An American permanent deacon has warned that the diaconate should not
be seen as a solution to the vocations crisis in Ireland, and the only
way to get more priests is to encourage vocations in young men.Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers, from the Archdiocese of Portland in Oregon, was guest speaker at the Meant4more Men’s Conference in Dublin last weekend.
Speaking in advance of the conference he said the role of a permanent deacon is “not to take the place of a priest”.
Encourage
“The only way to get more priests is to encourage more young men into the priesthood. We should not be ordaining deacons because ‘there are not enough priests’. There are definitely enough vocations out there, but we have to encourage them,” he said.
“When a young man wants to become a priest, back in the day they used to be encouraged, fostered and nurtured, now it’s like, ‘why would you want to do that when there are plenty of other things you could be doing?’.It’s a whole different dynamic and that needs to change, and the diaconate is not going to fix that,” Deacon Harold said. “The diaconate is a service ministry in the Church and it does not take the place of the priest. Our job is to assist and support the laity, and to work with the bishops and priests, particularly in the role of evangelisation and mission.”
Administrative
Deacon Harold said that the main way that deacons can assist priests would be to take a more administrative role and free the priest up to do ministry.
“I travel hundreds of thousands of miles a year and I meet priests all over the world and a lot of them are not able to minister as much as they would like to because they are so bogged down in administration. A practical role for the diaconate would be to alleviate some of that responsibility.”