Filipino bishops discuss blueprint for permanent diaconate
The world's third-largest Catholic population does not yet include permanent deacons
The bishops of the Philippines will discuss this weekend guidelines for the formation of permanent deacons tailored to local needs of the Filipino Church.
Details of the guidelines, known as the Ratio formationis, remain confidential pending approval by the conference and Vatican, but will be presented to the 126-member bishops’ conference at a Jan. 25-27 plenary assembly, a source close to the process told The Pillar.
It is only a matter of time, the source said, before the document is made public.
Pope Francis approved the permanent diaconate’s establishment in the Philippines in August 2023. The decision is likely to mark a significant step in the permanent diaconate’s development since its restoration in the Latin Church in 1967, as the Philippines has the world’s third-largest Catholic population after Brazil and Mexico.
Following the Vatican’s ratification of the Ratio formationis, each diocesan bishop in the Philippines will be responsible for approving and ordaining candidates within his own territory, consistent with the apostolic letter Sacrum diaconatus ordinem, the general norms for the restoration of the permanent diaconate established by Pope Paul VI in 1967.
The Philippine bishops’ meeting, the first of two held each year, will be hosted by the Archdiocese of Lipa at Seda Hotel in Santa Rosa, Laguna, around 60 miles southwest of the capital, Manila. The bishops will also discuss the Philippine general election, scheduled for May 12.
The conference meets every January and July. Its membership includes 84 active bishops, 28 retired bishops, and four priests who are caretakers of dioceses.
Archbishop Socrates Villegas of Lingayen-Dagupan, a former bishops’ conference president, oversaw the drafting of the Ratio formationis soon after Pope Francis gave the green light in 2023.
Bishops’ conference president Cardinal Pablo Virgilio David said the Ratio formationis would be tailored to local circumstances.
Where are permanent deacons around the world? The Pillar reports on diaconal distribution.
The Philippines’ bishops petitioned the Vatican over permanent deacons on July 25, 2023. The bishops said that permanent deacons were needed to enhance evangelization in the country’s remote areas and among people affected by a lack of priests.
On Aug. 17, 2023, Vatican sostituto at the Secretariat of State Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra informed Cardinal David that the pope had approved the petition.
Peña Parra said the petition was in accordance with the general norms for the permanent diaconate and the related basic norms of formation that the Congregation for Catholic Education and Congregation for the Clergy jointly published in 1998, with Pope John Paul II’s approval.
Peña Parra asked Cardinal David to coordinate with the Dicastery for the Clergy over the permanent diaconate’s institution in the Philippines.
According to the bishops’ conference media office, the cardinal believes permanent deacons will further energize social action among lay Catholics.
Up to now, the Philippines has ordained only deacons preparing to be ordained to the priesthood.
Philippine laity usually see transitional deacons in the months before their priestly ordination during parish Masses, where deacons can preach, invite Massgoers to exchange the sign of peace, and dismiss them after the final blessing. The deacons also impart benediction after leading Eucharistic holy hours.
In the Philippines, 10,365 priests serve an estimated 85 million Catholics, the equivalent of around 8,000 people for every priest. Priests preside over liturgical celebrations and evangelize with the help of thousands of lay men, women, and children, who serve as teachers, acolytes, lectors, cantors, catechists, and extraordinary ministers of the Holy Eucharist.
Lay ecclesial movements, and devotional and evangelical groups, are prominent in parishes across the country.
In places without priests, or that are far-flung, lay ministers lead the Liturgy of the Word and distribute Holy Communion, taking consecrated hosts from their parishes. This is common in Mindanao, the second-largest of the country’s three main island groups.
Lay people are also active in a host of other areas, including hunger alleviation, housing, strengthening families, disaster response, voter formation, organizing retreats and recollections, programs for recovery from substance abuse, healing and deliverance, counseling, scholarship programs, vocational education, and media work.
Fr. Christian Buenafe, O. Carm, told The Pillar that the country also needed permanent deacons, shaped by a Ratio formationis that clearly outlines their training and defines their functions, while being “grounded in the Philippine context.”
“In the Philippines, permanent deacons can really help in reaching out to our brothers and sisters in the peripheries,” said Buenafe, the executive director of the Manila-based Institute of Spirituality in Asia.
“The majority of Catholics are not active in the Church’s affairs due to lack of ministers — priests, deacons, lay leaders.”
Buenafe suggested that estimates of the priest-laity ratio may not be accurate given that many clergy are retired or sick.
“Permanent deacons can surely ease the pressures and demands [on Church workers], fill in the gaps, and respond to the needs of the people, for example for community worship, formation and education, delivery of sacraments, pastoral services, and community development, among others,” he said.
The Catholic Church plays a central role in addressing poverty in the Philippines, where as of the end of last year, 63% of families said they were too poor to obtain enough food for their daily needs.
Fr. Ramon Echica, dean of studies at the Seminario Mayor de San Carlos in the Archdiocese of Cebu, told The Pillar that permanent deacons could bring the Church to the Philippine peripheries.
“Permanent deacons can concretize the Church’s option for the poor because they live not in rectories but in the communities of the faithful,” he said.
“They can lead some prayer sessions within the community, and because they are in the communities, they are not redundant.”
