Are deacons forever?

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I know priests are forever even after death and in Heaven, are deacons also?
 
I didn’t know that! That’s nice!

Are nuns forever too? Or brothers or monks?
 
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Someone please correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought that the nuns and monks that make solemn vows are consecrated to God and cannot just walk away from that. They must petition Rome to be released from vows.

I know they are still lay people but I thought the vows did carry over after death.
 
Holy Orders like Baptism place an “indelible” mark in the soul of those that receive these Sacraments. So yes “Indelible” means cannot be removed.
Peace!
 
If a man becomes a Deacon he IS on his way to the Priesthood!
The Diaconate is the 1st step every priest ever consecrated has to take.
The “Consecrated Clergy” rungs are: Deacon, Priest, Bishop.
Acolyte is the final stage in the preparation to become Deacon.
If a Deacon is married and becomes widow he cannot remarry.
And of course if he is single and wants to marry he will need to ask for the dispensation from Rome. If he is of the Roman Rite. Other rites not so sure.
Peace!
 
There are three sacraments that put a permanent mark on an individual’s soul. These are baptism, confirmation and orders. None of these may be repeated. Accordingly, one who has become a deacon has that meek on his soul and it cannot be removed.

For orders, there are of course the three levels of deacon, priest and bishop. Each of these levels can only be conferred one time; they cannot be repeated. A deacon cannot be reordained a deacon for example.

So to answer the OP’s original question, if one has been ordained a deacon, he is a deacon forever.

Pax
 
JerryZ said:
If a man becomes a Deacon he IS on his way to the Priesthood!
The Diaconate is the 1st step every priest ever consecrated has to take.
The “Consecrated Clergy” rungs are: Deacon, Priest, Bishop.
Acolyte is the final stage in the preparation to become Deacon.
If a Deacon is married and becomes widow he cannot remarry.
And of course if he is single and wants to marry he will need to ask for the dispensation from Rome. If he is of the Roman Rite. Other rites not so sure.
Peace!
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Every PERMANENT deacon I know or have heard speak or write on it would strongly disagree with the comment I have highlighted above.
 
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So yes you are correct a Permanent Deacon probably will not go on to become Priest although it has been the case of a Deacon whom upon loosing the wife discerned and did get ordained as Priest.
So one must distinguish between “Transitory Deacon” those on their way to become Priests and “Permanent Deacon” married men who enter the service of the Church. The Diaconate still is the 1st rung of the ladder of “Ordained Clergy”.
Peace!
 
There’s a couple parts to this. Since the Second Vatican council, a man enters the clerical state upon ordination. Prior, a man became a cleric at first tonsure which occurred before receiving minor orders. I mention that because there is a difference between the clerical state and holy orders. They just happen to happen at the same time now, but previously not all clerics had received the sacrament of Holy Orders.

So if an ordained man wishes to marry, their reception of Holy Orders is a dispensible impediment to marriage reserved to the Holy See. As such, you are correct that they would need to petition Rome to have that impediment dispensed. Technically they could remain in the clerical state, but generally that dispensation also includes dismissal from the clerical state and revocation of any faculties to preside over the sacraments.

A similar dispensation is required for the impediment of religious vows. The difference is that a dispensed religious that is release from vows is ontologically no different from any other lay married person. While a deacon or priest could be dispensed and dismissed from the clerical state, the sacramental character from Holy Orders persists. While a man can be dismissed from the clerical state they can never be “unordained” just as you could never be “unbaptized”.
 
felsguy said:
Every PERMANENT deacon I know or have heard speak or write on it would strongly disagree with the comment I have highlighted above.
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I’m a deacon that will likely never be a priest and I would agree with JerryZ in concept that all deacons are on the path to the priesthood. Now many may never step closer to priestly ordination than their diaconal ordination, but it drives me nuts when people treat “transitional” deacons as a completely different beast from “permanent” deacons. There is no route to the priesthood that does not lead through the diaconate and the ontological change for a “permanent” vs “Transitional” deacon is identical.

Just because a man stops at a town and settles down does not mean that he hasn’t treaded the same path as those who continue on to the next town. To put it another way, a deacon has more in common sacramentally with a priest than they do with someone not called to Orders.
 
Anne1964 said:
I know they are still lay people but I thought the vows did carry over after death.
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I’m not sure about that. Part of the reason for religious vows is to be set apart from the world for the salvation of souls. Upon death there is no longer a need for the soul to be set apart. The vows of the evangelical councels really don’t seem like they’d apply in the heavenly realm.

I could be wrong, but I understand that religious profession is similar in some ways to marriage in that the state simply doesn’t exist in heaven (i.e. if there is no marriage in heaven, could someone still be the bride of christ after death?)

In reality I don’t know if the sacramental state of a soul really matters after death. The sacraments are there to get us to heaven, but once there I don’t believe it matters if one was professed, ordained, confirmed, etc. The only possible difference I can think of is the place of honor for virgins and martyrs.
 
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My point was that the permanent deacons that I know tend to be sensitive (offended?) by the idea that they pursued the diaconate in the hopes of being priests some day in the future and not as a specific vocation in itself.
 
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felsguy said:
My point was that the permanent deacons that I know tend to be sensitive (offended?) by the idea that they pursued the diaconate in the hopes of being priests some day in the future and not as a specific vocation in itself.
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I understand what you mean, and this is meant as no disrespect to my brother deacons, but they continue to distort the theology of Holy Orders by creating this artificial division based on ones end goals. The vehement defense of some of my brothers strikes me as a form of pride hidden under the guise of humility. The call to Holy Orders is a call to serve God’s people through his Church. It is not up to me to put limits on how God calls me which is exactly what I’d be doing if I said “Nope, I’m a permanent deacon so I could never be a priest.” I am called as a servant to God and if he later called me to the priesthood (and circumstances allowed) then so be it.

While the western return to recognizing the diaconate as a full and permanent order is a step in the right direction, there is still much work that need be done to unify the theology of Holy Orders so that we don’t have a theology for those destined to the priesthood and another theology (sometimes at odds) for those who do not aspire to the priesthood.

That split-brain confusion underlies the core of the original poster’s question. It is the reception of Holy Orders, in any degree, that makes an indelible mark, but because the western church’s theology of Holy Orders is predominately focused on the priesthood it is natural that many people do not connect that the ontological change happens to any man that receives orders.
 
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