Deacons as Administrators
of the Church

Sherman Kuek, SFO
Published in Catholic Asian News
(June 2009 Issue)

The employment of salaried administrators in dioceses and parishes today is an entirely new phenomenon. There is little that Holy Mother Church, being a two-thousand year old institution and community, has not thought about. Right from the time of the Apostles, Church administration had already become a challenge, and a special order created in response to the need for effective administration.

In the Acts of the Apostles (6:1-6), the landmark election of seven men as deacons of the Church took place arising from administrative concerns. The Greek-speaking widows, who were not attendees of the Temple where the Apostles preached, were said to be somewhat neglected since their needs were not attended to in their own homes. They, unlike the Aramaic-speaking, had allegedly not received their fair share of the goods which were distributed by the Christian community among the people in need of aid. The Apostles, in having their attention brought to this need, concluded, “It is not right for us to neglect the word of God in order to wait on tables”. They therefore laid hands on seven “deeply spiritual and prudent” men for this ministry of serving the catechetical needs of the widows and the bringing of their rations to their homes. They were called “deacons”. These deacons served as the Apostles directed.

Arguably, the institution of the order of the diaconate preceded that of the priests. The reason for this is that at the institution of the diaconate, the Apostles were still in active ministry and had not had to grapple with issues of succession, whilst the Church was relatively still small.

THE ANCIENT CHURCH ADMINISTRATOR
It is the deacon who, in the history of the Church, has been instrumental in Church administration. Of course, this order was instituted for the service of charity, word, and altar. But the focus of our exploration here will be the first of the three, which includes the mammoth task of Church administration.

As has been explained, the foundation of this ministry is found in Acts 6:6 wherein men were elected to serve in the distribution of daily rations to the widows. Its original Greek word diakonia very simply means “service”. This perhaps explains why the dalmatic, one of the deacon’s liturgical vestments, has short wide sleeves with a somewhat apron-like appearance - he is an icon of Christ the Servant.

Church history documents the growth of the deacon’s role. So crucial was the role of deacons that the See of Rome, by the third century, was administered by The Seven Deacons of Rome, who were deputised by the Bishop of Rome to handle the operational affairs of the diocese. In the scheme of the diocese, the bishop and deacon were very closely bonded to each other.

Tradition records a deacon called Lawrence in the year 258 AD in the See of Rome. The emperor Valerian had been cultivating a desire to possess all the wealth and riches of the Church in his lust for power. He therefore ordered for Lawrence to gather all the wealth of the Church before him, this being an offer of a way out of martyrdom for Lawrence. Just four days before that, the Bishop of Rome - Sixtus - had been martyred. So close was the relationship between Sixtus and his deacons that as he was led away to his death, Lawrence and his other six brother deacons followed along, crying, “Father, where are you going without your deacon?” Lawrence’s six brother deacons were subsequently also martyred.

In response to the emperor’s instructions, Lawrence requested for three days to gather all the wealth of the Church together. Within that three days, Lawrence congregated all the poor, the handicapped and the needy from all over Rome who were being supported by the wealth of the Christian community in obedience to the Gospel imperative. When the emperor arrived, Lawrence presented all these people before him as the true “gold and silver” of the Church. The deacon, known today as St Lawrence, was put to death by being burnt slowly over a gridiron.

Among the many lessons projected by this account of St Lawrence, one acquires a rather clear idea of how deacons were very much involved in administrative matters in the Church, particularly, the administration of Church property and the administration of its people.

The deacons of a diocese constituted the eyes and ears of the bishop, his "right hand men". The bishop's principal assistant was known as the "archdeacon", and was often charged with daunting responsibilities, namely, in the financial administration of the local church and the distribution of funds and goods to the poor. So crucial was the diaconate in the Church that of the 37 men elected pope between 432 and 684 AD, only three are known to have been ordained to priesthood before their election to the Chair of Peter, whilst the rest were elected popes whilst they were still deacons.

DIMINISHMENT OF THE DIACONATE
Beginning as early as the fifth century, the role of the deacon as Church administrator had gradually begun to diminish in the Latin Church, leaving it as a transitional stepping stone for men on the way to priesthood. It however remained a crucial component of the Holy Orders in the Eastern Churches, both Catholic and Orthodox, which still sustained the role of the permanent diaconate.

One reason for this diminishment of the diaconate as a permanent function in the Latin Church was the failure of both presbyters and deacons to understand the unique role of the diaconate as a distinct order within the life of the Church. It also was less than helpful when deacons who had major responsibilities, together with powerful authority accompanying these responsibilities, became lofty and self-serving in their attitudes. The presbyters too were often unhappy that in certain responsibilities held by the deacons, they found themselves having to submit to the administrative authority of the latter. Even St Jerome demanded an explanation for why deacons had often been endowed with such authority by bishops: “After all, deacons could not preside at Eucharist, and presbyters were really the same as bishops".

As a result, by the early middle ages, the diaconate in the Latin Church had become an intermediate step in one’s journey towards priesthood. The deacon, now a solely transitional role, was perceived by the clergy and populace as an incomplete priest awaiting the completion of his sacramental ordination. He was a mere priest in the making, rising through the ranks, this being a traditional system of gradual promotion adapted from the Roman secular government.

