Digital Continent Winter 2019 | Page 53

their sacramental and charitable roles, deacons in dioceses like Brooklyn fill administrative positions in the Tribunal and Vicarate. Not only do deacons fill in for roles due to the lack of priests, but the permanent deacon allows the local Church to offer more outreach programs and better meet the needs of the afflicted of the community. The reestablishment of the permanent diaconate is a blessing to the Church. Many men have answered the call to the diaconate indicating a meaningful calling of the Holy Spirit. Deacons in the U.S. and worldwide have, with the spiritual nourishment they receive from their sacramental activity, moved into ministries such as military and prison chaplaincies which were not always served adequately by priests.73 Deacons have enriched the parish ministries and, harkening back to their scriptural roots, seen to the needs of the widows and orphans. 73 Keenan Osborne, The Permanent Diaconate: Its History and place in the sacrament of Orders, 130. 45