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Use or non-use of pontificals is one thing, pretending to be a lower order is another. However, even when celebrating a non-pontifical liturgy and omitting the mitre, staff, and dikeri/trikeri and substituting phelon for sakkos, a bishop should always wear the omophor and in my experience they always do.

Subdeacon Lance

Yet, it happens even today once in a blue moon. Just two weeks ago I attended an indult Tridentine solemn high Mass, and the priest who usually offers the indult Mass in that parish acted as a subdeacon, while a real deacon served as deacon, and another priest celebrated the Mass. At the funeral of Pope Paul VI, no deacons could be found in Rome, and so a newly ordained priest served as deacon for the funeral Mass (Noonan's The Church Visible mentions this in a footnote).

I can see why having members of one order act liturgically in a lower order is extremely discouraged. But why is it absolutely wrong? I once read a RC explanation for this practice that said that although it shouldn't be done, there is nothing that should bar it because a priest, while having priestly ordination, also has diaconal ordination, subdiaconal ordination, etc., and so if it is necessary, it could be done. What greater reasons are there for prohibiting this practice outright?

Dear Lance:

The distinction is well taken, although I have attended private litgurgies where a bishop has dressed exactly like a priest - no omophor, no nadberdnyk even.

Still, will somebody still tell me WHY it's so darn "outrageous" for a priest to drop down a rank for a particular Liturgy where there is no "real" deacon present and the occasion deserves one?

And, yes, I would like to see a back up a citation to an all-encompasing "Eastern" rubric that specifically prohibits this.

Yours,

halychanyn

Halychanyn,

The Ordo Celebrationis expressly forbids it without offering any theological reason. When I get home I'll provide the citation.

I think the canon is more about keeping priests from trying to pull rank and telling deacons to sit the bench while they take over, especially on more solemn occasions.

In this regard, if no deacons are available, why not have the priest do the diaconal duties, which he does anyways, but vested as a presbyter as he should?

In Christ,
Subdeacon Lance

Dear Lance:

I can accept the practical reason you give re: the "pulling rank" bit. Still, if the Church doesn't trust its presbyters enough to allow a "real" deacon to perform his liturgical duties, how can it entrust our reverend Fathers to take care of the parish finances? I'm sorry, but it just seems silly IMVHO.

As for your second point - that one could always do without a deacon but just have the priests around the Holy Table read the litanies, do the cencing, etc. the answer is: "sure, you could." But having a deacon adds a certain solemnity, would you not agree?

As Mor Ephrem I believe suggests - this should not be an everyday practice. But for particularly solemn occasions and where there are indeed no "real" deacons availiable I just can't see anything wrong with it.

Yours,

halychanyn

Halychanyn,

Well I don't think it is that silly considering when the OC was drafted our Churches had pretty much reduced the diaconate, as the Latin Church had, to a transitional step. I believe even when "transitional" deacons were available they got passed over for priests who could sing better. This is wrong in my opinion. If there is a deacon available, be he the froggiest voiced deacon you have ever heard and its the enthroning of a patriarch, he should perform his office. The canon enforces this.

Having a deacon adds more than solemnity, it completes the Liturgy in a sense. An Eastern Liturgy without a deacon is missing an integral and expected role. Would that every parish and every Liturgy had a deacon.

As to my suggestion, I would have the priest do everything the deacon does exactly the way a deacon does it but in his proper presbyteral vestments.

Having subdeacons also adds solemnity but I never see priests volunteering for that role. If like the Latin Church our deacons had no "lines" I doubt any would want to drop down a rank and perform the role. I just think the idea is silly. If there aren't any deacons there aren't any deacons. It is bad liturgical theology to have someone pretend to be an order he is not. The Liturgy is to be a theological reflection of the order of the Church, each in his proper role. This is a more important principle than perceived solemnity I think. I certainly don't think God's wrath is incurred by fudging it, but I do not think it is a good practice.

In Christ,
Subdeacon Lance

P.S. I hope my bias for the deacon's perogatives aren't overly obvious.

Dear Subdeacon Lance:

Even if some of us noticed your deep interest in a Deacon's prerogatives, I am certain everyone is giving you a leash on that given your forthcoming ordination to the diaconate!

I do!

And, again, please accept my sincerest congratulations and my prayers for a fruitful ministry!

Amado

The Ordo Celebrationis unfortunately did permit a priest to function as a deacon. But the Instruction on the implementation of the liturgical prescriptions of the Code of Canons forbids this abuse. Incognitus

The triple orders of priest, deacon and bishop have hierarchy, but not confusion and in this way are iconic of the Holy Trinity. In the Trinity the persons and roles are not confused.

While the Bishop is the hierarch, like the Father he presides in love and does not dominate the liturgical roles of the others. He certainly retains the fullness and completion of the other two, but respects persons and identities.

