Deacons and Evangelization Deacon William T. Ditewig, Ph.D. - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

"Go and Make Disciples of All Nations"

Deacons and Evangelization

Deacon William T. Ditewig, Ph.D.

Professor of Theology Santa Clara University Director of Faith Formation, Diaconate and Planning Diocese of Monterey

Introduction

 "Go and make disciples

• f all the nations,

baptizing them in the name of the Father and

• f the Son and of the

Holy Spirit."

 Mission is easy; the

details get complicated, especially for deacons, still "emerging" after nearly 50 years.

All About Evangelization

• 1. Renewed Evangelization

and Diaconate: Common Foundation

• 2. Joyful Witness
• 3. Varied Renewal of the

Order of Deacons

• 4. Obedience, Respect,

Flexibility and Adaptation

Three Essential Assumptions:

1.

Deacons only make sense within broader context of servant Church

– Analogy with "priestly people" and ministerial priesthood

2.

"Vision of the Founders"

3.

After nearly 50 years, Diaconate is still emerging from the shadows

"Emerging"?

 From what?  To what?  The experience of

Diaconate in 2013 NOT the same as it was in 1967, which was NOT the same as it was in 67!

 Also, not the same in

Germany as Australia as India as the USA. . .

Plus, not in a vacuum…

During the Conference. . .

• 1. What was "the

vision of the founders" for evangelization and diaconate?

• 2. "Novus Mentis

Habitus"

• 3. Current realities,

concerns, untapped potential: compare with vision?

Renewed Evangelization and Diaconate: Common Foundation – Vatican II

"Deacons are Apostles

• f the New Evangelization"

(JPII)

Most Basic Question: WHY?

"Vatican II: That's when the Catholic Church. . . ."

 Executive Officer, USS

Billfish (SSN 676): "I remember Vatican II: that's when the Catholic Church sold out to. . . .

1962-1965: What were YOU doing?

 What were you

doing during the Council?

– Were you even alive? – Were you ordained yet? What was your assignment? – When was the first time you heard about "the Council? What did you think?

Current Example: Papal Retirement and Conclave 2013

 Novus mentis habitus (John XXIII, Paul VI, JPII)  Consider the "backgrounding" that went on

– What did they bring into the conclave? – What were their hopes, dreams, expectations? – On a massive scale, same happened before Vatican II

Last night, Pope Francis:

"Instead of being just a church that welcomes and receives by keeping the doors open, let us try also to be a church that finds new roads,

Overnight, Pope Francis:

that is able to step

• utside itself and go to

those who do not attend Mass, those who have quit or are

• indifferent. The ones

who quit sometimes do it for reasons that, if properly understood and assessed, can lead to a return.

Overnight, Pope Francis:

But that takes audacity and courage."

To understand the church today, and our role in it, must first understand the vision behind the overall renewal

Paul VI: Everything was evangelization

 Vatican II: "The great

Catechism of our times"

 The role of Vatican II: "to

make the Church of the twentieth century ever better fitted for proclaiming the Gospel" (EN , #2)

Vatican II: Trajectories of Renewal

 What if you were

heading into Vatican III?

What did THEY bring?

 Average age in 1962:

62

 Cultures  Experience  Priorities  Nearly 9,000

proposed agenda items!

A Little History: From 1900 - 1959

Just one horrific example…

1933 – 1945: Dachau becomes incubator of ecclesial reform

Only the beginning. . . .

Only the beginning. . . .

Priests at Dachau

 Total Priests Incarcerated at Dachau: 2720  Priests released: 314  Priests who died in camp: 1034  Priests transferred to other camps: 132  Priests who survived the war: 1240 (less than half)

Dachau and Ecclesial Renewal?

 Clergy & Religious of

all faiths: "no special treatment"

 Der Priesterblock  Incubator for

renewal: "How must the Church change so that this does not happen again?"

Following the War. . . .

