I mean no offense, but I take it you have not read the article, linked on the web page I linked above, “Canonical considerations on diaconal continence.” All you say is addressed there.

Essentially, what happens now de facto is that deacons conform to the Orthodox/Eastern Catholic norm. My point is that Peters has convinced me that that’s not what the Latin canons require of them. I just don’t think it serves any of the Catholic faithful to ignore the canons; my personal view is that they should be changed to permit—encourage!—the current practice.

That doesn’t seem very convincing on the particular point, at all. In my church, the wife is also asked for her consent to a man being ordained as a deacon or elder for the reasons George Butterfield suggests, and we have no such notion that a man should deprive his lawfully wedded wife of his body in order to serve in an ordained office.

I agree that the canons should be clarified in reference to permanent deacons and married priests. However, the canons are not the only evidence to consider. For example, an ordination of permanent deacons that includes unmarried men has an additional part to the liturgy where the man commits to celibacy. Why would the liturgy include that if it applied to all permanent deacons, married and unmarried? Also, has no one been telling all of the married priests in the Catholic Church that, O, by the way, no more sex with your wife? The pope established an ordinariate for Anglicans but just has failed to tell all of them they they have to live a celibate lives with their wives? We don’t get everything about our lives as permanent deacons from the canons. The liturgy and the practice in the Church also inform us of how we are to conduct ourselves in the household of God.

There is some disagreement. Dr. Ed Peters, who is a canonist, in the link (and assorted resources there) I gave above says, in essence, that even those who are married already must be continent once ordained to the diaconate. He quotes a lot of stuff, but the thing the part of his argument that convinces me personally is that the canons require the man’s wife to consent to his ordination.

The above is the common understanding “at street level” of the canons related to the “permanent diaconate” and celibacy.

To another Joe: I do not accept the cynical assumption that celibacy is an ideal rather than a practice among the majority of clerics called to it.

To be clear, are you saying that more priests than not aren’t celibate? I don’t have any data, but I’d find that surprising if it were true.

You also write, “As to canon law–Canon law is artificial and subject to revision and outright reversal at all times. It need be no hindrance to the deaconate.”

I’m not sure what you mean that canon law is “artificial.” Canons have historically been promulgated in response to specific issues the church has faced, so in that sense I’d actually call them organic. But you’re of course right that they’re subject to revision and reversal—but that’s not the point. That’s like saying “Because I think the law is wrong about marijuana, I’ll smoke it anyway.” Whether the law is reversible is irrelevant; the cops will still arrest you for possession. Likewise, for Catholics, the canons are law—though a fairly limited sort of law, admittedly. You’re right that that law “need be no hindrance” to the diaconate; but the fact remains, if you consider a requirement of celibacy for deacons to be a hindrance (and I do), the law as it stands is a hindrance. Dismissing the canons is not the right answer. The answer is either to revise them, or to enforce them. Either has consequences, of course.

(Side note for the record: I’m only talking about Catholic canon law. The Orthodox have, as far as I know, never really considered the canons to be “law.”)

I don’t think the Church inthe US could get along as well as it has without deacons. The diaconate is delightfully grounded in Scripture.

As to canon law–Canon law is artificial and subject to revision and outright reversal at all times. It need be no hindrance to the deaconate.

If canon law was equally enforced as to priestly celibacy as it is proposed in the linked to the diaconate, the priesthood itself would vanish. Celibacy is more of an ideal or goal than an actual practice, I’m afraid.