Thank you for this. I am looking forward to the concluding installment.

I have often wondered about the transitional diaconate, of what use it might be, and for what purpose it remains. Especially since, as practiced, priests rarely get a "diaconal year" anymore - just the canonically-minimal six months or so - and even that is much too short to be genuinely useful as a residency (and is much less useful than a year's curacy - in priest's orders - which almost no one gets anymore).

The only argument I can see, then, is charismatic: that it is necessary already to have received the diaconal gifts of the Spirit in order to perform the functions of the sacerdotal presbyterate.

And I think it is necessary. One of the charisms of the diaconate is the authority to proclaim the Gospel in the Assembly, and the Gospel must be proclaimed in order to pray Mass.

The priesthood exists in order to pray Mass, just in case the bishop isn't here at the moment. Just in case the deacon also isn't here at the moment, unless a priest possesses the diaconal charisms, she or he cannot pray Mass. And the People go hungry.

Thanks for this. I think the hierarchical or at least cumulative argument for the transitional diaconate is still very live, but hidden by our desire to be "politically correct."

Though I remain torn over the continuation of the transitional diaconate, I wonder if it can be seen similar to the cumulative nature of other disciplines. One could cite mathematics as one example. A calculus specialist must have a firm grasp of the discipline of algebra for her vocation, but that does not presuppose an algebra specialist is therefore less of a mathematician.

Likewise, the ordained offices might be viewed as cumulative in the same way, but those called to diaconal ministries as a vocation are
not lesser clergy.

It's also helpful to include the laity in this cumulative approach. We generally ordain those who have demonstrated themselves to be faithful laity. That does not assume, however, that all faithful laity should be ordained. Is it only an emotional argument to say we want our priests to have demonstrated themselves as faithful in the ordained ministry of the diaconate? But that this not necessarily mean all faithful deacons become priests...

It also strikes me that if we dispense with the cumulative argument entirely and do away with the transitional diaconate, it may be a logical next step to begin consecrating bishops directly as well - not unheard of (i.e. Ambrose) - but do we want our pastors of pastors consecrated without pastoral experience?

Thanks, Scott. The charismatic argument out of our central liturgy where the ordained are in their most significant roles is very instructive.

The article is well reasoned. However, as a former Lay Deputy, who tried with others to have General Convention authorize direct ordination, I know it will be hard to bring change, Too many priests think "I had to become a transitional deacon--why shouldn't others?"

IMHO, the only chance of making progress would be to pass a resolution authorizing direct ordination at the option of the Ecclesiastical Authority--and maybe for only a trial period!

Nigel A. Renton

As a priest, I don't have any absolute commitment to preserving or abolishing the transitional diaconate.

One historical fact to keep in mind is that the transitional diaconate was the only form in which the order survived for many, many centuries. An argument from the earliest history is not conclusive in a Church that believes in ongoing tradition. All it can do is show us possibilities that we might not have yet imagined.

I would submit that the only criterion should be whether the transitional diaconate strengthens diaconal ministry throughout the Church (and not just in the vocational diaconate). I think the case can be made that having every priest (and therefore every bishop) serve a serious year or more as a deacon might have this effect--or not. The psychological needs of the priests are irrelevant, as are those of the deacons. The sole criterion should be whether or not the transitional diaconate fosters the ministries of servant and prophet throughout the Church. This is the only reason to ordain anyone a deacon. I could see a case being built for abolishing, continuing, or lengthening the transitional diaconate on this basis.

The lingering sense of superiority that prevents deacons from being treated as a full and equal order should disappear once we stamp out lingering clericalism. Deacons are equal, because the source of all ministry is Holy Baptism, which confers a full share in the one ministry of Jesus. The existence of the order of deacons lifts up certain dimensions of this ministry in an iconic manner, especially those of servant and prophet, to encourage these charisms throughout the Body.

In the article I am quoted as saying that "[p]roposals for direct ordination will continue to come before convention." I am less sanguine now than I was when I wrote that. All too many hold a personalized concept of the church and her ministry, in which God gives individual charisms--proclaiming the gospel, praying the eucharistic prayer, and so forth. But let's hold out for five years. Six months is ludicrous!

Wait! I just had a thought. What about six seconds?

I'm wondering, too, if so much of the emotional side of this debate is about possession: priests saying, "Don't take away my diaconate!"

It shows a very poor understanding of orders, which belong, if not to the whole church, then to God - never to me.

Part of the reality is the orders exist to bring out the three-fold ministries of servanthood, priesthood, and leadership in all Christians. There must be a better way of teaching this than through merely clinging to the transitional diaconate.