 Survivors begin to write and

plan

 New theologies emerge to deal

with a new understanding about God

 Things had to change. . . .

Following the War, example: diaconate?

 Otto Pies, Wilhelm Schamoni  Hannes Kramer and the

"Diaconate Circles"

 Karl Rahner  International Catechetical

Week, Assisi, 1956

 Pius XII (1947, 1957)

JPII on WWII

 "World War II: An abyss of violence,

destruction and death unlike anything previously known." (2004 World Day of Peace Message)

Vatican II: Response to WWII

What else going on October 1962?

 Barbara Streisand

signs her first recording contract

 James Meredith

enters U. of Mississippi

 Johnny Carson hosts

his first Tonight show

 Ugandan

independence from Britain

 USSR tests nuke in

atmosphere

 US tests nuke in

atmosphere

 But the big news

• story. . .

Cuban Missile Crisis

 Pope John helps JFK

and Kruschev reach a resolution

John XXIII Reason for the Council: Evangelization

 "to assert again the

teaching office of the

• Church. . . taking into

account the errors, requirements and

• pportunities of our
• time. . . for all people

throughout the world." (Opening Address, 11 October 1962)

"Good Pope John"

Violence inflicted on others, the might of arms, and political domination, are of no help at all in finding a happy solution to the grave problems which afflict them. That being so, the Catholic

• Church. . . desires to show herself

to be the loving mother of all, benign, patient, full of mercy and goodness toward the brethren who are separated from her.

"Tantum Aurora Est!" – John XXIII

 Blessed John XXIII

challenged the Council Fathers and us to recognize that 'it is now just the dawn" of a new age for church and world.

The bishops speak to the world:

 "We wish to convey

to all people and to all nations the message

• f salvation, love, and
• peace. . . ." (Message

to the World, October 20, 1962)

From the beginning of Council

 A New Way ("habit")

• f thinking

(mentioned by many conciliar Fathers, as well as John XXIII, Paul VI, JPII, and now, Francis)

 70 draft documents,

but all were rejected, either in whole or in part.

 Bishops rejected the

• lder, curial "way of

thinking"

 Inadequate to

contemporary needs

Reform & Renewal

 Five critical areas:

– Role of Bishops & their Relationship to the Pope (complements Vatican I) – Role of the Laity – Definition of Church Membership – Relationship of Catholic church to other Christian churches – Relationship of Church's mission to the life of the world

Role of Bishops

– Complemented & completed work of Vatican I – Three basic questions: What is a Bishop? What is the unique role of the Bishop of Rome? How do they relate? – Bishop is called by God. The sacramental identity of the bishop! – Bishop is head of the local church, in communion with the Pope. [LG 26] – Bishop is a vicar of Christ [LG 27]

Prior to Vatican II: "Find the Bishop!"

Role of Bishops

Renewal of the Diaconate is tied directly to this renewal of the Episcopate

Bishops-Evangelization-Diakonia

• 24. Bishops, as successors of the apostles,

receive from the Lord, to whom was given all power in heaven and on earth, the mission to teach all nations and to preach the Gospel to every creature, so that all may attain to salvation by faith, baptism and the fulfillment of the commandments.

Bishops-Evangelization-Diakonia

• 24. To fulfill this mission, Christ the Lord

promised the Holy Spirit to the Apostles, and on Pentecost day sent the Spirit from heaven, by whose power they would be witnesses to Him before the nations and peoples and kings even to the ends of the

• earth. And that duty, which the Lord

committed to the shepherds of His people, is a true service, which in sacred literature is significantly called "diakonia" or ministry.

Schema 13: Unique among all Documents

 "Schema 13" – only

schema to emerge at the Council itself; Suenens, first session

 At the urging of the

bishops themselves, not the curia

 Drafted in FRENCH  Working groups around

the world

Gaudium et spes

 4. The Church has always had the duty of

scrutinizing the signs of the times and of interpreting them in the light of the Gospel. Thus, in language intelligible to each generation, she can respond to the perennial questions which people ask about this present life and the life to come, and about the relationship of the one to the other. We must therefore recognize and understand the world in which we live, its explanations, its longings, and its often dramatic characteristics.

