By Father James Maciejewski

The most extended discussion of the April meeting of the American bishops here in Atlanta concerned lowering the minimum age for married deacons.

The minimum age was then 35. During floor debate, in favoring a reduction to age 30, Atlanta’s Archbishop Donnellan spoke glowingly of Atlanta’s only “under-age” candidate: “The man is married, completely mature and certainly measures up to all the qualifications, and would aid the work of the Church here substantially. We have a long wait under the present regulations if we wanted to ordain him a deacon.”

Although the proposed resolution petitioning a minimum age reduction form 35 to 30 was passed by a wide margin, the Vatican declined to honor the petition. Dispensations in individual cases, however, can now be granted for up to two and half years younger than 35.

Thus, 27-year-old Carl Middleton, the man of whom Archbishop Donnellan spoke, has at least five more years before he can reach his goal of the diaconate.

Disappointed but undaunted, Carl Middleton is prepared to wait. “I look upon ministry in a wider context than ordination,” he says. “I can work in the ministry of the Church right now, according to how the Holy Spirit leads me.”

When Carl married his lovely and engaging wife Rosemary in 1969, there was no thought in his head of the permanent diaconate. An Evansville, Indiana native, Carl had spent six years in a seminary of the Passionist order, leaving only because of the requirement of celibacy for priests. He moved to Birmingham, Alabama to work in a black parish staffed by the Passionist priests.

His work with religious singing groups there led him to meet Rosemary Pumilia and shortly thereafter they were married.

At that time, Rosemary says, “I knew that Carl would not be interested in just an ordinary job. He would need something more.”

The newly-married couple moved to Atlanta, where Carl had been offered a job as athletic coach and religion teacher at St. Pius X High School. Shortly after arriving, Carl met Glenmary Father Frank Ruff, who got him interested in the permanent diaconate.

The permanent diacontate for married men was something new, Father Ruff explained. Until just a few years ago, the diaconate was considered only as a final stage of preparation for unmarried young men on their way to the priesthood.

After prayer and study, Carl applied and was accepted by the archbishop as Atlanta’s first candidate in the permanent diacontate program. “I thought that at last Carl had found his niche,” recalls Rosemary.

Off they went to Orchard Lake, Michigan, site of the only training center in the country for full-time deacons. There Carl was the youngest of a class of 18 deacon candidates (the oldest was 72). The prospective deacons studied the basic seminary course of theology and scripture at Orchard Lake. For his academic efforts Carl earned a Master of Theology from the University of Detroit. In his spare time Carl worked as a hospital chaplain and specialized in the care of drug addicts, alcoholics and the terminally ill.

During his second year at Orchard Lake, Carl functioned as a “ministerial assistant” at St. Colman’s parish in Farmington, Michigan. There he put in about 40 hours a week ministering to the 850 families of the parish

Rosemary was happily able to work side by side with him in the youth and music ministry of the parish. “It was a really good year,” she remembers fondly.

In May of this year the Middletons returned to Atlanta to await Carl’s ordination as a deacon, whenever that will be. In the meantime Carl’s experience and enthusiasm recommend him for any one of a variety of ministerial roles. He speaks with interest of the college campus ministry, the prison ministry and the youth ministry. His present job is in the last category; he is administrative assistant to the principal of St. Pius X High School, with a wide range of responsibilities.

Reflecting on his present involvement, Carl says: “The goal and strategy of education must be building Christian community and environment. Important is the role that sacraments play; each is an encounter with Christ.”

In discussing the problems of the young people he has met, both here and in Michigan, Carl says: “The problem today is that homes are not Christ-centered…All kids on drugs are searching for security and love.”

As they look to the future Carl and Rosemary seek to spend their whole lives working for the Church–as Carl puts it: “a full-time building of Christian commitment and a witnessing to the transcendent.”

With anything less than a full-time effort, adds Rosemary, “ministry is like moonlighting; you’re just too tired and all your energy is used up in something else.”

And so the Middletons await ordination to a full-time deacon ministry. They are ready to wait for five years. But they hope and pray the day of ordination might come much sooner than that.