Looking forward to the second installment!

I appreciate this conversation being brought back before us yet again. Per saltum ordination (direct ordination to the priesthood) seems to be the obvious choice for the church to make. I was told by my liturgy professor in seminary, the late Marion Hatchett, many years ago that the 1979 Book of Common Prayer had removed all hurdles to one being directly ordained to the priesthood and that we were waiting for the canons to catch up. Clearly they have not.

I bring another perspective to bear on this conversation. As a priest who was ordained to the transitional diaconate who served solo as a college chaplain, I remember plainly the phenomenon of having someone else preside at the holy table who was completely disconnected from our community. We had supply clergy come in to preside at the Eucharist each week while I preached and waited to be ordained to the priesthood. I was the leader of the community; a rotation of 3 or 4 supply priests presided at the Eucharist. I found it highly unsatisfactory at the time, and continue to.

The bishops of the WWAC at Lambeth 1988 commissioned a study of the Eucharist in Anglicanism today and published the world of the fifth international Anglican liturgical consultation which was published in 1998. The book is called "Our Thanks and Praise", David Holeton, ed. If there is a book that characterizes the liturgical theology of the Communion, I suspect it is this one.

I would point out that the second of the "Principles and Recommendations" of this book contain these words. "... The liturgical functions of the ordained arise out of pastoral responsibility. Separating liturgical function and pastoral oversight tends to reduce liturgical presidency to an isolated ritual function."

Clearly, in my case, liturgical presidency and pastoral oversight were divided. I am fully aware that I am not the only priest, who during their diaconal six months, has been called upon to be the pastor of a community, but who was also not presiding at the Eucharist.

I hear again and again that what the church needs in its seminary graduates are people who can be ordained immediately and serve as priests, and that the opportunities for curacy are fewer and further between in these days.

So pragmatically and theologically, the transitional diaconate's days ought to be numbered. And yet, my understanding is that when the House of Bishops took up the idea of per saltum ordination in 2003 (I think) that the idea was met with resistance. It is definitely time to revisit as perhaps the resistance has subsided somewhat.

One more note. I vividly recall at a clergy conference during my early ordained years, the bishop of the diocese asking for all of the deacons to stand up. First, a priest or two stood up with the deacons and then most all of the priests stood up. I found the display quite broken in that it didn't respect those who were serving as deacons, but also that these colleagues of mine were formed with a theology of another era. Their message to the deacons in the crowd, "Hey, we're doing the same work that you are." I don't believe that to be the case.

"Deacons serve in the liturgy," as Ormonde Plater has so eloquently written, "because deacons mobilize the church, especially for works of love in the world." It is to this ministry with one foot in the church and one foot in the world that deacons are called. While do priests serve the church and serve the bishop, parish priesthood does not and should not have this extra-parochial vocation as do deacons.

The Rev. Sean Ferrell

Thank you, Pam, for naming the elephant in the room -- the emotional attachment that too many priests and bishops have to their (usually very limited)experience of the diaconate. We priests and bishops need to move beyond that.

I had the good fortune in the early 70's to belong to a college congregation in which the two priests (there was no deacon) deliberately modeled the different roles of priest and deacon in the liturgy, down to the vestments they wore. Having there begun to see the distinctive roles of the two orders (albeit in less than ideal) form, I was later to learn more of the diaconate as the fullness of that order began to be reclaimed within TEC. When a man was ordained deacon in the parish I served as curate, I gave him the deacon's stole in which I had been ordained to that order. I was graced to recognize then that the diaconate was his order, not mine.

Since then, I have been blessed to work with Deacons as colleagues in ministry and hope to be able to do so again soon in the parish where I am now vicar. Its time for priests and bishops to grow up and stop holding on to an order that is not ours.

Richard:

Your cumulative argument doesn't fly. How many cardiologists or neuro-surgeons do you know who do NOT think of themselves as superior to general practitioners?

But thank you for your thanks. I have mentioned that charismatic argument to several priests, and you are the first one to take it at all seriously (much less to praise it in any way).

And I wonder how many would have taken it seriously if my name were Scott+. Almost all of the priests I know believe that they believe that the diaconate is "a full and equal order," but almost none of them, as evinced by their words and actions, really do believe it.

This article reflects the only arguments I have seen for Transitional Diaconate -- a "hazing" attitude- I did it so you should, a warm fuzzy feeling about it, a "moving up through the ranks" argument, that it teaches something about servant ministry (not in my experience of clergy), that it preserved the diaconate - is a good historical point - do we still need that preservation?

