In a wide-ranging interview with Elise Ann Allen of Crux last year, Pope Leo XIV addressed the debate over women’s ordination to the diaconate. He said he did not plan to change the church’s teaching, but that a more fundamental question must first be asked: “Why would we talk about ordaining women to the diaconate if the diaconate itself is not yet properly understood and properly developed and promoted within the church?”
Since the restoration of the diaconate as a permanent order among the clergy in the Roman Catholic Church, it has been a ministry in search of a definitive purpose. In a commentary appended to the December 2025 report of the Vatican’s Study Commission on the Female Diaconate, Cardinal Guiseppe Petrocchi wrote that there is still a need for further study on “the diaconate in itself—that is, on its sacramental identity and its ecclesial mission—clarifying certain structural and pastoral aspects that are currently not fully defined.”
He noted that in many parts of the world the diaconate is “almost nonexistent,” while in other areas it serves functions “coinciding with roles proper to lay ministries or to altar servers in the liturgy.” For the cardinal, this confusion concerning the identity, function and status of deacons is a problem for further study and resolution. He sees deacons, of which I am one, as an unsettled ministry. I would agree. His comments, especially in the context of women as deacons, suggest that our presence is also somewhat unsettling to others.
What I would argue instead is that this confusion, this indeterminacy, is actually constitutive of the diaconate itself. It is historical and intentional, a necessary condition of fulfilling the many different roles deacons hold. And I believe that this unsettled condition is actually a beneficial force in the diaconate, especially at a time when the church is experiencing what Pope Francis called an “epochal change.” This uncertainty provides an opportunity to shift the conversation about the diaconate away from questions of identity, function and status toward a reflection on vocation, ministry and a commitment to service.
A middle space
We deacons occupy a middle space between the laity and the clergy; we are married, like many of the laity, and ordained, like clergy. We occupy an undetermined position in that the diaconate is allowed, but not required, to be established in a diocese by the local bishop (“Lumen gentium,” No. 29; “Ad gentes,” No. 16). We occupy an unfixed role, moving between the nave, where we care for the people, and the sanctuary, where we proclaim the Gospel. We are a sign for all of the people of God, lay and ordained together, to give priority to these twin callings, to the intimate yet fluid connection between works and faith.
The result is a ministry that is unsettled, indeterminate, and yes, for some, confusing. As the theologian Rainer Bucher put it in 2021, the diaconate is actually an “undefined office.” Rather than seek to fix this by creating a more specific (and less confusing) job description, Bucher argued that this indeterminacy may actually benefit the people of God.
For example, the deacon is ordained to service: hierarchically under the local bishop, but practically with his parish (“Omnium in mentem,” No. 2). He works with the people of the local community and yet is not responsible for them as a pastor would be. For the most part, he has his own financial resources, his own home, his own wife and children. He is responsible for his family and occupation prior to his responsibilities for the church.
In an era of de-institutionalization, where many people are leaving organized religion, a minister who does not represent a pre-determined position, who is ordained to service rather than leadership, who is thus flexible and undetermined, might just be part of what people are looking for. Deacons are well-positioned to accompany people in search of a place of spirituality and belonging.
From an unsettled position, deacons can provide counsel, companionship and advice without preconditions, ulterior motives or institutional pressures. Independence, flexibility and service can be linked in a tangible but undefined manner and provide precisely the kind of service of charity that people today are seeking.
To see the deacon as serving people more than the institution, as an instrument of God’s grace both outside of and within the sacramental economy, may allow for the fuller expression of the charism of the diaconate. We can be, as Bucher argues, clerics without clericalism, ministers without cultic purity and fathers without patriarchy.
Pope Francis repeatedly urged the church’s clergy to let go of assertions of privilege and power that isolate us from the people, to take on “the smell of the sheep” and to abandon pretense and posturing. Deacons who adopt the practices of clericalism are thus radically out of step with the demands of our ministry. Indeed, the deacon’s special calling to service and the scriptural word constantly remind us to resist the temptation to clerical power.
Our role at the altar—as the ones who prepare the gifts, elevate the chalice, call for the offering of the sign of peace and serve as an ordinary minister of the Eucharist—is larger than that of altar servers. Our proximity to the altar, however, is unsettling to some because it removes the distinction of being celibate as a requirement to offer this service to the church. It is troublesome especially to those tied to older ritualistic signs of purity surrounding the sacrifice of the Mass. Our presence at the altar and at the ambo is an opening to affirming the equality of all people, celibate and married, men and women alike, to positions of leadership and authority in the church, detached from cultic purity and ritual privilege.
When authority is separated from clericalism, from celibacy, even potentially from maleness, the flexibility to admit others to positions of leadership increases. Deacons understood as undetermined and unsettled can advance this growth. We can be open to new possibilities and growth as an order within the clergy, influencing the other orders through the exercise of our charisms.
Ecumenical work
The council that began the restoration of the permanent diaconate was also deeply invested in expanding the ecumenical and interfaith work of the church. The council fathers believed that such cooperation and collaboration was essential in a world created by the disasters of two world wars and the spectre of nuclear war.
This connection points to ecumenical work as an essential part of the deacon’s vocation. Interfaith collaboration would be facilitated by the deacon’s position in life as very often married and with an occupation outside the church, as so many leaders of other faiths are. The diaconate is precisely and forcefully placed to take advantage of this opportunity, one that could be blunted by further definition and clarification too centered on the institutional function of deacons.
Last but certainly not least, keeping the diaconate unsettled also allows for further discernment about extending diaconal ordination to women. Contrary to the fears some express about women being clericalized, the ordination of women to the diaconate could instead foster the de-clericalization of all the orders. A too-fixed delineation of diaconal roles could have the opposite effect of either excluding or even clericalizing women.
In creating further understanding and development of the diaconate itself, women deacons would create even further changes in how deacons serve and are seen as servants by the community. All of the conditions above currently experienced by men as deacons would extend to women in this ministry. This is probably the best kind of unsettling, one that constantly challenges our preconceptions and prejudices, that keeps open the possibility of change and the development of the church.
It is a good thing to be unsettled and undefined, to be in a place that confuses and that can thus also surprise. It is a good thing to be open to the future, the winds of the Spirit and the needs of others. Deacons do not need to be further defined, our questions settled, our ministries restricted and limited to a rigid institutional framework. St. Stephen apparently did not allow his initial position to limit what he did, whom he proclaimed or to whom he spoke—nor should we.
If anything, we ought to embrace the freedom, the imagination, that such an unsettled condition allows for.
To settle the questions and define the conditions of the diaconate before considering any change or expansion would be to keep it from reaching its full ministerial potential. It would reduce the diaconate to one more part of the hierarchy, and a limited one at that.
Our unsettled position allows us to answer the call of the Spirit, responding to our communities as they express their needs to us and inhabiting freely the space in between the laity and the rest of the clergy. This is where the deacon belongs, in the unsettled space in between, where we can best serve the people of God.
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