Is the "deaconess" a female deacon?

Deacon Greg Kandra on Deacon's Bench notes today a recently-published interview with Austrian theologian Dietmar Winkler of Salzburg University.  The English version is picked up by the Tablet, hardly a reliable source, and my German isn't up to reading the original.  Dr. Winkler is reported to have said, among other things,

“Married priests and women deacons should be reintroduced as soon as possible. That would bring new dynamism to the Church”, the future dean of Salzburg University’s Catholic theological faculty, Professor Dietmar Winkler, told the Austrian daily Salzburger Nachrichten…

What Dr. Winkler and so many who promote the ordination of women to the diaconate don't know (or at least don't seem to know) is that the ancient order of "deaconess" was never seen by the Latin Church as a female version of the Order of Deacons.  Rather, it was parallel to the Lector - a ministry, certainly, but not a consecrated ministry of the sort reserved to the sacrament of Holy Orders.  Deaconesses did not ever receive that sacrament.  Deaconesses had several roles, nearly all of which were serving other women in situations where it would be improper or scandalous for men to do so.  The most common role was in the baptism of women, which was often done disrobed; from that also came a catechetical roles forming those women.  Other liturgical roles, like reading and ushering, were predominantly in women's monastic houses or groups, where men (apart from priests) were not present.

This distinction is deeply embedded in the liturgical texts of the "ordination" of deaconesses.  (One can, in the broad sense, speak of "ordination" of a deaconess.  The root meaning of "ordination" is simply "induction into an order," and no one is arguing that deaconesses did not constitute an order, like that of the Order of Widows, say.  But this should never be confused with the special sense of "ordination" which means "induction into one of the orders of the sacrament of Holy Orders.")  Even if the symbols of the diaconate (laying on of hands, giving of a stole) could be used for deaconesses sometimes, the words (and therefore the meaning) of the rituals remain quite different.  For example, here's the earliest known pair of ritual texts, from the Apostolic Constitutions from Syria in the 4th century (Book III has other interesting info on deacons and deaconesses):

Prayer for a deacon:  "...[H]ear our prayer, Lord, and give ear to our supplication, and let your face shine on this your servant who is appointed to you for ministry, and fill him with spirit and power, as you filled Stephen the protomartyr and imitator of the sufferings of your Christ.  And grant that he, acceptably performing the sacred ministry entrusted to him, may be worthy of a higher rank through the mediation of your Christ..."*

Prayer for a deaconess: "Eternal Father..., creator of man and woman, who filled with the Spirit Miriam and Deborah and Anna and Huldah; who did not disdain that your only-begotten Son should be born of a woman; who also in the tent of the testimony and in the temple appointed women to be guardians of your holy gates: now look upon this your servant who is being appointed for your ministry, and give her the Holy Spirit and cleanse her from every defilement of body and spirit so that she may worthily complete the work committed to her, to your glory and the praise of your Christ..."*

Note the key distinctions.  The ministry of the deacon is "sacred," it is done "with spirit and power," and it may lead to "a higher rank" (namely the priesthood).  The ministry of the deaconess is simply "ministry," not sacred (Holy Orders) ministry, it is done with the spirit but not "power," and it is completed worthily without any indication of "higher rank."  The text for a lector from the same source uses, for a lector, the same "ministry" (not sacred ministry) and the same "spirit" (not spirit and powe), but then does indicate the "higher rank" that follows. 

One might also note that the Old Testament typology and the New Testament roots of the deaconess are likewise completely different from those of deacons, as elaborated in other version of the rituals.  So there's really no question that deaconesses are not female versions of the Holy Orders rank of deacon, but rather female versions of something like the lector, with a few differences specific to their unique context (lectors don't baptize, for example, except in case of emergency, but they do catechize).  Finally, one might point out that, in fact, we have already "restored" the deaconess in the modern Church - they're now called "Lay Ecclesial Ministers."

*(Source: Paul Bradshaw, Ordination Rites of the Ancient Churches of East and West (New York, 1990) 116-7.)