On second thought, I ought to have said "many," not "almost all."
Not accurate, and not charitable even if it were.

Great article! In my experience, the emotivist insistence of describing the need for a transitional diaconate is deeply related to the medieval notion that there is really only one order: priesthood. Aquinas taught that the bishop is simply a priest who has a wider jurisdiction and the deacon someone on the way to priest.

I find many priests also have the same opinion of their bishops today, to their shame, unaware that their priesthood absolutely depends on their bishop´s laying on of hands or license to officiate.

The patristic theology of orders which placed the fullness of order in the bishop, from whom BOTH priesthood and diaconate are delegated, is still largely absent in TEC, even though it´s well-recovered in official RC documents and recent books.

When it comes to Church Order, the Anglican imagination is still stuck in the middle ages. We need to go back to a patristic understanding of Order in order to move forward.

[Thanks for the comment. Please sign your true first and last name at the end of the post. It doesn't appear automatically when you post from FB. - eds.]

If we ever do have direct ordination to the priesthood, we should insist that any Bishop be both a priest and a deacon before consecration to the episcopacy. Because one of the charisms of the deacon is to be a servant, and I think we should be sure that all of our Bishops have that gift.

I don't think we will be ready for direct ordination to the priesthood until we can imagine ordaining someone as a priest first, and then later ordaining the priest as a deacon. Until that point, we still have the hierarchical model in our head, whether we know it or not.

As for me (a laywoman) I support the transitional diaconate because I think our priests - like our bishops - should have the charism of servanthood, and should be willing to act in that role more often than washing feet on Holy Thursday every year.

Speaking of the charism of servanthood, my major argument for direct ordination is to elevate the permanent diaconate. I hardly think the transitional diaconate as one of servanthood.

As long as there is a transitional diaconate the permanent diaconate will be misunderstood and underappreciated by most laity. And, likewise, many will miss a call to that distinctive and important ministry.

I don't find the last argument, which is often repeated, to be at all convincing. The lack of appreciation has more to do with how vocational deacons have been called, trained, and used in some dioceses than with the existence of the transitional diaconate. Effective examples of vocational deacons are convincing, regardless of what decisions are made about the other question. I think that far too much has been made to depend on how that question is resolved.

Despite the 1958 Lambeth resolution, much of the Anglican Communion seems to be in the process of jettisoning diaconate (retaining it only a token short-as-possible transitional diaconate), reducing it if it were possible to Ormonde's joke of six seconds, or the medieval next day priestly ordination.

No real diaconal presence in liturgy would be a tragic loss for modeling shared leadership.

But sometimes a deacon models something that's the opposite of sharing authority in the liturgy.

Sometimes, even with implementing the 1979 Prayer Book by the letter (though not in spirit) introducing a deacon to the liturgy produces a guarded territorial partition, more simply put - priestly and diaconal turf.

The Prayers of the People and preparation of the Table offer relatively uncontroversial places to notice this.

The prayers can be a small glimpse of a deacon serving as the liturgy's producer/director, the one who brings the right pieces, texts, people, and concerns together to guide the people praying. A deacon can take pastoral charge of shaping the prayers, using the existing forms and the permission to create new ones to call forth out loud prayers from the congregation and really teach and form people for prayer. Or the prayers can be territory lost to the people where the deacon's solos voice in 'representative ministry' speaks for (and thus replaces and silences) the assembly's voice.

And, though the Prayer Book says, 'It is the function of the deacon to make ready the Table or celebration...the deacon may be assisted by other ministers,' even in the last couple of months and in more than one parish, I've heard lay servers and ushers saying, 'our deacon told me I wasn't to come anywhere near the table until s/he was finished setting it.' Saying I/we don't need your help is 'stay out of my kitchen' hospitality.

The dilemma here for Christian formation is that people do shape these turf and distance messages into an image of holiness. What we do in the liturgy teaches and forms the people.

A priest working to invite a more participatory (and traditionally so) liturgy told me his new congregation said, 'No, Father. You can do whatever you want on your side of the altar rails, like our old rector said, that's your side. Just don't try to do anything about what happens on our side.'

When do deacons deliver us from the rails and when do they guard their privileged place on the holier side of the rails?

More controversially in those relatively fewer places in England where there are vocational deacons, the common English practice of lay people reading the Gospel gets "corrected." Deacons' ministry and 'doing it right' cost the people their voice.

