Instituted acolytes and the subdiaconate

[bardegaulois]

Traditionally, after the EF Easter Vigil, our celebrating priest and our senior servers repair to a suitable place to have a cigar together and to recap our performance over the Triduum. This year, we went a little beyond that in order to discuss planning for the future. We all love a good Solemn Mass of course, but we seldom have the opportunity to get all the necessary clergy in one place at the same time, as all the priests in the diocese with any sort of interest in the EF have their own pastoral work to do. A man in diaconal formation, however, has taken an interest in participating in the EF upon his ordination. That just leaves us the matter of the subdeacon to address in order to have more frequent Solemn Masses.

Yes, I know that the order of subdeacons has been suppressed. However, at the same time Pope Paul suppressed the order, it looks like he fused the subdeacon’s functions into the instituted ministries (formerly minor orders) of lector and acolyte. The Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei has ruled that instituted acolytes may serve as subdeacons at Solemn Mass, with some minor modifications. However, you don’t often come across instituted acolytes outside of seminaries.

So I got to thinking whether it might not be prudent for some of our senior servers such as myself (generally men in their 30s or 40s, both married and unmarried) to petition the bishop for institution – or otherwise to ask the priests charged with the EF to float the idea by the bishop, asserting an important pastoral reason (the Solemn Mass being the normative form of Mass in the Roman Rite). Non-seminarian instituted ministers are quite rare, to be sure, but institution of laymen for these functions is not without precedent. The Diocese of Lincoln in Nebraska, I know, does so, and likely several other dioceses do as well.

Of course, this will be at the bishop’s discretion, but it seems to me that this might be the best way to regularize more Solemn Masses in dioceses where available priests are few and available priests who want to have anything to do with the Extraordinary Form are almost non-existent. Any thoughts about this potential undertaking?

[truthfinder]

I think it would be fine, canonically speaking. Some might quibble about lector; but an instituted acolyte is about the closest thing we can get nowadays to a subdeacon. It would also work if there are permanent deacons that are available (this seems to be a diocese by diocese thing: some have tons, others none at all).

Most opinions that I have read indicate that as long as someone has been tonsured, or its current equivalent, it is fine for a straw subdeacon.  There may be an actual clarification on this from PCED - or your parish/church could send in for a clarification.  The one area where the full ceremonies can be hindered, and has been recently ruled on, is the chanting of the Passion Gospel by three deacons.  These have to be deacons (or priests) and not straws - for all three positions, otherwise, it should just be chanted by the priest. 

[bardegaulois]

I first read your name as "thurifer." Shows where my mind is.

The clarification was issued in the form of a letter from PCED to a parish in Australia asking exactly this in 1993, and it was affirmed that an instituted acolyte may serve as a subdeacon in a Solemn Mass, with some slight modifications to the rubrics -- he neither wears a maniple, nor does he pour water into the chalice, nor does he purify the chalice, and I'm sure there is something else I'm forgetting. Indeed, in 1972's Ministeriam Quaedam, which suppressed the subdiaconate as a major order and reclassified lector and acolyte as instituted ministries instead of minor orders, Pope Paul even stated explicitly that the acolyte may even be called a subdeacon if the bishops' conference be amenable to that. To my knowledge, none have, nor do instituted ministries, save in the seminary context, even appear to be a topic of attention for them.

That said, Holy Week will always be the sticking point, unless another major cleric is interested in joining us and vesting in dalmatic.

[GreenScapularedHuman]

This isn't meant as a contentious question nor is anything meant by this question (at least not in of itself)... but are women/girls allowed to serve in the modern latin mass? Because I know the last time I went to one there weren't any women on the altar but there were a few women helping set stuff up.

Also... why? Deaconesses (even if not ordained in the Sacrament of Holy Orders, or even if so not beyond the Deaconate) were a thing in the early church and the bible even seems to mention them. So... as a follow up why not women acolytes and subdeacons as well?

Is it the 'mens only' thing like the traditional wing of the Catholic Church uses for a male only priesthood?

[bardegaulois]

If by Latin Mass, you mean the Extraordinary Form, as most do, then altar service is restricted to men only, as they are substituting for what were traditionally clerical roles. Even in the Ordinary Form, the service of women or girls at the altar is subject to the bishop's permission. Most bishops, in the United States at least, have granted this permission, but several in more traditional dioceses have not.

A deaconess in the early Church, moreover, was not an ordained office. There is some confusion as to exactly what their role was, but the most common view appears to be that they were consecrated widows who assisted in preparing female catechumens for baptism, and NOT a parallel of the male deacon in his liturgical role.

[GreenScapularedHuman]

13 hours ago, bardegaulois said:

A deaconess in the early Church, moreover, was not an ordained office. There is some confusion as to exactly what their role was, but the most common view appears to be that they were consecrated widows who assisted in preparing female catechumens for baptism, and NOT a parallel of the male deacon in his liturgical role.

Most of the reports from the Catholic Church's theological reports on deaconesses is that they did exist, they were ordained, but their exact function is not very clear... meaning that they may not of been admitted the Sacrament of Holy Orders. More specifically they note there is virtually no record of women being ordained past the deaconate in the early church, as such it would be a step beyond early tradition to do so.

Deacon just means 'servant'. Deacons in the early church were just servants of the church and their bishop, to put it simply. They did more mundane tasks. Women did have roles in the liturgy to various degrees up to about the 12th century. http://www.uscatholic.org/articles/201211/get-facts-order-history-womens-leadership-26594

But I was guessing this was the 'men only' thing again... I can see I wasn't mistaken.