50 Years Ago Today: Paul VI’s (Attempted) Abolition of the Subdiaconate and Minor Orders

Today is the fiftieth anniversary of one of the most tragic of the ruptures introduced into the Church by Paul VI: the abolition and distorted reconfiguration of the minor orders and subdiaconate by means of the apostolic letter Ministeria Quaedam released on this date in 1972, and bearing no relationship whatsoever to anything that had been said in Sacrosanctum Concilium.

Or, we should say, the attempted abolition, for the minor ordines and subdiaconate, which have belonged to the heritage of the Church for at least 1,700 years (their actual origin, like that of many other ancient things, remains hidden to our eyes), have never ceased to be used in the liturgy of the Latin rite, even after Paul VI’s document. Archbishop Lefebvre continued to confer them in the 1970s and beyond, and all communities that took their origin from him or allied with him did the same. The Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest, and the Institute of the Good Shepherd have done and do likewise. There have even been occasional diocesan ordinaries who have conferred these minor orders on diocesan seminarians and clergy, especially under the beneficent influence of Summorum Pontificum.

The liturgical ministries of the minor orders and the subdiaconate are not rooted simply in baptism (as some have speciously claimed) but rather in are extensions or distributions of the servanthood of the diaconate, as Bishop Athanasius Schneider demonstrates so well (here and here). [1] In the absence of the traditional sacramental-liturgical account, the ministries of lector and acolyte cease to have any rationale other than providing jobs for the unemployed, avenues of “active participation” that instantly divide the congregation into gold stars and silver stars and bronze stars and black dots.

Ordination of acolytes

It may well be believed that a pope has no authority to abolish a bimillennial approved and received tradition. This had already been recognized regarding the venerable Roman Mass when Benedict XVI stated in Summorum Pontificum and Con Grande Fiducia that the old missal was never abrogated — even though nearly everyone, except a tiny number of traditionalists, acted as if it had been. In light of the perennial doctrinal principles declared in the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum and its accompanying letter, the subdiaconate and minor orders have no more been abolished than has the ancient usage of the Roman Rite itself, nor could they be. The old rites, when used today, confer the minor orders and the subdiaconate that they intend to confer.

Catholics have long been told that they should engage in ecumenism, but the one ecumenism that was oddly forbidden was respecting the traditions we hold in common with the Eastern Churches. The lectorate and the subdiaconate still abide in the East. Rather than thinking they have somehow vanished into thin air, it is far more plausible to assume that they abide — and must abide — in the Roman Church as well, albeit in a condition of widespread underappreciation and underuse.

Blessing of a reader in the Eastern rite

A beautiful culture and highly practical asceticism goes with the minor orders: they set their recipient apart for liturgical offices and activities and prepare a man step by step, through lower forms of ministry, to receive the higher forms of the major orders (subdiaconate, diaconate, and priesthood), by which he is decisively inserted into the servanthood and priesthood of Jesus Christ.

The conferral of the minor orders is more than a mere delegation but less than a sacramental ordination in the full sense, which inscribes an indelible mark or character on the soul. If (as in the most common theological opinion) the minor orders do not confer a character and are not part of the sacrament of order but are instituted by the Church, they should be classified as sacramentals. [2] This seems in keeping with the definition of sacramentals given in the 1917 Code: “things or actions which the Church uses in a certain imitation of the sacraments, in order, in virtue of her prayers, to achieve effects, above all of a spiritual nature.” [3]

Specifically, the ceremonies are constitutive blessings that permanently depute persons to divine service by imparting to them some sacred identity, by which they assume a new and distinct spiritual relationship. These blessings entitle their recipients to actual graces for the performance of their ministries, much like the sacramental graces associated with the reception of the sacraments, and similar to the blessing of an abbot. [4] This makes the men in minor orders to be sacramentalia permanentia — blessed and consecrated objects of a sort! For instance, the blessing of a rosary is a sacramental; the blessed rosary itself is a sacramental; the use of the blessed rosary is a sacramental. Likewise, we can say that the ceremonies conferring the minor orders are sacramentals, those in minor orders are sacramentals, and the exercises of their offices are sacramentals.

