Word of the Day: Subdiaconate

SUBDIACONATE. Formerly one of the major orders, although not considered a sacrament. A subdeacon assisted a deacon and had certain other auxiliary responsibilities. The subdiaconate was the normal prelude to the diaconate and priesthood. Subdeacons took the vow of celibacy before ordination. The subdiaconate was suppressed by Pope Paul VI for the Latin Church in 1973.

++++

Another casualty of Paul VI's 'reform'. Despite what Fr Hardon says, it was not suppressed for the Latin Church. It was suppressed for the Novus Ordo in the Latin Church. It is regularly bestowed on men in the Traditional Institutes and Orders as the progress to the Priesthood.

The first paragraph of the article Subdeacon in the Catholic Encyclopedia is below.

The subdiaconate is the lowest of the sacred or major orders in the Latin Church. It is defined as the power by which one ordained as a subdeacon may carry the chalice with wine to the altar, prepare the necessaries for the Eucharist, and read the Epistles before the people (Ferraris, op. cit., infra No. 40). According to the common opinion of theologians at present, the subdeaconship was not instituted by Christ. Nor are there sufficient grounds for maintaining that it had an Apostolic origin. There is no mention of the subdiaconate in Holy Scripture or in the authentic writings of the Apostolic Fathers. These authorities make reference only to bishops, priests, and deacons. At the Council of Benevento (A.D. 1091), Urban II says: "We call sacred orders the deaconship and priesthood, for we read that the primitive Church had only those orders" (Can. I). Gratian (Dist. 21) says: "In the course of time, the Church herself instituted subdeacons and acolytes". It is true that the Council of Trent (Sess. XXIII, cap. 17, de ref.) says that "The functions of Holy orders from the deaconship to the ostiariate were laudably sanctioned in the Church from the times of the Apostles"; but these words simply indicate that the "functions" were so exercised (that is as part of the diaconate); it was only in the course of time that they were separated from the office of deacon and committed to inferior ministers. This explains why some theologians (e.g. Thomassinus, p. I, lib. II, cap. xl) speak of the subdiaconate as of Divine institution, that is they look on it as made up of functions proper to deacons. Gasparri (op. cit. infra, I, No. 35) says: "The Church, in the institution [of the subdeaconship] proceeded thus. She wished to commit to others the inferior functions of the order of diaconate, both because the deacons, with the increase of the faithful, could not suffice for their many and grave duties, and because she wished that others, received among the clergy and marked with the clerical tonsure, should ascend through minor orders, only after trial, to major orders. Imitating the Divine Law of the first three grades (bishop, priest and deacon), she decreed that the power of performing these functions should be conferred by external rites similar to those by which major orders were bestowed."