 40. She serves as a leaven and as a kind of soul for

human society as it is to be renewed in Christ and transformed into God's family.

Importance of the Schema

 "It is precisely in this

document that the proof will out: whether the institutional church considers herself the be- all and end-all, or whether she deems herself an instrument in the hands of Christ, at the service of all mankind." Dutch Dominican Edward Schillebeeckx, 1964

Was he correct? New Church Identity: Servant

We stress that the teaching of the Council is channeled in one direction: the SERVICE of human kind, of every condition, in every weakness and need. The Church has declared herself a servant of humanity at the very time when her teaching role and her pastoral government have, by reason of this Council, assumed greater splendor and vigor. However, the idea of SERVICE has been central.

Paul VI: Animator of Evangelization & Diaconate

 Diaconate: Sacrum

Diaconatus Ordinem (1967); Ad Pascendum & Ministeria Quaedam (1972)

 Evangelization (Evangelii

Nuntiandi) (1975)

Vatican II and the Diaconate: "Vision of the Founders"

Who Had the Vision?

 Majority of supporters were

from Europe (especially Spain, Germany, France, the Netherlands and countries of Eastern Europe)

 Others were bishops from

Latin America, Africa, and Asia (especially Micronesia, Indonesia, India and Pakistan).

The Deacon at the Council

 16 proposals (71 bishops) on functions of deacons.

Speak of deacons of "mature age" (40); age of deacons will be a topic of discussion during the later debate, AND LOWERED it to 35.

 Specific functions:

– "experienced catechist" – parish administration – administration of church goods and property – official preaching and teaching – presiding at Extreme Unction and other sacramental ministries

 Deacon is a recognized leader in the community, not

a person new or inexperienced in ministry.

As one Council Father

• remembered. . . .

A deeply felt need in the decision to reestablish the diaconate was and is that of a greater and more direct presence of Church ministers in the various spheres such as family, work, school, etc., in addition to existing pastoral structures." General Audience, Deacons Serve the Kingdom of God (October 5, 1993), #6

So, the "Founders' Vision":

 Younger men (a few

bishops brought up subject of women deacons)

– Still engaged with world

 Connected to the bishop,

whose ministry is referred to as "diakonia"!

 Extending the reach of

Church into NEW areas

 Ministers of integrated

Word-Sacrament-Charity

After the Council. . .

 1964 – Lumen gentium  1965 – Second Vatican Council closes  18 June 1967 – Sacrum Diaconatus Ordinem:

Pope Paul VI implements Vatican II decision

• n the diaconate

Getting Started

 First bishops' conferences to request

permission (1967):

– Germany – France – Italy – Brazil – Cameroon

The first ordinations. . . .

 28 April 1968 – Cologne, Germany (5

• rdinands)

 8 years of preparation/service  Ages: 35 – 47

The first ordinations. . . .

 3 November 1968 – Rottenburg, Germany (9 ordinands)  8 December 1968 – Bamburg, Germany. 3 Franciscan

brothers; after ordination sent to Paraguay and India

 8 December 1968 – Douala, Cameroon. 7 African

deacons for diocese of Douala.

1970 International Statistics: 100 Deacons

 Algeria – 2  Belgium – 9  Brazil – 13  Cameroon – 8  Chile – 9  Germany – 45  France – 5  India – 2  Indonesia – 1  Paraguay – 1  South Africa – 2  United States – 3

Summary:

 Vatican II was all about

"diaconal evangelization"

 Setting the world on fire

for Christ BY MAKING OURSELVES THE SERVANT TO THE WORLD

 That was the lesson of

Dachau, and the common link between evangelization and diakonia