Wijding van mensen binnen de rooms-katholieke kerk, Bernard Picart (atelier van), 1722 [Note that "porter" is called here "sacristan"]

So the ceremonies of the minor orders and of the subdiaconate confer both the right to perform the ministries and also the promise of actual graces in carrying them out. [5] If we humbly allow ourselves to be guided by the traditional rites of the Pontifical, we can see that there is a solemn imparting of new responsibilities and the assurance of graces to fulfill them worthily. The Church has always endeavored to follow the exhortation of St. Paul: “Let all things [in public worship] be done to edification. . . . Let all things be done decently, and according to order.” [6]

Following apostolic and ancient discipline in regard to the ordines or ranked ministers of the Church ought to matter to us. To hold it as a thing of no worth would be an imperfection, even a vice, for we must never treat longstanding ecclesiastical tradition as deserving of contempt or rejection. As St. Thomas Aquinas wrote in the thirteenth century, a time when minor orders would already have seemed extremely ancient: “The various customs of the Church in the divine worship are in no way contrary to the truth: wherefore we must observe them, and to disregard them is unlawful.” [7]

In a magnificent passage from the Summa theologiae, the Angelic Doctor holds forth on the appropriateness of the Church’s manifesting an orderly diversity of offices and ways of life, as she did throughout her history and well into modern times, and as she will continue to do, wherever sound theology prevails. The vision presented here is at the furthest possible remove from the democratic egalitarianism, traffic of interchangeable functionaries, and lack of architectural and ministerial boundaries characteristic of the postconciliar era. Thomas writes that the differences of states and duties in the Church regards three things:

In the first place, it regards the perfection of the Church. For even as in the order of natural things, perfection, which in God is simple and uniform, is not to be found in the created universe except in a multiform and manifold manner, so too, the fullness of grace, which is centered in Christ as head, flows forth to His members in various ways, for the perfecting of the body of the Church. This is the meaning of the Apostle’s words (Eph. 4:11–12): “He gave some apostles, and some prophets, and other some evangelists, and other some pastors and doctors for the perfecting of the saints.”
          Secondly, it regards the need of those actions which are necessary in the Church. For a diversity of actions requires a diversity of men appointed to them, in order that all things may be accomplished without delay or confusion; and this is indicated by the Apostle (Rom. 12:4–5), “As in one body we have many members, but all the members have not the same office, so we being many are one body in Christ.”
          Thirdly, this belongs to the dignity and beauty of the Church, which consist in a certain order; wherefore it is written (1 Kings 10:4–5) that “when the queen of Saba saw all the wisdom of Solomon . . . and the apartments of his servants, and the order of his ministers . . . she had no longer any spirit in her.” Hence the Apostle says (2 Tim. 2:20) that “in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and of earth.”[8]

The beauty of hierarchical order

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New Book Defends All-Male Liturgical Ministry, Subdiaconate/Minor Orders, and Proper Roles of Clergy and Laity

I am pleased to announce the release of my latest book, Ministers of Christ: Recovering the Roles of Clergy and Laity in an Age of Confusion (Crisis Publications).

When this project was first conceived over a year ago, my initial idea was to write a critique of Paul VI’s attempted suppression of the subdiaconate and minor orders, of John Paul II’s permission of altar girls, and of Francis’s innovation of female “acolytes” and “lectors.” During its writing, however, the scope of the book considerably broadened to include a full-scale presentation and defense of the traditional sevenfold manifestation of Orders — priest, deacon, subdeacon, lector, acolyte, exorcist, and porter — together with an explanation of the distinct but mutually supporting roles of clergy and laity. In order to accomplish this, I stepped back further to look at the distinction and complementarity of the sexes in the order of creation and the order of redemption, a perspective that provides the ultimate foundation for the Church’s entire teaching on states of life, roles, and ministries. In this way the book serves as a response to the “gender madness” that afflicts the world and increasingly infects the Church.

