5. The role of Episcopal Conferences

13. “It is the competence of legitimate assemblies of Bishops or Episcopal Conferences to decide, with the consent of the Supreme Pontiff, whether and where the diaconate is to be established as a permanent rank in the hierarchy for the good of souls”.(¹⁸)

The Code of Canon Law likewise attributes to the Episcopal Conferences the competence to specify, by means of complementary dispositions, the discipline regarding the recitation of the liturgy of the hours,(¹⁹) the required age for admission (²⁰) and the formation given; can. 236 is dedicated to this. The canon lays down that it is the Episcopal Conferences, on the basis of local circumstances, which issue the appropriate norms to ensure that candidates for the permanent diaconate, whether young or of a more mature age, whether single or married are “...formed in the spiritual life and appropriately instructed in the fulfilment of the duties proper to that order...”.

14. To assist the Episcopal Conferences in preparing a formation which, as well as being attentive to diverse particular situations, will still be in harmony with the universal direction of the Church, the Congregation for Catholic Education has prepared the present Ratio fundamentalis institutionis diaconorum permanentium, which is intended as a point of reference for defining the criteria of vocational discernment and the various aspects of formation. This document—by its very nature—establishes only some basic guidelines of a general character, which constitute the norm to which the Episcopal Conferences must make reference for the preparation or eventual perfecting of their respective national rationes. In this way the principles and criteria on the basis of which the formation of permanent deacons can be programmed with surety and in harmony with the other Churches shall be illustrated, without stifling the creativity or originality of the particular Churches.

15. In the same way that the Second Vatican Council established for the rationes institutionis sacerdotalis,(²¹) with this document, the Episcopal Conferences which have restored the permanent diaconate are requested to submit their respective rationes institutionis diaconorum permanentium for examination and approval by the Holy See. The same will approve them, firstly, ad experimentum, and, then for a specified number of years, so as to guarantee periodic revisions.