The Decree on Missionary Activity (Ad gentes), #16
The Church is more firmly rooted in a people when the different communities of the faithful have ministers of salvation who are drawn from their own brothers bishops, priests and deacons, serving their own brothers so that these young churches gradually acquire a diocesan structure with their own clergy. . . .
It would help those men who carry out the ministry of a deacon preaching the word of God as catechists, governing scattered Christian communities in the name of the bishop or parish priest, or exercising charity in the performance of social or charitable works if they were to be strengthened by the imposition of hands which has come down from the apostles. They would be more closely bound to the altar and their ministry would be made more fruitful through the sacramental grace of the diaconate.