Society for Catholic Liturgy conference, Oct 2-4, 2014, in Colorado Springs

This past weekend I presented a paper at the annual conference of the Society for Catholic Liturgy, in Colorado Springs.  St. Mary's Cathedral was a great venue for the conference, and it was great to meet some new people and hear some quite excellent papers and presentations.

Here are some brief write-ups about the conference.  The main keynote was from Bp. Conley of Lincoln.

Bp. Conley giving keynote at St. Mary's Cathedral. Picture by Jennifer Donelson.
 

My paper was called "Order of Levitical Blessing: Fruitfully Reclaiming a Patristic, Liturgical Typology of the Diaconate."  I argued that the Latin Church very early developed a theology of the diaconate based on the type of the Levite, the second priesthood (after that of Aaron) of the Old Testament.  We can see this type used in a wide variety of sources, liturgical and non-liturgical.  I sketched out the main lines of development of the type, noting its moral arguments and its theological implications for relationships among the grades of Holy Orders, and I examined the use of the type in the ordination rites of deacons in the Latin Church (citing texts from the Leonine Sacramentary, Gelasian Sacramentary, Gregorian Sacramentary, Missale Francorum, Liber Ordinum (Mozarabic Rite), and Tridentine (1595) Pontificale Romanum), and comparing the much more limited use of the type in the current (2012 English edition) Pontificale.  I showed how the Tradition had developed an understanding of specific blessings or graces for the Church in the separate ministry of deacons, complementing that of other orders, and how that idea disappeared from the current recension of the rite, because it used only New Testament passages to develop a (slightly different) theology of the diaconate.  I therefore suggested that re-introducing the previous Old Testament typology to our understanding of the rite and of the diaconate would greatly add to the Church's reflection on the renewal of the diaconate, and help us answer key questions about certain aspects of its sacramentality, and about its distinctive place within the layers of the Church's ministry.

Deacon as Ἄγγελος, Angel or Herald

sanctuary of the Cathedral of the Epiphany

In the sanctuary of our Cathedral, we have four quite lovely stained-glass windows, depicting the Last Supper, the Resurrection, the giving of the Keys to St. Peter, and Pentecost.  During the year before my ordination, when I was serving Mass as an acolyte, I had a clear view of the Resurrection window, in which an angel is depicted rolling away the stone from the tomb, while Christ emerges and the soldiers are struck insensible with awe and fear.

In this window, the angel is wearing a dalmatic.

I pondered the better part of that year, week after week, what it meant that angels wear dalmatics, and what sort of "angel" I could be as a deacon.  I still think of those reflections, and what I learned in that time, each time I see that window.

Dcn. Bill Ditewig recently had a rather nice post on his blog on this topic, to which I was refered yesterday.  He makes the point correctly that this symbolism of angels wearing dalmatics is vital to the Eastern theological understanding of the diaconate, and less so the Western, but is a dominant tradition in the artistic representation of both angels and deacons even in the West (as in our Cathedral).

He doesn't, however, make the further point about what the word "deacon" (διάκονος) actually means.  The usual English translation is "servant," and that's alright in a very general sort of way.  But "servant" in English carries a wide range of connotations, from "slave" to "butler" to "trusted advisor," that only partially overlaps with the connotations of "deacon" in koine Greek.  One end of that range of connotations is occupied by other Greek words (e.g. "doulos," "slave" or "personal servant," which is also used frequently in the New Testament), while the connotation of the New Testament's "deacon" word group is rather different from the range of "servant." It means more specifically something like "ambassador," "messenger," or "herald" (as John Collins' meticulous study "Diakonia" (Oxford UP, 2009) showed).  This is why the translation into Latin has always been "minister," which has a very similar range of connotations (consider the usual governmental context of "minister" as a title today), and not something like "servus," "slave" (the root, e.g., of our English "servant" and "serf").

In other words, it's not just in art and in theology that the connection between angels and deacons is made, but that connection itself derives from the overlapping semantic content of the two words.  Both are "sent from" someone else, and wield (a share of) that person's own authority.  And thus, to push even further, the third word that fits directly into this same semantic weave is "apostle" (ἀπόστολος), lit. "one who is sent."  Indeed, just as the Father sends Christ the Son, and Christ sends the Apostles and their successors, the bishops, so also the bishops perforce send (priests and) deacons to extend their ministry to all (e.g., Lumen Gentium #18-20).  And the intimate connection between deacons and bishops that, say, St. Ignatius of Antioch makes flows also from this understanding of ministry and mission.

