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| Congregation for Catholic Education; Congregation for the Clergy Basic norms for the formation of permanent deacons IntraText CT - Text |
3. The liturgical rite of admission to candidacy for ordination as deacon
45. Admission to candidacy for ordination as deacon comes about by means of a special liturgical rite, “by which one who aspires to the diaconate or priesthood publicly manifests his will to offer himself to God and the Church, so that he may exercise sacred orders. The Church, accepting this offering, chooses and calls him to prepare himself to receive a sacred order, and in this way he is rightly numbered among candidates for the diaconate”.(48)
46. The competent superior for this acceptance is the Bishop himself or, for members of a clerical religious institute of pontifical rite or of a clerical society of apostolic life of pontifical right, the Major Superior.(49)
47. By reason of its public character and its ecclesial significance, the rite is to be held in proper esteem and celebrated preferably on a feast day. The aspirant is to prepare himself for it by a spiritual retreat.
48. The liturgical rite of admission must be preceded by a request for enrolment among the candidates, which must be prepared and personally signed by the aspirant himself and accepted in writing by the proper Bishop or Major Superior to whom it is addressed.(50)
Enrolment among the candidates for the diaconate does not constitute any right necessarily to receive diaconal ordination. It is a first official recognition of the positive signs of the vocation to the diaconate, which must be confirmed in the subsequent years of formation.