Hello,

I recently heard on Religion and Ethics that deacons could be ordained directly as Cardinals. I had never heard of this before. Was this ever the case?

Thank you,

Laura

-- Laura (ljmemoli@hotmail.com), October 12, 2003

Answers

The history of deacons in the Church is an interesting one. We first encounter deacons in Acts 6:2 where Peter says it is not proper for the Apostles to give up preaching the gospel so they can wait on tables. In other words, the people had many needs, and the Apostles found they could not personally meet all those needs. Accordingly, they ordained seven men to serve as their "assistants", among them Steven, the first Christian whose martyrdom is recorded. These deacons assisted the Apostles in various capacities, but were not priests. During the next several centuries, bishops made full use of deacons, gradually giving them more and more responsibilities, and more and more power, including supervising and disciplining the clergy, authority in marital and criminal affairs, and the power to impose excommunication. In some cases deacons possessed so much power and authority that they became rivals of the bishops, and a bishop sometimes dealt with a particularly threatening deacon by "kicking him upstairs", which meant making him a priest, since priests had substantially less administrative power. During the early centuries of the Church, a number of deacons were elected Pope. In fact, of the 37 men who held the position of Pope during the 5th, 6th and 7th centuries, only 3 are definitely known to have been priests before becoming Pope.

The Council of Trent drastically reduced the powers of deacons, and by the 17th century the once powerful position of deacon had been reduced to little more than ceremonial status. After that, the number of permanent deacons quickly decreased, until eventually the permanent diaconate ceased to exist. In 1964 the Second Vatican Council asked Pope Paul VI to restore the permanent diaconate. In 1967 the Pope issued an apostolic letter allowing bodies of bishops to request the permanent diaconate in their respective territories. In April 1968 the American bishops submitted such a request, which was granted four months later. The permanent diaconate has been one of the greatest blessings to come upon the Church from Vatican II. While the number of women religious has dropped 40% in the last 30 years, and the number of diocesan priests had dropped more than 10%, the number of ordained permanent deacons has soared, from 0 in 1968 to nearly 20,000 today.

-- Paul M. (PaulCyp@cox.net), October 12, 2003.

Laura,

I think it *used* to be the case that there were deacon Cardinals, but that at some point the rule was changed to where someone had to be a priest to become elected to the college of Cardinals. I'll try and look for it later.

Frank

-- Someone (ChimingIn@twocents.cam), October 12, 2003.

Laura,

Here's an article link

In the Code of Canon Law 1918 it was changed to where deacons could no longer be named as Cardinals, one had to be ordained a priest. There are three "ranks" OF Cardinals however, the Cardinal-bishop, Cardinal-priest, and Cardinal-deacon, but these are all filled with people who are ordained as priests.

A quote from the article: "John XXIII provided in the motu proprio Cum Gravissima on April 15, 1962 that cardinals would henceforth be bishops. " So currently priests are most likely bishops before getting elected to be Cardinal, although I imagine someone could be made a bishop and cardinal at the same time.

Frank

-- Someone (ChimingIn@twocents.cam), October 12, 2003.

What I think is cooler is that an unmarried Catholic lay man can become the pope. Now how likely that is now is an interesting question. And I am sure if you were a lay man a became pope you would quickly become a priest.

-- Scott (papasquat10@hotmail.com), October 13, 2003.

Scott,

If a lay Catholic male was elected to become Pope, the ordination ceremony would consist of all four ceremonies. He would become a deacon, then a priest, then a bishop, then the Pope.

I don't think this is a likely situation, however, though I believe in the history of the church there has been one situation of this happening (not sure though, don't quote me on that).

J.

-- James McNellis (82mcnellis@cua.edu), October 19, 2003.