Fr. Z, St. Ignatius and the Constitution of the Church
A few of my deacon friends have forwarded along a blog post written by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf in which he answers the question (posed to him by a newly ordained deacon), “Are permanent deacons necessary?”
Fr. Z begins by making a few important points, the first being that a deacon is a deacon is a deacon. There is no ontological difference between a permanent deacon and transitional deacon (one who later is ordained priest), which is a point I’ve made before here. His second point is that a priest does not cease being a deacon when he is ordained a priest, and in fact often functions as a deacon. In other words, all deacons are permanent deacons.
He then mentions what many complain about regarding permanent deacons, and that is “uneven formation.”
I have encountered over the years super competent permanent deacons, edifying and praiseworthy, and also cringe worthy incompetents. More of the later, alas, than the former. Not that a lot of priests are great shakes. The problem is terribly uneven formation.
The Importance of Formation
This topic seems to come up in any online discussion of the permanent diaconate, which no doubt speaks to a need for improvement in diaconal formation generally (the problem is that many of the deacons people complain about were ordained 20 or 30 years ago, so any reform in diaconal formation programs now won’t impact them much).
But can we just take it as a given that solid clerical formation is important, and that this is a separate issue from the validity of any given ministry? It’s true — diaconal formation programs in some dioceses are better than others. Some seminaries are better than others. Some priests are better formed than others. The same goes for bishops. If there are a lot of poorly formed deacons out there, this speaks to a need for better formation, not a lack of need for deacons.
Do we need deacons?
Then Fr. Z addresses the real question. “Do we need a permanent diaconate? Are they necessary?” He writes:
We didn’t have them for a loooong time and we got along just fine. However, that also was in the day when convents were jammed and there were several priests in every rectory. Work got done.
After attesting to the fact that well-formed deacons can be a great help in the parish, he concludes:
It seem to me that, while priests are existentially necessary [emphasis mine] for the life of the Church (e.g. Mass, confessions, anointing), and permanent deacons are not in the same way necessary (e.g. they do none of those), having them in service depends a great deal on both the urgency of the need and the quality of formation. That isn’t very definite, I know. First, every cleric ought to be well-formed. We can’t do without priests, and so we can get on with priests who aren’t so sharp. But we can get along very well without deacons who aren’t so sharp.
He concludes by reminding us that the diaconate, like any of the Holy Orders, is a vocation from God.
God’s involvement means that if permanent deacons are necessary, then they are going, somehow, to be ordained, just as a flower finds purchase and manages to spring up in the crack of a sidewalk.
He writes, “One of the first things that the Apostles did was choose men for the diaconate. That tells us something.”
Existential Necessity
I want to hone in on the distinction he makes that priests are “existentially necessary” to the life of the Church in a way that deacons are not. On the surface, this makes sense. Priests can celebrate the sacraments, specifically the Eucharist. And without the Eucharist there is no Church. Ergo, priests are a necessary part of the ontology of the Church. The Church can get by without deacons (as Fr. Z said she did for centuries prior to Vatican II), but she cannot get by without priests.
All of the above makes sense… but there is more to it than meets the eye.
First, while it is true that the Church (in the West) did not have permanent deacons for many centuries, as Fr. Z. points out, priests don’t cease being deacons at their priestly ordination. So the Church has always had deacons — it’s just that most all of them were also priests. What the Church didn’t have for several centuries were ministers who were ordained to diaconal ministry without also being ordained to priestly ministry.
When asking whether the Church needs permanent deacons, we are asking whether the Church needs men who are deacons and not also priests. That’s a different question than whether the Church needs deacons period. It may seem like I’m squabbling over semantics, but this is an important point if we are talking about the existential constitution of the Church.
Second, we must question the assertion that priests as such are existentially necessary for the Church. It is true, priests can celebrate the Eucharist, without which there is no Church. The Church needs priests. So how do we get priests? Bishops. Priests cannot ordain other priests. Only bishops can ordain. If we are looking at the three degrees of Holy Orders and asking which is existentially necessary for the Church? the answer can only be bishops.
Bishops are the successors of the Apostles. They possess in their person the fullness of the sacrament of Holy Orders and the full share of Apostolic ministry. Every bishop is also a priest and a deacon. A bishop can not only baptize (as can a deacon, or even a lay person in emergency), celebrate the Eucharist and hear confessions (as a priest), he can also ordain men into holy orders, thus guaranteeing the continuity of the Catholic Church.
Looked at from a certain perspective, since every bishop is first ordained a deacon and then a priest, and bishops are existentially necessary to the Church, one could argue that deacons are also existentially necessary to the Church. But deacons alone (and priests alone) are not sufficient. What is necessary is the fullness of Holy Orders.