Likewise the priest is no longer a deacon. He is a priest. Hierarchy generally works one way in the Church, upward. As Lance has mentioned, it is not canonically proper for priests to act as deacons. Deacons have their own liturgical roles, and priests have theirs. If a deacon is not present to serve, the priest does not act as a deacon but as a priest.

In the past, the shortage of deacons caused some liturgical aberrations. There is no need for those anymore. If no deacon is present, it is clear enough in the service books what the priest is to do, and it is not to play deacon.

Glory to Jesus Christ!

I have to disagree with the common sentiment of this thread. I do not think that concelebration is good for the Roman Church, nor do I find anything at all wrong with a priest "mascarading" as a deacon or subdeacon, at least in the Roman rite. I would like somebody to provide me with any Patristic sources after the sixth century that say that the priest in Mass can concelebrate with other priests. True, in the time of St. Hippolytus, there was some concelebration, but like many differences in between the liturgical praxis of the East and the West, the differences began very early. For example, the parish priests of Rome would attend the Papal Mass on a feast, and at the fraction before Communion, a piece of the Host was broken off into various pieces and given to the priests, and they would in turn go in solemn procession to the various parish churches of Rome and add that part of the Host to their chalice as a sign of unity. But they would never concelebrate. The bottom line is, the unity of the Liturgy has been expressed differntly in the Roman rite traditionally, the one priest, one Mass was a part of the Roman tradition for more than a thousand years and re-introducing it for me is another reform that was done by the innovating liturgists who thought they knew better.
As for mascarading as a deacon, this made a lot of sense in the Roman rite. Indeed, I've been in a sanctuary full of priests dressed as deacons, subdeacons, and simple clerics dressed as subdeacons (during a traditional Roman pontifical Mass). Consider that, traditionally, the bishop at a Pontifical High Mass, wore a tunicle (what a subdeacon would wear), a dalmatic (of a deacon), and a chausable (of a priest), all at the same time. The priesthood was thus always seen as a matter of grades in the Roman rite, and in this context, a priest playing the part of a deacon is not at all scandalous, since the Latins perceive that he already contains the charcter of a deacon, while the bishop is a full priest.

Just some thoughts from a recovering Lefebvrist.

Arturo

Glad to know that Arturo is recovering from Lefebvrism. But the fact is that concelebration never died out in the Roman Rite; it always remained at the ordination of priests and bishops. It also remained in some places on Holy Thursday until very recently, as such things go (long after the 6th century). There was and is a remnant of the Holy Thursday concelebration in the rule that forbids "private Masses" on that day. With great (and mis-placed) pride, a priest friend showed me a photograph of a large field somewhere, with a large number of obviously temporary, packing-case style "altars", each with a priest celebrating privately (and not more than a meter away from the next one) on the occasion of some pilgrimage in western Europe. If that's not an aberration, I don't know what is. Incognitus

Arturo,

As regards Latin bishops wearing dalmatics: while it is common for people now to say that it is because of rank theory, or to show that the diaconate and presbyterate flow from the ministery of the bishops, I don't believe that plays out.

As I understand it, the dalmatic in the West corresponds to the sakkos in the East, both of which are properly the bishops' vestment. in the West, in recognition of the work that the deacons did in the life of the Church, the Pope extended the use of the dalmatic to the deacons in the Latin Church. Nevertheless, the dalmatic is only the deacon's vestment by privilige, not by right. This is why Byzantine deacons do not wear a dalmatic, regardless of what some ignorant English speakers say--they wear the stikerion, which corresponds to the alb.

Justin

Is there anyone able to respond to Arturo's comment in light of my previous question:

Even though concelebration is traditional, is there justification for what some call co-consecration, that is, the joint saying of the epiclesis, and in the West, the words of institution?

Justin

Glory to Jesus Christ!

I still stand by my opinion that concelebration is not a good thing for the Western Church, in spite of the points made. Yes, indeed, the ordination of a priest and the consecration of a bishop were Masses which were concelebrated between the bishop and the ordinands, but the point should be made that it was only between them and no other priests were involved. This was done to show the unity of the priesthood, that the priesthood that was being passed down is one. I have had many friends who I saw ordained in this manner, and one should make the point that the concelebrants did not celebrate from the altar, but below it and quite far away, reciting everything in unison with the bishop from their own Missal. There was no "swamping" the altar, and they did not even receive the chalice, but went elsewhere to have an abolution from a separate chalice of mere wine. This concelebrated Mass thus seemed more like a "Mass in training" with the bishop as the main celebrant, rather than a "concelebrated Mass" as it exists now.

As for Holy Thursday, again, the tradition of concelebrating this Mass died out quite a while ago, with only one Mass permitted where everyone took Communion, priests and faithful.

