Its a review about this product
101 Questions & Answers on Deacons (Kindle Edition) William T. Ditewig's "101 Questions and Answers on Deacons" is a concise, authoritative treatment of the history, role, functions, and formation process of the Roman Catholic diaconate after the restoration of the permanent order of deacon by Pope Paul VI in 1967. Ditewig is a deacon in the Diocese of Monterey, serves as the diocesan Director of Faith Formation, Diaconate, and Planning, and was formerly a senior staffer for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. As an expert on the diaconate, Ditewig has a nonpareil command of his material, and moreover has a teacher's knack for rendering complex or abstruse material in brief, easily understood units.
As the title indicates, the book is presented in a question-and-answer format. The questions are organized into seven groups: 1, "Deacons and the Diaconate" (basically, the what, who, and why of deacons); 2, "The Formation of Deacons"; 3, "Living Life as a Deacon" (mainly about how deacons manage home life and their secular career along with the diaconate and its responsibilities, but also touching upon sensitive issues such as reception of the diaconate by priests, and on the possibility of ordaining women); 4, "The Relationships of the Deacon," in particular, those with his bishop and priests of the diocese; 5, "The Deacon as Minister of the Word," 6, "Deacons as Ministers of the Liturgy," and 7, "Deacons as Apostolic Leaders in Service."
Although already familiar with some of this material, I learned a lot about the diaconate from this book. A couple of things in particular stood out for me. For instance, I read about how the impetus for the restoration of the permanent diaconate came out of the German Church beginning in the nineteenth century, and then gained momentum there in the midst of and as a reaction to the Second World War. Ditewig points out, "The horrors of that war led many church leaders to discuss how the Church needed to be renewed to be a more effective witness of Christ to the modern world. ...A sacramental diaconate, lived as a permanent state of ordained ministry, could help restore that sense of service through the Church." It amazed me to learn that conversations about the diaconate by priest prisoners at the Dachau Concentration Camp eventually resulted in the permanent order's restoration (loc. 462-482).
I was also interested to learn that deacons work directly for the bishop, and that bishops are to nurture a close relationship with their deacons. One often views deacons in the context of the parish, and though it is true that in the parish the pastor has overall responsibility for the activities of all parish staff including deacons, "ultimately a priest or deacon's authority to function in ministry comes not from the pastor of a parish, but from the bishop of the diocese." As in ancient times, the deacon is "to be the `eyes and ears, heart and soul' of the bishop" (loc. 1084).
Ditewig emphasizes the distinctiveness of the diaconate compared with the priestly vocation. He opines that the discrete nature of the callings is somewhat muddled by the transitional diaconate: the ordination of priest candidates to the diaconate prior to their ordination as priests. He suggests that since the tradition of consecrating priestly candidates through a series of minor orders or ministries (now just lector and acolyte) prior to diaconate has seemingly disappeared, continuing on through a hierarchy of orders through diaconate to priesthood is also unnecessary. But Ditewig points out that when a priest proclaims the Gospel he is doing so in his role of deacon, so it's not clear how that function would then be carried out in a parish that had no deacons but only a priest who hadn't been ordained a deacon. In any case, in the archdiocese in which I live, deacon and priest candidates alike still progress through the minor orders to the first major order of diaconate.
If you don't know very much about the Roman Catholic diaconate, or have a passing familiarity with the order, as I did, then this is an excellent place to start. There's some duplication of material as the book winds to a close, but that's naturally going to happen in a publication that has an artificial need to present 101 questions for the sake of form--some of the questions overlap in substance. Ditewig concludes the book with a reflection on whether there would still be a need for deacons if there happened to be a significant increase in priestly vocations. Although this is answered in different ways throughout the book, Ditewig nicely reiterates the ongoing need the Church will have for the kind of servant-leadership that the diaconate embodies and exemplifies.