If some catastrophe were to leave the Church with only a single deacon, or a single priest, the Church would die when he did. But as long as we have one bishop (even a poorly formed one), the Church could be reborn from that single seed.
The Constitution of the Church
One must always make an important caveat when speaking of what is “necessary” when it comes to how God chooses to act in the world. This is because God always acts from freedom. In other words, there is no force greater than God acting upon His will. Everything God does, he does freely, not out of need. This includes how he chooses to establish the Church.
One of the fundamental things we Catholics believe about the sacraments is that they are divinely instituted. The Church does not invent them. They are given by God and entrusted to the Church’s custody. This is just as true of the sacrament of Holy Orders as it is any other sacrament.
It is a dogmatic teaching of the Church that the sacrament of Holy Orders consists of three orders — deacon, priest and bishop. This is taught in our Catechism and is defined by both the Second Vatican Council and the Council of Trent. God did not need to establish the Church in this way — he could have established the Church any way he pleased — but that he did is a dogmatic teaching of the Church.
Granted, it took some time to figure this out. Before Trent, just what orders were considered sacramental was a matter of some debate. Recall that prior to 1973, clerics passed through several orders, some minor and some major. The minor orders were porter, lector, exorcist and acolyte. The major orders were subdeacon, deacon, and priest. Everyone understood that the minor orders were instituted orders, and not sacramental. Everyone understood that the priesthood was sacramental. Things were less clear when it came to the subdiaconate and the diaconate.
Most would argue that the subdiaconate was not sacramental, while the diaconate was. But this was not universally acknowledged and not clearly defined. And really it was not a matter of great urgency for the Church, as just about everyone ordained to the diaconate was just a few months away from being ordained a priest, which definitely was sacramental.
As an interesting point, the sacramentality of the episcopacy was also debated. When one is ordained a bishop, does one actually receive a sacred order? Or is a bishop just a priest with territorial jurisdiction? These are important questions when it comes to understanding the constitution of the Church. And it was exactly the constitution of the Church that was being called into question by the Protestant Reformation. Therefore this question was finally put to rest by the Council of Trent, and reaffirmed by Vatican I and Vatican II (the latter of which re-instituted the diaconate as a permanent order within the Church).
From the Catechism:
Holy Orders is the sacrament through which the mission entrusted by Christ to his apostles continues to be exercised in the Church until the end of time: thus it is the sacrament of apostolic ministry. It includes three degrees: episcopate, presbyterate, and diaconate (CCC 1536).
And from Vatican II:
The divinely instituted ecclesiastical ministry is exercised in different degrees by those who even from ancient times have been called bishops, priests, and deacons (Lumen Gentium 28).
Bishops, as successors of the Apostles, have the fullness of this ministry. Priests and deacons are given a share of it, to different degrees. And it’s not for nothing, as Fr. Z points out, that the Apostles ordained deacons before they ordained priests (see Acts 6).
In the earliest days of the Church, the clergy consisted of bishops and deacons. For example, in St. Paul’s first letter to Timothy, he writes of the qualifications for bishops and deacons, but makes no mention of the presbyterate (see 1 Tim 3). Priests, as a permanent ministry, were not necessary in these early days because every priest was also a bishop. The bishops needed helpers, and so they ordained deacons. But they did not need others to celebrate the Eucharist for them, as the Church was small enough that local churches could still gather around their bishop for the celebration of the sacraments.
Of course this situation did not last long. The Church grew quickly and as the Christian community spread, bishops needed to ordain men with a greater share in their Apostolic authority to minister to the needs of the Church. Thus we had the institution of “permanent priests” one might say. But the bishop remained the ministerial center of the local Church.
In the early second century, St. Ignatius of Antioch would write to the Church in Smyrna:
All of you must follow the bishop as Jesus Christ follows the Father, and the priests as you would the apostles. Respect the deacons as the command of God. Without the bishop, let no one do anything involving the Church. A valid Eucharist is that which is celebrated by the bishop, or by his representative. Wherever the bishop appears, let the people gather; just as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.
Patristic Witness
And speaking of St. Ignatius, the Office of Readings for today (Oct. 8, 2019), contains an excerpt from St. Ignatius’ letter to the Trallians. St. Ignatius was a disciple of St. John the Evangelist and later bishop of Antioch. He was arrested and martyred around the year 110 AD. His testimony tells us quite a bit about how the generation of Christians immediately following the Apostles viewed the constitutional make-up of the Church.
He writes to the Trallians:
Likewise, everyone must respect the deacons as Jesus Christ, and the bishop as a representative of the Father, and the priests as the council of God and the assembly of the Apostles. Without these, there is no Church.
So are deacons necessary for the Church?
Inasmuch as deacons are one of three orders which constitute the sacrament of Holy Orders, established by Christ for the continuation of his Apostolic ministry, the answer must be an unequivocal YES.