Two permanent deacons will be ordained by Archbishop Anthony Fisher OP on 19 November. This will be the first ordination of permanent deacons in the Archdiocese since 2020.
The two deacons are Robert Tonkli and Philip Pham.
The Catholic Weekly caught up with Tonkli as he was trudging along the famous Camino from St Jean Pied de Port, in France, to Santiago de Compostella, in Spain, with his son Matthew.
So far he had walked 300 kilometres without a single blister. “The secret is wearing the right socks and getting slightly larger shoes,” he confided.
Robert, 54, is currently chief of staff at the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees’ Association, one of Australia’s largest trade unions. He has worked with the SDA in various roles for more than 20 years.
Long ago, however, he spent three years in the seminary before discerning that the priesthood was not his vocation. But he still felt a calling to serve the church in some way.
His parish priest encouraged him to look into the permanent diaconate, and with the agreement of his wife Maryanne, he was accepted into the formation program in 2020. He was dispensed from some of the course requirements because of his seminary experience.
“The diaconate is a call to serve, but I do that from my relationship with Christ,” Robert says. “But the first call is to deepen my love for Christ, because whatever I do will come from that. If I’m not faithful to prayer, that would negatively impact what I could do.”
It could take a while to strike the right balance between family, work, and the diaconate. His advice for someone considering the diaconate is not to fret about this.
“Make your primary concern your relationship with Christ in love and service for the church,” Robert says. “And everything will flow from that.”
Philip, 65, comes from a very different background. A lawyer in the Fairfield area with several degrees, he is married to Theresa. They have five adult children.
He came from a Catholic family of six children in Vietnam, but his father died when he was a small child and he was raised by relatives. In the chaos after the war he was never baptised.
But when he was 18 he met a French missionary sister who changed his life. She arranged for him to be baptised and confirmed.
In 1981 Philip arrived in Australia as a 21-year-old refugee. After finding his feet, he trained first as a software engineer and then as a lawyer.
Following his ordination, he will probably work in his own parish in Fairfield, although he might also work among Sydney’s large Vietnamese community.
“I am looking forward to doing charity work,” he says. He is particularly looking forward to helping people who are dying.
“Holding their hand, sitting and listening to them, looking at them, smiling with them. It’s a privilege to be able to share that precious time they have left in their life.”
Many Latin-rite Catholics are not familiar with the figure of a permanent deacon. Like a priest, he is a member of the diocesan clergy. Unlike a priest, he may also have a wife, a family, and a secular occupation.
Archbishop Fisher explained their role in his homily at a previous ordination. The short explanation, he said, is that “deacons are specialists in sacred hatch, match and dispatch; they do baptisms, marriages and funerals, at least when Father’s not around. They preach sometimes too, so people get some variety, but they’re not supposed to outshine the parish priest. And they do other things, depending on what needs doing…”
But, he noted, “a deacon is a who before he is a do.”
A deacon’s vocation is all about service. “In their involvement in the community, their outreach to the poor, and their fostering of Eucharistic communion, deacons sacramentalise the church’s service. And by calling and ordaining deacons the church is saying something fundamental: that service is at the heart of the human and divine mystery.”
At the moment there are 13 active permanent deacons in the Archdiocese of Sydney. Around Australia there are about 220 of them.
The ordination of Robert Tonkli and Philip Pham will take place at St Mary’s Cathedral, from 7pm to 9pm.
For more information about the permanent diaconate, including the steps to take if you feel called to serve the church in this way, go to www.sydneydiaconate.org.au.