Priesthood "Too Divorced From the Daily Life of People": Ditewig Commentary on Early Writings on Permanent Diaconate Restoration in 1840

Excerpt: In 1840, in perhaps the first written record on the restoration of the permanent diaconate, J. K. Passavant, a German physician, sent a letter to Melchior van Diepenbrock, the future Archbishop of Breslau (then a part of Germany) suggesting married men, “drawn from the best educated ranks of the so-called laity,” could do the work of deacons in the church. Deacon William T. Ditewig, who studies the diaconate, writes that Passavant’s suggestion likely came from the observation that “the priesthood was too divorced from the daily life of people.”