The loss happens when the the deacon values a speaking part as an actor over the more powerful (but less center-stage) role of producer/director.

I've been talking about liturgy and what happens when the people are gathered, but when we observe outside the church walls, the opposite ways of practicing deacons ministry show up there too. When a deacon says, 'It's my job to interpret the church to the world and the world to the church,' or speaks of 'my ministry in the world,' what I hear is a power play and something not just less than, but the opposite of diaconal. When a deacon says, 'come with me' as an invitation to serve or says, 'what did you experience and how does it belong in our prayers,' THAT's diaconal.

Shared leadership that includes the whole people changes our understanding of liturgy and all our ministries and work. Presbyter and deacon working together with appropriate baptized contributors and assisting leaders changes the experience of the liturgy to look like the church's real ministry. But from a congregational perspective, a 'division of labor' that reserves all the important speaking parts for ordained, vested people isn't shared, it's just divided differently from having the priest doing it alone.

Deacons frequently describe how they have to defend their place, their role, their part, against both presbyters and baptized laity.

Functionally, for presbyters actually trying to share authority, and for baptized laity ready to accept and exercise authority, the dilemma looks quite different from that kind of deacon's formulation of it.

In contrast with the real imaging of vibrant sharing of ministry that a generous deacon brings, another kind of deacon leaves lay people saying, 'we used to be more involved before the bishop assigned us a deacon.'

I was a deacon for a full year before I was ordained priest. I would gladly have continued for another five years. Sequential ordination only makes sense if we actually do expect that those we eventually call to be presbyter can truthfully say at their diaconal ordination, 'I believe I am so called.'

on the paradox of distinct and equal ministries - and to Scott's response above to Richard:

"How many cardiologists or neuro-surgeons do you know who do NOT think of themselves as superior to general practitioners?" - - -

I often think of a very skilled, still humble M.D. psychiatrist friend who began his training (and worked during medical school) as an R.N. He has the least sense of superiority of his rank in medical hierarchy of anyone of I've met with his training. His real experience of nurse's work shaped his appreciation of the essential, distinct contribution nurses make to physicians' work.

My wife is an R.N. with a Ph.D. in nursing. When she was a hospital nurse, working on a post-op surgical floor, she described the hectic days when the new physician interns came on and the nurses had to walk them through their decisions and directions. We've got a clear medical hierarchy and some odd contradictions in what rank means in practice, who cares for you when you're in the hospital, and at that beginning training level, who is training whom.

Later while she was getting her Ph.D. she'd regularly hear acquaintances ask, 'Why don't you just go to medical school?' Her deacon-like answer, if she responded, was, 'It's not my calling.' Thinking of our friend Richard, the psychiatrist, I thought, our problem is that all physicians should be trained, certified, and practice as nurses.

If you don't require physicians to train, be certified and practice as nurses before they can train for an M.D., how do you form them to acknowledge somehow nested inside their vocation, the function others fulfill that makes their work possible? And if we don't require presbyters to find and live into a vocation of deacon for long enough that there's real discovery and a hard discernment about whether to prepare and seek priestly ordination, how do form priests to acknowledge the care and service that is at the heart of all Christian ministry?

I know that 'nested inside' like Russian dolls doesn't quite work. But I also know that the church, often informally, sometimes formally, continues to define and the ordained roles in terms of what each new subsequent (?) rank (?) allows in addition to what's gone before.

Allison -

All ministries are contained within the episcopate: the saying goes, "where the bishop is, there the whole church is." This is because the ministry of Christ on earth is held within the office of Bishop - and why all ministries of the church are administered by the bishop, directly (as with Confirmation, Ordination, blessing of chrism, etc.) or indirectly - sacerdotal ministries through priests, the others through deacons, or laypersons.

A bishop possesses all those because they are the charisms of the office of bishop - NOT because that particular bishop once had been ordained priest or deacon (or once had been baptized, for that matter).

Deacons possess some of the ministries of the church, and priests possess others - but only bishops and the laity (as a whole) possess all of them. Deacons and priest get them from bishops, bishops don't get them from the deacons and priests they once were.

Scott,

I'm puzzled by your assertion. That the episcopate has its charism without reference to baptism seems to be completely backwards. It's my understanding that all charism flow from baptism. Holy Orders are only ordained charisms that are among many granted by the Spirit through baptism.

Another conclusion that might logically be drawn is that direct ordination to the episcopate is not only possible, but normative (a la Ambrose.)

I mean this question seriously: is this what you intend by this argument?

For both practical and theological reasons I'm a clear supporter of direct ordination--for all orders.

