The Archdiocesan Senate of Priests has approved a proposal calling for the establishment of the permanent diaconate to serve in missionary areas of north Georgia.

Reports of the proposal will be given to Archbishop Paul J. Hallinan, who said last July he hoped the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, would approve the permanent diaconate, and to Bishop Ernest L. Unterkoefler of Charleston, S.C., who heads committee studying the diaconate.

The permanent diaconate cannot be instituted in the United States until the NCCB gives its approval.

“North Georgia does not have enough priests to serve the area and some other source of Catholic leadership must be tapped,” said Father Frank Ruff, a Glenmary priest who serves in Cleveland, GA. Father Ruff is a member of the Senate.

Father Ruff said most of the area is characterized by low educational and economic levels. The area wants to grow but it lacks the internal creative leadership to solve its religious, cultural and economic problems.”

Father Ruff said deacons could unite and lead the Catholic community in all activities except Mass and confession. “They could provide the institutional presence of the Catholic Church for ecumenical reasons and help develop a laity, Catholic and Protestant, that is aware of itself. They could bring the religious dimension to the cultural and economic growth so greatly desired by the community.”

The priest said a deacon would have to have above average leadership, moral and personality characteristics and would need training in Scripture, Church history, Church law, psychology and counseling and Protestant history and theology. “The archdiocese would pay for his education with provision for repayment if he left the diaconate within five years,” Father Ruff said.

The priest suggested a deacon would need to live in the rural area for two or three months to become oriented to rural living before beginning his education.

Father M. Jariath Burke, pastor of St. Joseph’s in Athens, said the diaconate would be valuable to his church which has three missions to serve.

In the earlier proposal on the diaconate, Archbishop Hallinan said there would be two types of permanent deacons. Young men over 25 who were unmarried and mature men over 35 who may be married.