The summer’s anti-TLM motu proprio Traditionis Custodes and the mounting threats against the former Ecclesia Dei institutes that avail themselves of the traditional rites of ordination conspire to make the book’s overall argument more urgent still. (Fortunately, subsequent to July 16 I was given the opportunity to do some last-minute revisions to the text in order to take this new scenario into account. Nothing of substance had to be changed in the overall argument.)

Ministers of Christ analyzes the problems with recent popes’ successive innovations in the area of ministry, showing how they have created a theologically and liturgically incoherent situation—a categorical rupture from a tradition firmly rooted in the most profound anthropological, Christological, and ecclesiological principles. In this regard the Church stands in desperate need of the correct (and corrective) witness of the usus antiquior. This will remain true even if a tyrannical attempt is made to prohibit the ancient rites of ordination, an act that would have no more legal validity than Traditionis Custodes itself.

Part I, “Foundations,” looks at the most fundamental questions: how sexuality and the body have personal significance and therefore moral, theological, and liturgical significance as well; the connection between the Incarnation of Our Lord and the male priesthood and male sanctuary service; the blessing on womanhood conferred in and through Our Lady, the Virgin Mother of God; the Old Testament background and New Testament roots of the diaconate, subdiaconate, and minor orders, seen as radiating outward from the priesthood of Jesus Christ, and the solemn tradition behind this ecclesiastical hierarchy; and the proper role of the laity in the great world outside the churches, where they exercise their primary responsibilities.

Part II, “Deviations,” takes a critical look at practices that entered the Church after the Second Vatican Council—above all, the attempt to sideline the subdiaconate and minor orders and the habitual use of female lectors and altar servers, whether filling in as “substitutes” or, as Pope Francis would have it, installed as ministers. It explains how these distortions and novelties misconstrue and muddle the callings of laity and clergy as well as their diverse but complementary modes of participation in the liturgy. In the course of the chapters, the notion of “active participation” is freed from its harsh captivity as a slogan trafficked by modern liturgists.

Part III, “Restoration,” charts a path out of this mess into a healthier church life, making the case for several related proposals:

– the universal reestablishment of the subdiaconate and minor orders, which have never been and cannot be abrogated and which remain in use to this day;

– a return to the traditional lex orandi of the classical Roman rite, which embodies true doctrine about states of life, ministries, and sexes;

– the wearing of veils by women in church as a sign of their dignity and role within the Mystical Body;

– the full acceptance of the supernatural and sacrificial vision of priesthood and consecrated life that attracts vocations today as it always did in the past, together with a firm repudiation of the “heresy of activism” that extinguishes the primacy of prayer and the ultimacy of contemplation;

– a reversal of the mad race of aggiornamento, to be replaced by the serene embrace of the essential changelessness of the Christian religion, which worships the immutable God in His eternal truth, reflected in traditional liturgical rites.

This book also includes the definitive versions of two essays by Bishop Athanasius Schneider: “The Significance of Minor Ministries in the Sacred Liturgy” and “Healing the Rupture: A Call for the Restoration of Minor Orders.”

Ministers of Christ concludes with three litanies for private devotional use. The first is for the clergy in general. The second and third, based on the Roman Martyrology, remind us that the Church’s history provides many examples of saintly subdeacons, lectors, acolytes, and exorcists whom we ought to invoke. Lastly, there is a select bibliography divided into topics.

Ministers of Christ: Recovering the Roles of Clergy and Laity in an Age of Confusion.
   By Peter Kwasniewski, with two chapters by Bishop Athanasius Schneider.
   Foreword by Leila Marie Lawler.
   Manchester, NH: Crisis Publications, 2021.
   xliii + 285 pp.
   Paperback $19.95.

Available directly from the publisher or from Amazon.com.

Here is a short video (by no means professional...) that has more or less the same content as the post above, for those who prefer the video format.

Guest Article: Bishop Athanasius Schneider on the Significance of Minor Ministries in the Sacred Liturgy

NLM is grateful to His Excellency Bishop Athanasius Schneider for offering us the first publication of his profound analysis of the ancient origins of the minor orders and their liturgical-theological rationale, together with a critique on that basis of the novel path taken in the post-conciliar period, from Ministeria Quaedam of 1972 to Spiritus Domini of 2021.