St. Gabriel

Thus, when Lumen Gentium goes on to say in #29:

At a lower level of the hierarchy are deacons, upon whom hands are imposed "not unto the priesthood, but unto a ministry of service."(74*) For strengthened by sacramental grace, in communion with the bishop and his group of priests they serve in the diaconate of the liturgy, of the word, and of charity to the people of God. It is the duty of the deacon, according as it shall have been assigned to him by competent authority, to administer baptism solemnly, to be custodian and dispenser of the Eucharist, to assist at and bless marriages in the name of the Church, to bring Viaticum to the dying, to read the Sacred Scripture to the faithful, to instruct and exhort the people, to preside over the worship and prayer of the faithful, to administer sacramentals, to officiate at funeral and burial services. Dedicated to duties of charity and of administration, let deacons be mindful of the admonition of Blessed Polycarp: "Be merciful, diligent, walking according to the truth of the Lord, who became the servant of all."(75*)

...the "ministry of service" the Council Fathers have in mind is, in its essence, that share of the apostolic ministry first entrusted by the Apostles to the Seven chosen in Acts 6, and which we see carried out by St. Stephen and Philip in Acts 7 and 8, namely, the proclamation of the Good News by word and witness, and the bringing of people into union with Christ through baptism and through inviting them to receive the full ministry of the Apostles themselves.  And this is also what the ordination rite clearly means when, as the bishop hands the Evangelarium to the newly ordained deacon, he says, "Receive the Gospel of Christ, whose herald you now are; believe what you read, preach what you believe, practice what you preach."

Two other implications then flow from this, both of which are contested points about the diaconate today.  First, just as angels only do what God sends them to do, so deacons must exercise their ministry within ecclesial structures.  For most deacons, this means a parish assignment and an active presence in the parish's liturgical and ministerial life.  (One could also be assigned to other ecclesial institutions, e.g. diocesan offices, schools, hospitals, apostolates, etc.  But all of these are "ecclesial" in the same sense, that of obedience to and communion with the local bishop.)  Whatever ministry a deacon undertakes, it must remain connected with the apostolic center, and with the altar.  Deacons are not "extra-ecclesial" ministers in the sense that they function "beyond" the institutions of the Church.  The fact that most permanent deacons are married and have jobs outside the Church confuses this greatly.  Certainly in those roles deacons remain deacons, and should preach Jesus Christ (especially by example), but it is not for this that they are ordained; all the baptised should do as much, each according to vocation and state in life.

2014 ordination of permanent deacons, in the same Cathedral

Second, just as the only example of disunity among the angels is the Fall, so the unity of the deacon with the bishop means that those who are chosen to be ordained as deacons must in principle be capable of receiving a greater share of the apostolic ministry; that is, they must in principle be eligible to be chosen to the presbyterate (and the episcopate).  To ordain as a (permanent) deacon someone who could never, under any circumstances, be ordained a priest would separate the ministry of the deacon from the ministry of the bishop.  It would create another, non-apostolic, "sending" for the deacon to pursue. 

Video of May 3 Ordination

Courtesy of M.V., good friend and erstwhile instructor of this cohort, here is a video of our ordination Mass for our ten new deacons, on May 3.  The camera was hand-held and she was unable to leave the pew for better angles, but the quality is still very good overall. 

Part 1 is the procession up to the beginning of the homily:


Part 2 has the homily and part of the ordination rite:


Part 3 starts with the vesting of the new deacons:


Part 4 has some of the Communion Rite:


Part 5 starts with the Postcommunion Prayer:


Thanks to MV for sharing these with us and to the HS for causing the day to happen!  Ad multos annos!

