Francis of Assisi was a deacon, never a priest
The founder of the Franciscans stayed a deacon all his life, an order that began, tradition says, when the apostles chose seven helpers including Stephen. For centuries the Western church reduced it to a brief stop on the way to priesthood, until Pope Paul VI revived it in 1967 and opened it to married men.
The word comes from the Greek diakonos, an everyday term for a servant, waiter or messenger, and recent scholarship stresses the sense of a go-between. The office is usually traced to Acts chapter 6, where seven men are appointed to help the apostles; newer research argues their work involved teaching, worship and leadership as well as charity. Paul's letter to the Romans calls a woman named Phoebe a deacon of the church at Cenchreae, and around 112 the Roman governor Pliny the Younger wrote to Emperor Trajan about two enslaved women whom Christians called ministrae, the earliest Latin reference that seems to describe female deacons as a separate ministry.
Limits came early. The Synod of Arles in 314 and the Council of Nicaea barred deacons from presiding at the Eucharist, and Nicaea told them not to sit among the priests. From around the fifth century the permanent diaconate declined in the Latin Church, becoming one rung in a ladder of offices leading to priesthood, while Eastern churches kept it as a distinct calling. Some famous figures rose from it: Thomas Becket and Athanasius of Alexandria served as deacons, and on June 8, 536, a serving Roman deacon, Silverius, was made pope.
The Second Vatican Council called for the order's restoration, and Paul VI's 1967 decree allowed men not heading for the priesthood to be ordained, partly at the urging of the Josephites, whose work among African Americans needed more married ministers. Single men can be ordained permanent deacons at 25, married men at 35 with their wife's written consent, and a widowed deacon is normally expected to remain unmarried.
In a Catholic Mass the deacon reads the Gospel, may preach, and helps give Communion; deacons can baptise, witness weddings and lead funeral rites, but cannot hear confessions, anoint the sick or celebrate Mass. The stole marks the difference: a deacon wears it diagonally from the left shoulder, a priest around the neck. In many Protestant churches deacons mainly handle finances and practical aid.
Source: Deacon