Fr. Echica said that following appropriate preparation, permanent deacons will be able to assume tasks now performed by lay ministers, such as bringing Holy Communion from the parishes to distant communities in liturgical celebrations in the absence of a priest, and conducting pre-Jordan (baptism preparation) and pre-Cana (marriage preparation) seminars.
But he stressed the ministry of permanent deacons was about more than just responding to the Church’s manpower needs.
“In the early Church, the diaconate ministry was not a stepping stone to the presbyterate. Thus, to have permanent deacons would be to go back to the practice of the early Church,” he said.
Fr. Buenafe echoed Fr. Echica’s words.
“In the early Church and in our tradition, deacons served the Christian community,” he said.
“Deacons continue to serve today. They have the spirituality of generous oblation or self-giving and loving service in joyful hope.”
“Deacons are not just assistants to the bishops and priests. They have a distinct vocation, character, and task.”
He added: “Let it be clear, deacons are not spare tires that we only need because priests are not available. Deacons play significant roles and functions in the Church and even in the world.”
It remains to be seen how the Filipino bishops will choose to deploy the permanent diaconate, given other priorities such as promoting priestly vocations and improving the formation of lay people for service to the common good without clericalizing them.
They will need to decide how to divide the labor between large contingents of lay ministers and future permanent deacons, though the general norms indicate that lay ministers could be preferred candidates for diaconal ordination.
Before he died in 2024, the prominent Redemptorist priest Fr. Amado Picardal reflected on how the permanent diaconate should be exercised in the Philippines.
The theologian, who was renowned for his work with the poor and his human rights advocacy, called for a broad understanding of what it means to be a deacon, pointing out that it must entail participation in Christ’s priestly, prophetic, and kingly office.
He wrote that while the priestly and prophetic implications of being a deacon are obvious in their corresponding functions in the liturgy and preaching, the kingly ones must be clarified based on the biblical archetype of the diaconate.
“The Apostles wanted to focus on preaching the Gospel. The deacons were, therefore, given the task of taking care of the material needs of the poor and the needy,” he said.
“Their primary function was not assisting in the liturgy or proclaiming the Gospel. This was a later development. Thus, to be ‘diakonos’ is to be a servant of the poor and the needy.”
“The deacons concretize the model of the Church as servant and the Church of the poor,” Picardal wrote.
“In contemporary terms, the servant mission is not limited to acts of charity but involves the work of integral development — for justice, peace, development, and the integrity of creation. Thus, social action is the primary responsibility of deacons.”
The announcement of permanent deacons is welcome news for many Filipino lay men who are active in the Church.
Rayne Mendoza, a 35-year-old high school teacher in Pasig City, told The Pillar the development had given him a sense of new possibilities in life.
For 12 years, he has been part of the Asin at Ilaw (Salt and Light) community, helping the Diocese of Pasig in the apostolate of evangelization.
Nowadays, he juggles teaching biology, physics, and chemistry, studying for a master’s degree in theology at Don Bosco School of Theology in Parañaque City, and serving the Church through activities such as catechizing children.
Mendoza said he was seriously considering applying to become a deacon because he wanted to help communities suffering from priest shortages.
He said he was convinced that the grace of ordination would enable him “to do more for the Church, especially in reaching out to the peripheries.”
Alan Luigi Flores, a journalist who was a seminarian at Our Lady of the Angels Seminary in Quezon City, is also considering the possibility.
“It is about time the Philippines consider married deacons as other predominantly Catholic nations have already done so,” said Flores, who with his girlfriend is receiving spiritual accompaniment in preparation for marriage.
“Finally, the chances of me getting ordained are on the horizon,” he told The Pillar.
But his excitement is tempered by concerns. He wonders how priests and permanent deacons will collaborate, and how deacons will find economic sustenance.
“It is my hope that the Philippine bishops will allow married deacons to gain employment or own a business to sustain their needs,” he said. In the United States, the country with the most deacons in the world, most deacons have secular employment or are retired from secular employment.
Flores said his girlfriend was supportive of what he believes is his vocation to the diaconate.
Though he left the seminary a long time ago, the 34-year-old Flores has not stopped serving the Church. He is a lay cooperator with the Salesians of Don Bosco, a musician with the Brothers of St. John, and a cantor with the Order of St. Augustine, all of which work in the Archdiocese of Cebu.
“Being part of the clergy will help me extend my hands even more and cement my role as servant. That is diakonia for me,” he said.
“What I am doing is, I think, already diakonia, and ordination will validate that.”
An excellent article! I am a big believer in the potential for the permanent diaconate. I feel like the vocation is still fairly nascent, and there's room for its meaning and sacramental theology to fill out and deepen, so I'm encouraged any time the diakonia is engaged in an earnest and full way. I've met a number of permanent deacons, several of whom were absolutely excellent, transcending the sort of "aw shucks!" parish pops kind of stereotype that permanent deacons seem often to fall into (I say this lightly, without any acid!), really flourishing as servants, clerics, and sacramental ministers. I look forward to the future development of the diaconate!
I would love to hear The Pillar's commentary on Edward Peters' discussion on whether the law binds permanent deacons to perpetual continence ( https://www.canonlaw.info/a_deacons.htm ). If he's accurate, we have a serious problem of many people living outside of the Church's law, but not realizing it. This is a serious consideration for any man discerning the permanent diaconate: either Peters (a well-respected canonist) is wrong, or law and/or practice must change.