In 2015, the IDC celebrates a very special Jubilee
In 2015, the IDC will celebrate an extraordinary Jubilee event in Rome. The year and the place were not chosen randomly, but in order to bring us all back to our origins.
Audience given to the Conference participants by Pope Paul VI
“We are happy to be able to receive you here and bid you a cordial welcome. Under the chairmanship of Cardinals Julius Döpfner, Raúl Silva Henriquez and Franjo Šeper, in a Conference begun last Friday you have reflected, together with zealous shepherds and illustrious theologians, on what “the deacon could and should be in the Church and world of today”
It is with these words that Pope Paul VI welcomed, on October 25th , 1965, the more than 250 participants of the Study Conference “The Deacon in the Church and World of Today” which had come from 27 countries. Less than a year before, the Dogmatic Constitution “Lumen Gentium” had established the possibility of reinstating the Permanent Diaconate. The conference participants came up with their concrete opinions within the framework of the Council text; according to these, in the case of permanent diaconate, there should not be a restoration of the old rank of the hierarchy. Many Council Fathers called for a renewal which would take into account the signs of the times and would respond adequately to the preoccupations and needs of the people.
The first Study Conference was also the hour of birth of the International Diaconate Centre- which then still stood in a close co-operation with the Freiburg- based German Caritas Association. An important step for the diaconate and its development!
Fifty years later, then, the IDC returns to its most important roots, with the International Study Conference in Rome.