Ordination of lectors in the traditional Roman rite

The Significance of Minor Ministries in the Sacred Liturgy

1. The principle of Divine law in the liturgy

Regarding the nature of the sacred liturgy, that is, of Divine worship, God himself has spoken to us in His Holy Word, and the Church has explained it in her solemn Magisterium. The first basic aspect of the liturgy is this: God himself tells men how they must honor Him; in other words, it is God who gives concrete norms and laws for the development, even exterior, of the worship of His Divine Majesty.

In fact, man is wounded by original sin and for this reason he is profoundly characterized by pride and ignorance, and even more profoundly by the temptation and tendency to put himself in the place of God at the center of worship, that is, to practice self-worship in its various implicit and explicit forms. Liturgical law and norms are therefore necessary for authentic Divine worship. These laws and norms must be found in Divine Revelation, in the written word of God and in the word of God transmitted by tradition.

Divine Revelation transmits to us a rich and detailed liturgical legislation. An entire book of the Old Testament is dedicated to liturgical law, the Book of Leviticus; partially also the Book of Exodus. The individual liturgical norms of Divine worship of the Old Testament had only a transitory value, since their purpose was to be a figure, looking to the Divine worship that would reach its fullness in the New Testament. However, there are some elements of perennial validity: firstly, the very fact of the need for liturgical legislation; secondly, that there is a detailed and rich legislation of Divine worship; and finally, that Divine worship takes place according to a hierarchical order. This hierarchical order presents itself as concretely tripartite: high priest–priest–levite; in the New Testament, respectively: bishop–presbyter–deacon/minister.

Jesus came not to abolish the law, but to bring it to its fullness (cf. Mt 5:17). He said: “Until heaven and earth have passed away, not one iota or a sign of the law will pass, without all being completed” (Mt 5:18). This is particularly valid for Divine worship, since the adoration of God constitutes the first commandment of the Decalogue (cf. Ex 20, 3-5). The purpose of all creation is this: angels and men and even irrational creatures must praise and worship the Divine Majesty, as the revealed prayer of the Sanctus says: “The heavens and the earth are full of Thy glory” (cf. Is 6:3).

Old Covenant hierarchy

2. Jesus Christ, the supreme worshiper of the Father and the supreme liturgical minister

The first and most perfect worshiper of the Father is Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God. His work of salvation had as its main purpose to give honor and glory to the Father in place of sinful humanity, unable to give a worthy and acceptable worship to God. The re-establishment of true Divine worship and the atonement of Divine Majesty, outraged due to the innumerable forms of perversion of worship, constituted the primary purpose of the Incarnation and the work of Redemption.

By constituting His apostles true priests of the New Covenant, Jesus left His priesthood to His Church and with it the public worship of the New Testament, which has for its ritual culmination the offering of the Eucharistic sacrifice. He taught his apostles through the Holy Spirit that the worship of the New Covenant was to be the fulfillment of the worship of the Old Covenant. Thus the apostles transmitted their power and their liturgical service in three degrees, that is, in three hierarchical orders, in analogy with the three degrees of the ministers of the cult of the Old Covenant.

The supreme performer of the liturgy is Christ (in Greek: hó liturgós). He contains in himself and exercises all the Divine worship, even in the smallest functions. The following words of Christ can also be referred to this fact: “I am among you as one who serves” (Lk 22:27). Christ is the minister; he is also the “deacon” par excellence. So too is the bishop, as the supreme possessor of the liturgical service of Christ. The episcopate contains all the ministries and services of public worship: the ministry of the presbyterate, the ministry of the diaconate, the ministry of the minor orders, that is, also, the service of ministers (“altar boys”). In the pontifical Mass according to the most ancient form of the Roman rite, the bishop dresses in all the robes, even of the lower orders. In the absence of all the lower ministers, the bishop himself performs all the liturgical functions of the presbyter, of the deacon, and even of the minor orders, that is, of the altar servers. In the absence of the deacon, the presbyter himself performs all the liturgical functions of the deacon and of the minor orders, that is, of the altar servers. In the absence of the deacon, the sub-deacon, the holders of the minor orders, or the altar servers can perform some of the functions of the deacon.

