Transitional deacons

[commenter]

My understanding is that St Francis of Assisi was a deacon. If so, I assume the permanent diaconate was still in use in the 1200s. When did it become specifically a step towards priesthood only?

In recent years transitional deacons in my diocese have been assigned to a “field year”. In the 70s and 80’s they were often assigned to Catholic social service agencies, etc, but in recent years those (few) are put in a parish for that year. Often they are Then assigned there as parochial vicar.

Is this field year something since V2? I don’t recall ever hearing about deacons. Today the gospel is always proclaimed by a deacon if one is on the altar. Was that always the case?

 

[dscath]

Is this field year something since V2? I don’t recall ever hearing about deacons. Today the gospel is always proclaimed by a deacon if one is on the altar.

Often, in parishes I have attended with deacons, but not always.

 

[Genesis315]

The GIRM says the deacon should read the Gospel if present. The old Catholic Encyclopedia notes back in 1908: “The special duty of the deacon to read the Gospel seems to have been recognized from an early period, but it does not at first appear to have been so distinctive as it has become in the Western Church.” In fact, the Council of Florence in the 1400s makes the delivery of the Gospels to the candidate a necessary part of the diaconal ordination rite.

Unfortunately, the encyclopedia doesn’t give an exact date for the diaconate’s reduction to a preparatory stage, but only says in “later time.” From what I recall–and I could be wrong–it happened mostly around or after Trent when seminary training became more standardized.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

According to my history class when in discernment for the Diaconate, was that in the early church, deacons reported directly to the Bishop and were his eyes and ears out in the world. Priest’s resented this and saw the deacon as a watchdog sort and would tell the Bishop anything the priest wasn’t doing right and so they wanted to see the end of the diaconate. That and the number of men becoming priest eliminated the need for the Permanent Diaconate.

 

[Genesis315]

According to my history class when in discernment for the Diaconate, was that in the early church, deacons reported directly to the Bishop and were his eyes and ears out in the world. Priest’s resented this and saw the deacon as a watchdog sort and would tell the Bishop anything the priest wasn’t doing right and so they wanted to see the end of the diaconate. That and the number of men becoming priest eliminated the need for the Permanent Diaconate.

Interesting. Another reason I’ve read is that deacons tended to handle the “temporal” aspects of the local church, while bishops focused more on the ministry of the word (which grew out of the Biblical model in Acts). As the Church grew, deacons having this role gave them a lot of extra power or influence. Bishops taking over the temporal aspect more made the deacons a bit redundant.

 

[Usige]

In addition to the conflicts with priest over the temporal influence deacons often had, the rise of the monasteries and religious orders that saw to the needs of the poor made it easier to push the order of deacon into a transitional step on the way to the priesthood.

 

[Usige]

Today the gospel is always proclaimed by a deacon if one is on the altar. Was that always the case?

Even in the Extraordinary Form of the Mass, the deacon chants the gospel at a high mass and the subdeacon chants the epistle.

The difference in the past is that you would rarely have had a man ordained as a subdeacon or deacon but not yet ordained as a priest in the average parish. In that case you might have a priest vested as a deacon serving the role of the deacon and a priest or layman (aka “straw subdeacon”) serving in a subdeacon role. This is different from today where a priest does not vest as a deacon even if serving in place of roles proper to the deacon.

There have always been men ordained as deacons in the West that do not go onto priestly ordination. Like St Francis, they would probably have been a rarity but if a man is ordained as a “transitional” deacon it is not like they lose the diaconal character if they don’t continue onto priestly ordination. It may be that in the past that men that left seminary between diaconal and priestly ordination were just not given any faculties and simply never in the public eye.

 

[InThePew]

My understanding is that St Francis of Assisi was a deacon. If so, I assume the permanent diaconate was still in use in the 1200s. When did it become specifically a step towards priesthood only?

He was but I think I’m right in saying that he would normally have continued to priesthood but refused to do so out of humility.

Is this field year something since V2? I don’t recall ever hearing about deacons. Today the gospel is always proclaimed by a deacon if one is on the altar. Was that always the case?

In the past, seminaries tended to be built as far away from civilisation as possible so as to keep their students from the nasties of the world… until of course they were ordained and sent out into the world. So deacons really only exercised their ministry in the seminary (as did some priests immediately after ordination as “student priests”). These days there’s much more attention paid to the importance of pastoral experience.