As for the comment that private Masses are an "abberation" I cannot say that I am anything but shocked by this statement. How can any Catholic in good concience say such a thing?! Just because the Eastern Church never did this, does not mean that it is some form of sacrilege? What ever happened to the concept of "two lungs" of the Church? Just because the Latin Church has allowed concelebration does not mean that it "outlawed" or abolished the private Mass. I'm sure that the priests of the Fraternity of St. Peter and other traditionalists orders still say their Mass everyday separately with just the presence of a server. Is this an abberation? For a thousand years the Holy Spirit guided the Latin Church in this tradition, and you can read the effects that the private Mass had on the lives of countless priestly saints (the Cure d'Ars, Padre Pio, St. Thomas Aquinas, etc, etc.)

I am just as "Eastern" as many of you, but I see nothing wrong with the liturgical praxis of the Latin Church as it existed before the Council. On the contrary, all I have seen in my life as a result of all these changes is mere confusion among the faithful, including faithful who, like myself, have switched over to the Byzantine Church. You cannot change the liturgical ethos that developed over 1,600 years overnight and expect that things will turn out well. So the Byzantine Church concelebrates. Glory to God for that! But that does not mean that what is good for one church is good for another. Liturgical improvement for the Latin Church cannot be measured on how close it comes to the Byzantine Church. "Byzantization" won't work, anymore than Latinization has worked for the Eastern Churches.

Having served over 800 private Tridentine Masses in Latin in a period of four short years, I can say that I would not trade these beautiful experiences for the world. If only I had been able to serve at the age of seven rather than at twenty, maybe I would not have had so many crises of faith that plauged my early years. Please, then, don't call an abberation something you have never experienced first hand.

Sincerely,
Arturo
a not-so-repentant ex-Lefebvrist

One has to distinguish concelebration and coconsecration. By coconsecration I mean the practice of having several priests recite the important texts of the Eucharistic prayer (in particular the institution narrative) simultaneously. Obviously in the earliest centuries coconsecration was impossible when the eucharistic prayer was still semi-extemporanious. (There is a reference to a second century pope asking an visiting eastern bishop to join him in celebrating the Eucharist, but it unclear what that text actually refers to)Already in medieval times (I think the earliest reference is in the eleventh century, but it might be earlier) the cardinal bishops were coconsecrating with the pope on certain occasions. In primatial archdiocese of Lyons in France it was the custom a certain high Masses for the Archbishop to be joined by 6 concelebrating priests, 7 deacons, 7 subdeacons and 7 acolytes. And coconsecration remained the norm at certain masses, such as that of a priest's ordination when he coconsecrated with his ordaining bishop, until Vatican II. The practice of allowing priests to coconsecrate the Eucharist frequently or even regularly was due to a desire to get rid of private masses by having all of the priests in a religious community coconsecration at the community's conventual High Mass. The practice of coconsecration was not an ancient tradition in the East and it due to westernizing influences felt both in the Slavic countries and in the Middle East. In both West and East it is still normative for only the principle coconsecrator to make the sign of the cross, etc. over the chalice and diskos/paten. Concelebration in the sense of dividing up the various parts done by the priest, deacon and sub-deacon between a number of the clergy so that , for instance, several deacons take turn alternately saying the litanies, is a much older practice than coconsecration. In fact, the Ethiopian Divine Liturgy assumes that there should be at least 7 and preferably 9 clergy participating in an normal divine liturgy. In the East a priest is always vested and ministers as a priest. The western practice since the middle ages may have been to have priests vest and minister as deacon and subdeacon when neither of these minister were otherwise available for the celebration of a high mass, but modern Roman liturgical regulations have outlawed this practice and the current practive of the Roman church is the same as that of the Byzantine church. One might ask how appropriate is it for a bishop to vest and celebrate as if he were only a priest. While such practice is normative in the West (due to the influence of private masses) I don't believe it is normative practice for a Byzantine bishop to celebrate as if he would only a priest. Remember a priest celebrates the Eucharist as a representative of the bishop and consecrates in his name, so why would a bishop vest as though he were only a representive of himself? I counted at least half a dozen deacons at the Elevation of the Holy and Lifegiving Cross in the ROCOR cathedral in San Francisco three weeks ago. There are good theological reasons for questioning the liturgical appropriateness of practice of coconsecration. For example, if a bishop among his priests represents Christ among his disciples we might recall that at the Last Supper the disciples did not say "This is my Body...This is my Blood" together with Christ. The consecration of the Eucharist is done on behalf of the entire assembly, the local ecclesia, in which each of the different ministers are ordained to contribute to the action of the whole rather than being the distinguishing sign of belonging to a particular class of persons within the church hierarchy. While the Eucharist can never be celebrated without a bishop or priest the presence of the other clergy and the laity are essential to the integrity of Eucharist as the primary defining action of the Body of Christ. As Neuman once said without the laity the Church would look rather foolish.
Arvid