When Did Your Diocese/parish get it's first Permanent Deacon?

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SMHW

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The first permanent deacons in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles were ordained in 1975. My then parish had a permanent deacon sometime in the late 1970s. I don’t know the exact date.

My current parish is celebrating it’s 20th anniversary as a parish this year. We “inherited” one of the permanent deacons from the parish that was split. (The original parish kept the other deacon.) Since then we’ve had one permanent deacon move into the parish from out of state and seven parishioners have been ordained as permanent deacons.
 
The parish that I grew up in, which has since closed, had a permanent deacon in the early 1980s.

The parish I belong to now had a permanent deacon in the 1990s when I joined the parish. He has since moved out of state. We have no deacon now. AFAIK, there are no men from the parish in seminary studying to become deacons. In my diocese, deacons stay in the parish they belong to. They are not transferred to other parishes. Therefore, I do not see my parish having any deacons in the near future.
 
My parish got our first permanent deacon in 1985 when he moved there from out of state. He left a year later and we got one from a neighboring parish after a two year gap without one. He was there for six years and then left. Again we had a one year gap and then had a deacon from Chicago move in for five years. I was ordained in 1995 and have since been joined by a man ordained in 2003. That’s it for now…

Deacon Ed
 
We are Eastern Rite Catholics. My husbands class in the Ruthenain Archeparchy of Pittsburgh was the first class for the permanate diaconate since the 1920’s. He was ordained to the diaconate in 2003.

However, the Church we are in is Melkite, they had a young man ordained to the permante diaconate back in 1986.

So my husband is Ruthenain Byzantine, but serving a Melkite Greek Cathoic Church - which are both Byzatine Rites. That is why I use the term ‘Pani’ in my name. It is Slavonic for the deacons’ wife, in the Arabic it would be ‘Shas’mas’ (hope I spelled that right 😃 )

If you would like to take a visual tour of our Church you can do that here saintgeorgeonline.org/index-1.html
 
I don’t have the information about my parish, but last week, one of our 5 deacons got retired after 18 years of service.
 
we had two deacons who celebrated their anniversaries of ordination about 3 years ago, one 20 yrs (now deceased), one 10 yrs (now retired), from the former diaconate program, which was suspended. This bishop started a new formation program last year, we have 3 candidates from this parish, there are about 50 for the diocese, the requirement that they not have reached age 55 when they are ordained weeded out a lot of likely candidates.
 
Our diocese has no permanent deacon. In fact there is no permanent deacon in the entire Archdiocese.
 
We had our first class ordained in 2003-very late for most places. There were a few permanent deacons before this that went to another diocese for training or transferred in from another diocese. We now have 45 permanent deacons.May places that have no permanent deacon program are contacting dioceses that have a program for info on how they got started. The national group NADD has a great magazine-Deacon Digest that has articles by deacons and their wives.
 
Our Diocese has had permanent Deacons for over 30 years. I serve with one of the last members of the first class who was ordained in 1975. He is semi-retired now and helps out with communion services, adoration and funerals. Our parish has 9 assigned deacons (not counting the semi-retired one above), with two from the most recent ordination class just this May 31. Our Bishop has stated he will not move the new Deacons for at least one year, but reserves the right to reassign them to the parishes most in need. We have some parishes here that have no Deacons at the pastor’s request and we have several that have multiple Deacons (like mine).

Andy C
 
My childhood parish has never had a Deacon. And unless someone moves to the small town it likely never will.

My current diocese has 40 deacons… and over 100 parishes. Is not really an “in” thing here.
 
The parish I attended as a teenager had one in 1973 or 1974. Part of his job was to work with our explorer post on Pius XII awards. I didn’t get out of high school until 1975, so that’s why I put a date of '73 or '74 on it.
 
lak611 said:
AFAIK, there are no men from the parish in seminary studying to become deacons. In my diocese, deacons stay in the parish they belong to. They are not transferred to other parishes. Therefore, I do not see my parish having any deacons in the near future.
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Deacon formation is controlled by the Diocese, and it is not considered seminary. Some programs meet one weekend per month, some meet twice a month. The one I just completed met one weekend per month for four years. There was also a year in the screening & application process. Once Ordained, the Deacon serves whereever the Bishop pleases, as the Deacon is not ordained to the service of the parish or the pastor, but directly to the Bishop.
 
Our Diocese has 147 Deacons listed in the Diocese Directory. 12 of those are listed as retired. The Diocese just ordained 22 more Deacons last month which are not included in the count above. So right now we have almost 160 active Deacons here.
 
Andy_Corder said:
Deacon formation is controlled by the Diocese, and it is not considered seminary. Some programs meet one weekend per month, some meet twice a month. The one I just completed met one weekend per month for four years. There was also a year in the screening & application process. Once Ordained, the Deacon serves whereever the Bishop pleases, as the Deacon is not ordained to the service of the parish or the pastor, but directly to the Bishop.
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In my diocese, it is the policy of the bishop to keep the deacons in the parishes they belong to. So my parish will not have any, unless a deacon moves into the parish.
 
We have well over 200 deacons in our diocese and have had deacons since 1979.
 
SMHW said:
The first permanent deacons in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles were ordained in 1975. My then parish had a permanent deacon sometime in the late 1970s. I don’t know the exact date.

My current parish is celebrating it’s 20th anniversary as a parish this year. We “inherited” one of the permanent deacons from the parish that was split. (The original parish kept the other deacon.) Since then we’ve had one permanent deacon move into the parish from out of state and seven parishioners have been ordained as permanent deacons.
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Our first formation group began in February of 2003. One group has been ordained. It’s a truly hideous program based largely on the Loyola Institute for Ministry Extension (LIMEX.) Most of the men I respect left the formation well before being ordained

I suspect in time there will be great reform under our new bishop. When the director is replaced that will be a big signal to me. Until then I will wait.
 
To my recollection, Robert Boehmer was ordained in 1969 for the Diocese of Lansing. My understanding is that he was the second permanent deacon ordained in this country. The first “class” of four men was formed in the Archdiocese of Detroit for Lansing and ordained in 1974, and the first “class” formed in our own program was ordained in 1978. (I taught them scripture and Church history. It is interesting to watch one’s students reaching their 30th year mark, and very edifying.)

I think we have 85+ now. That’s not too bad for a diocese with about 230,000 Catholics (at least on the books). We also have about 35 seminarians and at last look a few hundred lay ecclesial ministers. We need more of all kinds though! God has blessed us with wonderful bishops, priests, deacons, religious and lay ministers, not to mention our people. It is privilege to serve in this part of the Lord’s vineyard.
 
Currently we have 2 active deacons and one retired deacon. The retired deacon was ordained early 1970s and out newest one was ordained last year. Not bad for such a small diocese.
Gearoidin
 
I don’t know the exact year our diocese had it’s first Permanent Deacons, but I am pretty sure it was in the late 1970’s, as I have a few friends who were ordained in the early 80’s and the program had already been established.

However, our last Bishop suspended the program for a few years (I don’t know why), but I read that it has been recently reinstituted by our new Bishop. We have 63 Permanent Deacons in our diocese right now.
 
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