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Ordained Ministry:
Diaconate
Who is the Deacon?
By Deacon Eric Stoltz, Archdiocese of Los Angeles
Origins | Love & Justice | The Word | The Altar | Other Ministries
Other Liturgical and Devotional Ministries
As ordained clergy, deacons also serve the faith community in various sacramental and devotional ways. The deacon is an ordinary minister of baptism and presides at marriages. The deacon is also authorized to preside at the solemn celebration of the Liturgy of the Hours, or Divine Office, and at the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, where he may give the blessing with the Blessed Sacrament and carry the monstrance in procession. Deacons also customarily preside at funeral vigils and devotional services such as the Way of the Cross. Deacons are also authorized to perform all the blessings of the Church, with the notable exception of the blessing of a seminary building.
The deacon has other roles in the liturgy proper only to him. The great Easter Proclamation, the Exsultet, was in the ancient Church permitted only to the deacon. Two other historic diaconal proclamations were restored to the liturgy: The Proclamation of the Birth of Christ at Christmas Midnight Mass and the Proclamation of the Date of Easter at Epiphany.
During the Liturgy of the Triduum, the deacon conducts the Veneration of the Cross at the Solemn Liturgy of the Lord’s Passion on Good Friday and brings the Easter Candle into the Church at the Easter Vigil. These corresponding diaconal processions, each with their three proclamations by the deacon, tie the death and resurrection of Jesus together in the Triduum liturgy.
Ministry within the Diocese
In his ancient role as the “helper of the bishop,” the deacon has a role that is not confined to any individual parish. At solemn stational liturgies celebrated by the ordinary of the diocese, especially in the cathedral, he must always be accompanied by deacons. It is customary also for deacons to serve as Masters of Ceremonies whenever auxiliary bishops visit parishes for Confirmation. Often deacons serve as canonical secretaries to auxiliary bishops, a role typically reserved to priests as secretaries to ordinaries.
Although the deacon canonically belongs to the bishop, it is customary for the bishop to assign a deacon to a particular parish as the primary locus of his service in order that he may function canonically as parish clergy with the appropriate canonical faculties. Such assignments are typically general and open-ended, as compared to a priest’s assignment, which is specific and closed-ended. Thus, the deacon is free to petition the bishop to be assigned to another place where he feels he may be more effective, and the bishop would typically be inclined to grant such a petition.
In most dioceses, the deacon also prepares couples for marriage and prepares matrimonial cases for the diocesan tribunal. Deacons also are generally given faculties to grant dispensations from certain impediments to marriage.
The deacon typically receives no salary from the diocese, but is expected to earn his own living in a manner appropriate to his ordained state of life. This way of life gives rise to what is called the ministry of the workplace, where other employees often approach the deacon in the workplace for pastoral ministry.
Pope Paul VI eliminated the “minor orders” (exorcist, porter, lector, acolyte, subdeacon) reducing the ranks of the clerical state to bishop, priest and deacon. He retained the ministry of acolyte and lector, although they are no longer called “minor orders.” The clerical state is thus entered into upon ordination to the diaconate, rather than tonsure, as was the previous custom. Thus, as he enters the clerical state, the candidate promises the bishop obedience and makes a commitment to celibacy if he is not married and the praying of the Liturgy of the Hours (Divine Office). After the laying on of hands, the bishop presents the deacon with a Gospel Book, saying “Believe what you read, teach what you believe, and practice what you teach.”
