The Southern Cross | February 2025

Deacons from around Australia will gather in Adelaide from February 27 to March 2 for the 2025 National Deacons Conference.

South Australian and Northern Territory deacons are hosting the biennial conference which will be held at the Adelaide Hills Convention Centre in Hahndorf.

Deacons, who are often married men, are the fastest growing ordained ministry worldwide.

A cross (pictured below) created by Aboriginal artist Vicki Clark will be the centrepiece of the conference and in the lead up has been present at metropolitan parishes as an expression of thanks for providing their financial support. They include Holy Family, Lefevre, Murray Bridge, Greenacres/Walkerville, Cathedral and Glenelg parishes.

Conference convenor Deacon Paul Crowe explained the conference was locally funded, relying entirely on nationwide registrations and generous sponsors.

The richly symbolic cross was presented to the National Association of Deacons at an earlier conference (held in Melbourne, 2015), by Ms Clark, who was one of the speakers and was coordinator of Aboriginal Catholic Ministry Victoria for 25 years.

Australia’s Papal Nuncio Archbishop Charles Balvo will attend the conference and the keynote speaker will be Deacon Bill Ditewig from the United States.

Deacon Ditewig spent eight years as a seminarian before joining the US Navy as a cryptologic officer and linguist, serving 22 years on active duty.

Ordained a Deacon for the Archdiocese of Washington DC in 1990, Deacon Ditewig retired from the Navy as a Commander in 1993. Since then, he has served in a variety of Church ministries in a number of dioceses, and for more than five years he served as the executive director of the Secretariat for the Diaconate and the Secretariat for Evangelisation at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in Washington DC.

 He has studied, written and taught extensively on the Church and the renewed diaconate. Now semi-retired, he still teaches for Saint Leo University, the Pontifical College Josephinum and Chaminade University of Honolulu.

He and his wife of 54 years, Diann, have four children and 14 grandchildren.

Deacon Ditewig’s two presentations at the conference will explore ways for deacons to deepen their role as ministers of hope during the Jubilee Year of Hope and will reflect on the practical appreciation and application of the gifts of the diaconate.

Adelaide theologian Fr Michael Trainor and Deacon John Collins from the Diocese of Parramatta will also speak at the conference which will include the Deacon Nick Kerr Memorial Conference Dinner on March 1 and a closing Mass on March 2.