One point that demands correction in this story.  The revival of the Permanent Deaconate was and is certainly touted as providing assistance to parish priests, and came about at a time that gaps in clerical coverage started to appear in heavily populated dioceses throughout the world.  It also appeared at a time when there were significant reductions in both male and female religious orders that had been doing much, if not all, of the tasks included in the PD job description listed above.  ""It was never the intention of the church to use deacons as replacements for priests," said DuBois."  Wrong - it was and is indeed to use deacons as, if not 'replacements then as 'supports,' clerics of a lesser order to do what priests and religious used to do when the Church had so many of them dioceses and orders needed to find things for all of them to do!  To have a truly learned discussion, let's not muddy it with definitions that no longer fit.