The vesting of a pontiff

3. The tradition of the apostles

The apostolic tradition has seen in the triple hierarchical order of the Church the fulfillment of the typology of the triple hierarchical order of Divine worship in the Old Covenant. This is what Pope Saint Clement I, the disciple of the Apostles and third successor of the Apostle Peter, testifies to us.

In his letter to the Corinthians, Saint Clement presents the liturgical order divinely established in the Old Covenant as an exemplar for the right order of the hierarchy and worship of every Christian community. Speaking of Divine worship, he states:

We must do everything in order with regard to what the Lord has ordered to do according to the appointed times. He ordered the oblations and worship services to be performed not by chance or without order. By his sovereign decision, He Himself has determined where and by whom these services are to be performed, so that all things will be done in a holy manner according to His good pleasure and pleasing to His will. For the high priest has been assigned liturgical services (liturghíai) reserved for him, priests have been given their own proper place, on the levites devolve special ministrations (diakoníai), and the layman (ho laikòs ànthropos) is bound by the laws that pertain to laymen (laikóis prostágmasin). (1 Clem 40:1-3.5)

Pope Clement understands that the principles of this order divinely established in the Old Covenant must continue to operate in the life of the Church. The most evident reflection of this order should be found in the liturgical life, in the public worship of the Church. Thus the Holy Pontiff draws this conclusion, applied to the life and worship of Christians: “May each of you, brothers, in the position that is proper to him, be pleasing to God in good conscience and with reverence, without transgressing the established rule of liturgical services (kanón tes leiturghías)” (1 Clem 41:1).

Later (cf. 1 Clem 42:1ss.) Pope Clement describes the hierarchy of the New Covenant, contained in the Lord Jesus Christ himself and concretized in the mission of the apostles. This reality corresponds to the order (táxis) willed by God. Here Saint Clement uses the same terms with which he had previously described the liturgical and hierarchical order of the Old Covenant.

From the first centuries, the Church was aware that Divine worship had to take place according to an order established by God in keeping with the example of the Divine order established in the Ancient Covenant. Therefore, in order to carry out a task in public worship, it was necessary to belong to a hierarchical order. Consequently, Christian worship, that is, the Eucharistic liturgy, was carried out in a hierarchically ordered manner by persons officially appointed for this purpose. For this reason, these agents of worship constituted an order, a sacred order, divided into three degrees: episcopate, presbyterate and diaconate, paralleling the three degrees of ministers of Old Covenant worship: high priest, priests, and levites. Pope Saint Clement in the first century designated the service of the Old Testament levites with the word “diakonia” (1 Clem 40:5). We can therefore identify here the foundation of the ancient ecclesiastical tradition, since at least the fifth century, of designating the Christian deacon with the word “levite,” for example in the Constitutiones Apostolicae (2, 26:3) and in the writings of Pope Leo the Great (cf. Ep. 6:6; Ep. 14:4; Serm. 59:7; 85:2).
 

St. Peter ordains St. Stephen a deacon (Fra Angelico)

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On the Status of Minor Orders and the Subdiaconate

Roman subdiaconate ordination (post-1973!)

Arising more and more often nowadays is the question: What exactly is the status of the minor orders (porter, lector, exorcist, acolyte) in the Roman rite? We can add to this list the major order of subdeacon. In spite of their immense antiquity, which ought to have gained them the principled support of the liturgical reform — they are, for example, more ancient than the season of Advent — the minor orders were abolished in the form in which they had existed previously (or at least, it seemed to observers that they were abolished) by Paul VI in his Apostolic Letter Ministeria Quaedam of 1973. Yet never since that time have both minor orders and the subdiaconate ceased to be conferred in this or that corner of the vast Catholic world; with increasing frequency thanks to John Paul II’s Ecclesia Dei and Benedict XVI’s Summorum Pontificum, these orders are routinely imparted to the many young candidates who flock to traditional orders. It certainly seems like an odd situation.

