VATICAN (UCAN): Catholic bishops in the Philippines will design their own programme to train married men for the permanent diaconate, Bishop Pablo Virgilio David of Kalookan, president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines [CBCP], said on the sidelines of the October 4 to 29 Synod on Synodality at the Vatican.
The approval for a permanent diaconate came in a letter dated August 17 and issued by Archbishop Edgar Pena Parra, the Substitute for General Affairs of the Vatican’s Secretariat of State [Sunday Examiner, September 24]. It came in response to a request from Filipino bishops seeking permission to have permanent deacons who could be married or celibate, to address a major socio-pastoral need due to a shortage of priests.
Bishop David received the Vatican approval letter on September 12, CBCP News reported.
“What makes it particularly exciting for us Filipinos is the fact that we have the prerogative to design the diaconate a bit differently,” Bishop David said, CBCP News reported on October 24.
The bishop noted that the formation needs to be unique as candidates for permanent deacon, who could be married, won’t have to be confined in the seminary and live apart from their families.
“There’s a tendency for the diaconate to be sort of ceremonial. The deacon is like the priest’s sidekick. But if you look up in the scriptures the role of the diaconate, it’s a special kind of ministry that attends to the most disadvantaged sectors of society, the poorest of the poor, the widows and the orphans,” he told CBCP News.
“They are those special ordained ministers of the Church who will assist the bishops in making sure that the Church has a preferential option for the poor [that] is made more concrete,” he added.
Archbishop Romeo Lazo, chairperson of the bishops’ Commission on Clergy earlier remarked that most of the bishops voted in favour of a permanent diaconate during their plenary meeting in July.
More than 90 per cent of the over 108 million people in the Philippines are Catholic, according to the 2020 national census. However, a shortage of priests has become a major issue for the Church in recent times.
As we celebrate the 500 years of Christianity in the Philippines. The Chaplaincy to Filipino Migrants organises an on-line talk every Tuesday at 9.00pm. You can join us at:
https://www.Facebook.com/CFM-Gifted-to-give-101039001847033
Statistics show that, on average, the ration of priests to laity is around one to 9.500, nearly three times higher than the ratio of one priest for 3,373 Catholics across the world. The ratio is also the worst in Asia, according to statistics published by the Vatican this year.
On average, in Asia, there is one priest per 2,137 Catholics while the ratio is 1:5,534 in America and 1:5,101 in Africa.