In Defense of the Transitional Diaconate - theological argument from "sacra potestas"

In the historical argument for the transitional diaconate, we noted that the grades of Holy Orders have, from the beginning and always, been received in a "cumulative and sequential" manner. Even when grades (either minor or major) were skipped, this remained true - there is zero evidence that anyone anywhere was ever ordained to the diaconate after the priesthood, or the subdiaconate after the diaconate, etc., even if that grade had previously been skipped. This is important, because it shows that the apostolic pattern has been maintained always and everywhere, even if some of the details of which orders are included, and which not (cantors, catechists, gravediggers, deaconesses, etc.), took more time to decide. Thus, the standard hierarchy of four minor orders (porter, lector, exorcist, acolyte) and four major orders (subdeacon, deacon, priest, bishop) became fixed for the Latin Church even as early as the third century, and were invariably received in this order by roughly 700.

This apostolic pattern in favor of the transitional diaconate is also supported by two potent theological arguments. One is the "sacra potestas" argument. The other, which we won't broach in this post, is the unity of the sacrament argument.

We'll briefly look at the sacra potestas argument in five questions.

1. What is a "sacra potestas?" A sacra potestas is a "sacred power," that is, a piece of Christ's own divine power, given explicitly to the Apostles, and passed on by them to their successors and helpers by the laying on of hands and (eventually) the precise ritual of ordination to each grade.

These "sacred powers" are obviously rather important, because they are precisely that for which Christ gave us the sacrament of Holy Orders. At the very least, He willed the Church to have bishops to rule, to confirm, and to ordain; priests to confect the Eucharist and to forgive sins; and deacons to proclaim the Gospel. And, given what the Magisterium of the Church is in fact, we must also admit that the subdiaconate and the minor orders also were part of what He willed, at least for the temporality of the Church, if not for her divine constitution (i.e., they are consistent with the will of Christ, but not constituent of it, as bishops, priests, and deacons are).

The hierarchy of "sacred powers," then, is the essence, the "what," of Christ's divine ministry carried out by the Church. It guides how the sacraments are poured out for the people. It defines what is and is not "ecclesial" and "secular," in their particular spheres of human activity (see St. Augustine's "City of God," or Pope Gelasius's "two swords" doctrine, etc.). And it fundamentally shapes the pastoral care of the Church, without defining the "how" of that care dogmatically.

2. Does every grade have a "sacra potestas?" All the major orders have a sacred power. The ordination rites of the Latin Church - I'm looking at those used from roughly 700 until the reforms of Vatican II - were extremely clear about the power given to each grade, both in the words used, and in the symbols. (The current rites have shifted emphasis away from the powers of each grade, and so are not nearly so clear about them.) The power was explicitly conveyed, usually with the formula "Receive the power of... (Accipe potestatem...)" according to each grade.

Moreover, the sacred powers of the bishop and of the priest were clearly and dogmatically defined by the Magisterium, most coherently at Trent (especially Session XXIII), but not uniquely at that Council. Bishops have the fullness of the Holy Spirit, the apostolic power of governance of the Church, and the power to confirm and to ordain. In the ordination rite, the bishop-elect was ordained when the consecrating bishops each put their hands on his head and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit." The other powers were enumerating in the signs of the rite: chrismation of the hands, giving of the pastoral staff, ring, and miter, and giving of the Gospels (apostolic commission).

Priests have the power to confect the Eucharist "in persona Christi," and to absolve from sins (Confession and Anointing). In the ordination rite, the newly ordained priest was then told, "Receive the power to offer the sacrifice to God, and to celebrate Masses, as much for the living as for the dead."

The exact sacred power of the deacon (or the subdeacon) has never been dogmatically defined with this same precision. But it is dogmatic that the deacon has sacred power (Trent, Session XXIII, chapter 4; Lumen Gentium 18), and this has always been understood of the subdeacon, too, although not to my knowledge asserted dogmatically. Major Orders convey powers, and the lex orandi is the lex credendeni. Thus, what is true of bishop and priest in the ordination rite is also true of deacon (and subdeacon) in the same rite.

3. What is the deacon's "sacra potestas?" This has never, as far as I know, be dogmatically defined. However, for more than twelve centuries, every deacon ordained in the Latin Church was told, "Receive the power of reading the Gospels in the Church of God, as much for the living as for the dead." Nor is there any other tradition about the deacon's sacred power floating around out there. The Church has always believed, then, and expressed clearly in her lex orandi, that the deacon's sacred power is to proclaim the Gospel within the Church.

