USCCB - (Office of Media Relations) - Deacon, Retired Navy Officer to Head Bishops' Office for the Diaconate

Deacon, Retired Navy Officer to Head Bishops' Office for the Diaconate

WASHINGTON (August 2, 2002) –- Deacon William T. Ditewig, Director of Pastoral Services for the Diocese of Belleville, Illinois, and a retired U.S. Navy officer, has been named Executive Director of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' (USCCB) Secretariat for the Diaconate.

His appointment becomes effective September 2. He succeeds Deacon Jerry Wilson who resigned in July to return to his home in New York State.

The appointment was made by Msgr. William P. Fay, General Secretary of the USCCB, who noted Deacon Ditewig's strong credentials.

"Deacon Ditewig brings to the USCCB an understanding of the diaconate developed not only through research and study but also through his personal experiences in three dioceses and on the international level," Msgr. Fay said. "We look forward to his leadership in this important office of the bishops' conference."

Deacon Ditewig has been married for 31 years and is father of four children, ages 31 to 18. He was ordained to the diaconate in 1990 for the Archdiocese of Washington. He has been serving as a deacon in the Diocese of Davenport, Iowa, since 1993.

Deacon Ditewig is a member of the Governing Board, International Diaconate Centre, Rottenburg-Stuttgart, Germany; Advisory Board of Deacon Digest; a member of the National Association of Deacon Directors; associate member of the Catholic Theological Society; and a consultant to the USCCB Committee on the Diaconate. He has written for Diaconate, Deacon Digest, and The Jurist and is author of the books Leading Our Children to God and Lay Leaders: Resources for the Changing Parish.

Deacon Ditewig is a Ph.D. candidate at The Catholic University of America, where he is studying ecclesiology. He holds a master's degree in education from Pepperdine University, Los Angeles, and a master's degree in pastoral theology from St. Mary-of-the-Woods College, Indiana.

Prior to his work in Belleville, Deacon Ditewig was Director of Pastoral Services and Ministry Formation in the Diocese of Davenport; Executive Director of the Office of the Diaconate for the Archdiocese of Washington; and Associate Principal and Director of Curriculum and Instruction, Assumption High School, Davenport.

Deacon Ditewig began working for the church after a 22-year career in the Navy specializing in cryptology. He studied Hebrew at the Defense Language Institute East Coast, Foreign Service Institute, Rosslyn, Virginia; and Russian at the Defense Language Institute West Coast, Monterey, California. His naval assignments included serving as Executive Officer in Hanza, Okinawa, Japan; as Director, Military Cryptologic Training for the U.S. Central Security Service at the National Security Agency (NSA) and as Director of the Navy and Marine Corps Personnel Division of the NSA.