As far as I can tell, there’s the “conservative” view and the “rad trad” view.

The conservative view, such as one might find it on the faculty of an Opus Dei university, is to say that the minor orders and subdiaconate were in fact abrogated and their functions reassigned, but that, just as the old liturgical tradition continued and was eventually regularized, so, too, the use of the ceremonies for the suppressed orders were regularized in that context, and are efficacious in that context. It’s “praetercanonical.”

The weakness of this position is that it leans too much on canon law. Canon law is not some kind of inerrant or infallible thing; it’s just a compilation of ecclesiastical jurisprudence, and it can be badly done, have omissions, need correction or supplementation, etc. Canon law’s silence on the minor orders and the subdiaconate does not logically preclude the possibility of their continuing existence. Not all things in heaven and on earth are contained in the 1983 Code of Canon Law.

With this, we segue into the rad trad position, which maintains that no pope has the authority to abolish a millennial tradition like the minor orders and the subdiaconate, just as no pope, strain he ever so many a pontifical muscle, could abolish the immemorial Roman Mass codified but not created by St. Pius V in 1570. On this view, Paul VI’s attempt to do both of these things wasn’t worth the paper it was written on. This has already, in a sense, been recognized regarding the Mass by Benedict XVI when he said in Summorum Pontificum that the old missal was never abrogated, even though nearly everyone, except a tiny number of traditionalists, acted as if it had been. Due to craven ultramontanism, however, people went along with the pretense and still act as if the minor orders and the subdiaconate were suppressed. Traditional religious and clerical communities, on the other hand, know better, and continue to follow the settled and venerable Roman tradition.

At very least something like the conservative view has to be true; otherwise, in conferring minor orders today (and most of all, the subdiaconate!), one would be guilty of simulating a conferral that cannot happen — a sort of contraceptive liturgy. It is impossible that the Church could continue to use such rites without their being efficacious in accomplishing what they intend to accomplish. A sacramental theologian of Scotistic subtlety might rejoinder that there is a third possibility: these rites are not efficacious in se — they actually do nothing to the recipients — but their content, being piously edifying, offers an occasion of grace for the devout in their progress toward the diaconate and priesthood. It would be essentially fancy playacting in the sight of God, publicly and solemnly marking stages of formation.

All of these positions seem ecclesiologically unsatisfactory in one way or another. The least problematic, it seems to me, is to maintain that the old rites, when used today, confer the orders they intend to confer, while admitting that how the order is regulated in the Church is governed by the 1983 Code of Canon Law. With the 1983 Code, Ministeria Quaedam became a moot point — of historical interest, no doubt, and offering guidelines for acolytes, etc., but it was superseded. Hence, by the only code currently in force, reception of tonsure does not make one a cleric. A man becomes a cleric with the diaconate. He can freely take upon himself the obligations for the Divine Office that once came with the subdiaconate, but he is not strictly bound by law until he is ordained a deacon.

That is not to say, as mentioned above, that this law is a good one and should not be changed in the future. Not is it to say that the commitment is not serious prior to the diaconate. There is a whole culture that goes with the minor orders: they set a person apart for liturgical offices and activities, preparing a man step by step, through lower forms of ministry, to receive the higher forms of the major orders, by which he is decisively inserted into the exercise of the priesthood of Jesus Christ in the Church.

Catholics were told that they should engage in ecumenism, but the one ecumenism that was forbidden was respecting the traditions we hold in common with the East. The minor orders and the subdiaconate abide in the Eastern churches. It is far more plausible to assume that they abide, and must abide, in the Roman Church as well.

Further reading: 

• Kevin Di Camillo, “What Were the ‘Minor Orders,’ and Why Do They Matter?”
• Father Dave Endres answers a question, exhibiting to perfection the mentality of those who see things in the simplistic terms: “before Paul VI, we did X; now we only do Y.”
• Modern Medievalism: “More than boys; why men are needed to serve the altar”

Visit Dr. Kwasniewski’s website, SoundCloud page, and YouTube channel.