This is why reading the Gospel is the deacon's characteristic function within the Church's liturgy. This function is the most immediate manifestation of the deacon's sacred power, in exactly the same way that presiding at Mass and offering Confession and Absolution are the most immediate manifestations of the priest's sacred power. It should be noted, however, that while the priest always exercises his sacred power "in persona Christi," such that it is in fact Christ who changes bread and wine into His own Body and Blood, and Christ who says, "I absolve you...," there's no parallel tradition of the deacon acting "in persona Christi."

The other parts of the deacon's ministry, of sacrament and of charity, relate to the proclamation of the Gospel in fairly direct ways. The Gospel is at the root of all the Church's teachings, so catechesis and sacramental preparation are derivative forms of proclaiming the Gospel. Baptism is the beginning of receiving the Gospel in the Church, so deacons can baptize (e.g., Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch). The Gospel must be proclaimed in action as well as by words, so deacons "sacramentalize the service of the Church," as Pope John Paul II put it.

Again, this is exactly parallel to how the other parts of a priest's ministry relate to the Eucharist (e.g., Lumen Gentium 28 - see more below); and to how the various parts of a bishop's ministry in the "fullness of orders" fit together in the three-fold responsibility to govern, sanctify, and teach.

4. Where in the Gospel does Christ give the Apostles such a power? Lk 9:1-6 is the most clear (parallel passages in Mt 10 and Mk 6). The Twelve receive the power to "keryssein" (preach, herald), and they went out "euaggelizomenoi" ("gospelizing," proclaiming the Gospel or coming of the Kingdom). Luke is most interesting on this point, because in Lk 10, he recounts a separate commission for the 72 disciples, with a different vocabulary of what exactly they are commissioned to do. They are not given a power ("dynamis"), but told only to "say" ("legete," 10:8) the Kingdom is coming.

This same power to "kerygein" the "kerygma," and to "euaggelizein," that is, to proclaim the Good News, is precisely what is given by the Twelve to the Seven in Acts 6, by the laying on of hands. Philip, using this gift of sacred power, explicitly "kerygein-ed" Christ to the Samaritans (8:5), many of whom were healed of demons and baptized; and "euaggelizein-ed" Christ to the eunuch (8:35), who was also baptized. Stephen's trial before the Sanhedrin is unmistakably a "kerygma," completed in his martyrdom (baptism of blood), which led directly to the conversion of the witness Saul.

5. How does this defend the transitional diaconate? The end of the deacon's proclaiming the Gospel, in every ministerial context, is the relationship of the hearer with Christ. In the case of initial conversion, that means baptism first; in the case of the baptized, it means the Eucharist. Deacons proclaim in order to bring people to Christ, and the deepest union with Christ in this life is the Eucharist.

The wisdom of the Tradition is that proclaiming leads to deeper union with Christ. Priests also have the power of proclaiming, in order to make their ministry of uniting and reconciling (Eucharist and absolution) more accessible and more fruitful. The one leads naturally to the other. (This is as it must be, if there is in fact one priesthood of Christ in the New Covenant; but we needn't get into the unity argument here.)

Lumen Gentium 28 states most clearly the theological relationship of the power of proclaiming to the power of confecting and absolving, in the ministry of priests:

By the power of the sacrament of Orders, in the image of Christ the eternal high Priest, they are consecrated to preach the Gospel and shepherd the faithful and to celebrate divine worship, so that they are true priests of the New Testament. Partakers of the function of Christ the sole Mediator, on their level of ministry, they announce the divine word to all. They exercise their sacred function especially in the Eucharistic worship or the celebration of the Mass by which acting in the person of Christ and proclaiming His Mystery they unite the prayers of the faithful with the sacrifice of their Head and renew and apply in the sacrifice of the Mass until the coming of the Lord the only sacrifice of the New Testament, namely that of Christ offering Himself once for all a spotless Victim to the Father. For the sick and the sinners among the faithful, they exercise the ministry of alleviation and reconciliation and they present the needs and the prayers of the faithful to God the Father.

