirement age for many dioceses. According to experts, the situation may suggest a need for local churches to revisit the Second Vatican Council’s vision for the permanent diaconate and rethink how to invite men to discern the vocation.
On June 17, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Clergy, Consecrated Life, and Vocations released its annual survey, “A Portrait of the Permanent Diaconate in 2023: A Study for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.”
The estimated number of permanent deacons in active ministry was 13,718 in 2023, roughly 69% of all permanent deacons in the Latin Church.
There were 587 men ordained to the permanent diaconate in 2023, and since 2014, the estimated number of ordinations averaged 613.
However, most active deacons are between 60-69 years old (42%), followed by deacons 70 and older (36%).
“One of the things that I think people forget — when you just look at the naked statistics — is that Vatican II’s vision was of a younger diaconate.”
“There’s no big change or shift,” said Jesuit Father Tom Gaunt, executive director of CARA. “I think what we see is that we have an increasing number of retired deacons — they’re well into their late 70s, 80s…”
…”Essentially, it seems about the same as the previous one,” said Deacon Bill Ditewig, former executive director of the USCCB’s Secretariat for the Diaconate. “But there’s still some areas of concern — the major one, in my opinion, being the age situation.”
“One of the things that I think people forget — when you just look at the naked statistics — is that Vatican II’s vision was of a younger diaconate,” noted Ditewig, who has held multiple academic and diocesan posts.
“In fact, some of the original proposals were that married guys could be ordained deacons at the age of 40 — and then during the debates during the (Second Vatican) Council, that was determined to be too old, and they lowered it to 35,” he said. “Now when you do that — and then look at the statistics — less than 1% of deacons are under the age of 40. You kind of have to say, ‘Has the vision met the reality here?'”
If the diaconate becomes a retired, “second career” vocation, Deacon Ditewig emphasized, “it’s not what the original vision was supposed to be” — which included bringing a diaconal witness to the secular workplace.
And there’s this:
Reflecting on the survey results, [Deacon Dominic] Cerrato offered both an inquiry and a suggestion.
“There’s a larger question here. Why is God calling men to the diaconate? Why is it arguably the largest growing segment in the church today, certainly in the West? What is God saying?” he asked. “And I suspect he’s saying that the reason for this is that Christ the Servant needs to be made present in a world that is so turned in on itself that it fails to see that service is the way you discover yourself.”