As I approached my transitional ordination, my personal feelings were that I was living in someone else's order from day one. Because my sense of call was priestly, my training prepared me for priestly ministry, and I was going to a church to serve priestly ministry, there was no sense that I was doing a first step--even in the hierarchical sense--because my diacinal ministry did not feel different than my priestly ministry. To keep the practical talk going, my sponsoring parish didn't send me to be a deacon and my internship parish didn't support me in aspiring to become a deacon, and my first parish was more inconvenienced by my "not yet" position. Besides, why should we expect a congregation to make a place for a temporary ministry (transitional deacon), when it is the end-product (priest) that they've called?

And to make even more trouble, I might stretch Scott's point in a different direction, which is that the orders of bishops and deacons have clearly defined roles historically and scripturally, and that it is the priest that is most in need of defending his/her seat at the table.

Richard -

I was being somewhat facetious in that little parenthetical remark, and ask you and everyone just to ignore it. I happen to know of a bishop who, as things went, never was baptized.

Of course baptism is the sacrament of initiation, through which one enters the Body of Christ on Earth, which holds all ministries of that Body. (And confirmation completes that initiation, if it needs completing - let's not have that conversation right now - and that nonbaptized bishop *was* confirmed).

The point was that when one is consecrated bishop, one is given personal stewardship of all those ministries, for that office is the instrument through which the Holy Spirit propagates those ministries.

So a bishop is a teacher, for example, whether or not that bishop had ever actually taught anyone anything. And a bishop is a priest, in fact THE priest, whether or not that bishop had ever been a presbyter. And a bishop is a servant, and a prophet, whether he had ever been a deacon.

So the laity, which is the church, and the episcopate which is the steward of the church, possess all the charisms of the church. The presbyterate possesses some, the diaconate others, but only the laity and episcopate possess all - but they do not possess them in the same sense, nor do they propagate them in the same way.

But yes, if someone had never been initiated into the Body (however irregularly,) of course one could never possess any charisms of the Body.

I completely agree with Scott. His las two posts indicate a theology of the church in which the church (ie., the initiated) are --as a group-- the main sacramental presence of the risen Christ in the world. This is is why without Church, there can be no Eucharist.

The Bishop, as the main Presider/Servant/Teacher/Pastor/Initiator of the local church (ie., diocese) is called to be not only the sign of its unity, but the sign of the local church to the surrounding world.

Presbyterate and Diaconate are ministries delegated by a bishop upon the request of the diocese. At least that is what the ordination rites in the 79 BCP point out.

The criteria, however, for the wise choosing of the candidates are, it seems to me, all over the map.
In terms of diaconate, I wish we´d stop describing deacons as "servants" for every member of the Churh is a servant. Deacons, it seems to me, are called to be LEADERS of a servant people, and not servile functionaries.

What leadership skills do Commissions on Ministry expect from deacons? And what further skills do Deacons need to learn before ordination? I for one would make sure they get training as community organizers --even if they won´t be elected President! I would also and the terrible custom of training deacons in a program that is basically a watered down version of seminary `programs for priests.

Deacons need to learn other stuff, because their ministry is DIFFERENT from a priest

Juan Oliver

Again, I completely agree with Andrew´s statement above about the priesthood being (historically and scripturally) the least secure order. Sometimes it looks like priests don´t realize that our order developed out of the bishop´s inability to preside in as many as 23 different Eucharists in Rome in the IIIc.

A "presbyter" was a member of the Council of Elders (something like a vestry) that ran a synagogue, and the practice was continued by Christians.

What we call a priest (the French word, a contraction of presbyter) was a vestry member chosen by the bishop to represent him in his absence. Presidential ability and loyalty, not pastoral skills, were the issue. Most pastoral and administrative work was done by deacons.

In the immortal words of Michael Merriman, "When the bishop is present, presbyters are redundant."

Juan Oliver

Direct ordination to the priesthood makes sense so a deacon is not seen as a failed candidate for priesthood.

A larger question raised by the Rev. Sean Ferrell is whether the person who leads a congregation should make eucharist. Sending in so-called "supply priests" again makes it seem a congregation without a full-time priest or deacon is lacking something, as if baptism were of no worth.

The old view of 1928 Prayer Book was that the congregation was simply under the bishop. That model will no longer do. The church must be all the people.

Gary Paul Gilbert

Thanks for raising this discussion.
I've put a post here
http://www.liturgy.co.nz/blog/per-saltum-ordination/2297
with a link to this discussion

Bosco Peters