To be true priests of Christ, both in His image and "in persona," priests must preach the Gospel, shepherd the people to Christ, and celebrate the sacraments. They cannot mediate like Christ the Mediator without announcing the Gospel. They cannot unite the faithful to the sacrifice of the altar without proclaiming the mystery of Christ's death and resurrection. This is simply what it means to be a priest of Jesus Christ.

If, however, priests were not ordained deacons first, then they would never receive the sacred power of proclaiming. Like the 72 disciples, they would be able to "say" the Kingdom, but not "proclaim" it with "power and authority." The healing sacraments would be disconnected from the Word, quite contrary to what Luke clearly says in 9:1-6, or what the Church has clearly stated in LG 28. They would not be able to preach in the same ministerial acts as shepherding and celebrating; they would not be able to mediate like Christ, and they would not be able to unite the faithful to the sacrifice of the altar.

"Deacon Reader" Summer Reading 5

Fr. Enright finishes up his survey of the history of the diaconate with a very quick look at the medieval period (roughly, 700 to 1500), the Council of Trent, and Vatican II.

In keeping with what we've already said about continuity in the most basic idea of what the diaconate is sacramentally, note especially the first quote from St. Isidore of Seville and the last quote from St. Thomas (p. 20 and 22 in my edition). Even though the diaconate was more and more treated as "transitional" throughout this period, we do know that it (and the minor orders) were flourishing. St. Isidore gives it a very significant degree of respect, and St. Thomas's theology (although shaped by his very heavy concentration on the priesthood and confection of the Eucharist, typical of the time) articulates a clear "sacred power" to proclaim the Gospel, both liturgically and, I think, ministerially, which the handing over of the Book of the Gospels in the ordination rite signifies. Nothing here seems to indicate an order in decline or being marginalized in the Church, despite the relative lack of "permanent" deacons.

The Council of Trent considered, but did not in the end enact, a revival of the permanency of the diaconate. It stated unambiguously that deacons belong to major orders, but it did not give any clear definition of the deacon's sacramental identity.

In the 400 years between Trent and Vatican II, something significant changed, though, and this article (and the next, really), don't manage to identify that change. I don't know the reasons why, but two things happened: (1) the minor orders essentially disappeared from parish life; and (2) the norms of celibacy became much stricter. Those two things are probably related, in fact, but I haven't seen any research into how. What this means, though, is that the context of the "renewal" of the diaconate in the 20th century was significantly different from the context in the 16th or 17th century, in the wake of Trent.

One way to think about the renewed diaconate is that all the functions of the minor orders, which (at least in one theory) were unpacked out of the original diaconate, have now been repacked back into it. In a sense, it's useful to think this way, because we now look at deacons much the same way the medieval Church looked at the minor orders: ordained men, pillars of the Church as it were, mostly married, mostly not employed by the Church, taking on clear, necessary, but subordinate roles in liturgy, parish life (catechist, sacristan, etc etc), and witness in the world. (Theologically, of course, there's a big difference between major and minor orders, which we're skipping over here.)

The cost of thinking in these terms is usually the loss of clarity about the diaconate's "necessity" (as Fr. Enright puts it in his conclusion, last paragraph, on my p. 26), in three senses. First, (also because of our cultural attitudes,) we lose the sense that something is missing when Mass is celebrated without a deacon ("low" Mass, though we don't call it that anymore). Second, we lose the importance of the transitional diaconate - which, as we noted before, doesn't actually seem to be a "decline" of the diaconate in the patristic or medieval Church - even to the extent of suggesting doing away with it. (One of my biggest beefs with Deacon Ditewig is his foolish promoting of this very bad idea.) Third, we lose clarity about the deacon's "sacred power" of proclaiming the Gospel in liturgy and in ministry, and therefore about the deacon's most basic identity and share of the apostolic mission.

If we can hold on to the attractiveness of this vocation (in terms of the loose parallel to the way the minor orders used to flourish?) and at the same time hold on to a robust theological precision about identity, sacred power, and double usage (permanent and transitional), then I think we will be close to embracing the "necessity... to the Church and her mission" of the diaconate that Fr. Enright lauds in his conclusion. Which is devoutly to be hoped, prayed, and worked for.