REVIVAL OF THE DIACONATE
Efforts for the restoration of the permanent diaconate as part of the three-tier hierarchy of the Holy Orders commenced as early as the Council of Trent (1545-1563), the 19th ecumenical council of the Church. However, since the onus of implementation was laid upon the popes, none of them deemed it fit to execute this restoration until Paul VI at the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). For example, Pius XII in 1957 affirmed the vitality of this effort but concluded that "the time was not yet ripe".

But at the Second Vatican Council, the Holy Father Pope Paul VI definitively restored the permanent diaconate in the Latin Church through his apostolic letter Diaconatus Ordinem. Subsequent to his reinstatement of the permanent diaconate, he said “the permanent diaconate should be restored as a driving force for the Church's service (diakonia) toward the local Christian communities, and as a sign or sacrament of the Lord Christ himself, who 'came not to be served but to serve'" (Ad Pascendum, August 15, 1972, Introduction).

One reason cited for the restoration of the diaconate as a permanent order of the Church during Vatican II was that it would at least temporarily alleviate the shortage of priests in certain parts of the world. The presence of deacons would somewhat relieve the absence of priests and provide for the spiritual sustenance of communities which rarely caught sight of priests in their midst. This rationale continues to be valid and even compelling in certain contexts today. However, holding solely to this argument that deacons would merely be helpful in situations where relief of priests was required, and that the former would not have been needed should there have been sufficient numbers of priests, would constitute a deficient understanding of the threefold hierarchy of the Holy Orders. The diaconate possesses its own intrinsic reason and right to exist.

In the document Lumen Gentium of the Second Vatican Council, the function of the deacon is clearly delineated:

At a lower level of the hierarchy are deacons, upon whom hands are imposed "not unto the priesthood, but unto a ministry of service". For strengthened by sacramental grace, in communion with the bishop and his group of priests they serve in the diaconate of the liturgy, of the word, and of charity to the people of God. It is the duty of the deacon, according as it shall have been assigned to him by competent authority, to administer baptism solemnly, to be custodian and dispenser of the Eucharist, to assist at and bless marriages in the name of the Church, to bring Viaticum to the dying, to read the Sacred Scripture to the faithful, to instruct and exhort the people, to preside over the worship and prayer of the faithful, to administer sacramentals, to officiate at funeral and burial services. Dedicated to duties of charity and of administration [italics added], let deacons be mindful of the admonition of Blessed Polycarp: "Be merciful, diligent, walking according to the truth of the Lord, who became the servant of all".

[Lumen Gentium, 29]

Notice that this paragraph in Lumen Gentium alludes rather explicitly to the fact that administration is very much a part of a deacon’s sacramental function. Thus, the diaconate is a rather distinct and specific role in the Church which is not to be confused with that of the priesthood; the deacon should never try to be a priest. He is also not an assistant to the priest, except when specifically instructed by the bishop to be so, for he serves the bishop’s bidding just as the deacons in the Early Church were directed by the Apostles.

Having said that, it must also be noted that despite the decisive reinstatement of the permanent diaconate at Vatican II, its restoration in the particular churches falls under the discretion of the local bishops: "But it pertains to the competent local episcopal conferences…with the approval of the supreme Pontiff, to decide whether and where it is opportune that such deacons be appointed" (Lumen Gentium, 29).

CLERGY, NOT EXALTED LAITY
Some people have commented that if deacons are called to works of charity and administration, as prescribed in Lumen Gentium, then there is effectively no difference between them and the laity who are also able to undertake works of charity and of administration. But to thus conclude is to deny the theological distinctiveness of the office, for the diaconate is a gift to the Church, the deacon a man who offers himself in obedience to the bishop and for the Church as a member of the first order of clergy. His work expression may not be fundamentally different from that of the many services rendered by the laity, but as a person, he is materially different from the laity by virtue of his ordination into the Holy Order.

The task belongs to him, in the first place, to inspire dedicated service among the laity. The very person of the deacon himself is a visual reminder that Christ is not only the high priest, but also a servant, “For the Son of man himself came not to be served but to serve... (Mark 10:45)”. The deacon’s presence exists to consistently propel the people of God out of lackadaisical complacency over issues of peace, justice and mercy, challenging all the faithful to respond to their baptismal calling to fulfil the mission of the Church. A task like this certainly entails more administrative considerations than meet the eye.

There is, to be sure, nothing wrong with dioceses and parishes employing lay people to work as administrators of their various offices and ministries. In fact, many times, lay people are able to accomplish that which clerics are never able to find time to achieve. But to rely solely on the role of the laity in the administration of the Church is to keep the Church in sacramental poverty, since God’s gift of the diaconate to the Church for very obvious purposes is not utilised.

The deacon therefore continues to be revered as an icon of Christ the Servant for whom works of charity and administration are a permanent vocation in his life, together with the service of word and altar. His role is profoundly different, but not necessarily better, from the role of the laity, because his ordination into the Holy Order leaves a permanent mark on his soul.

Like Lawrence and his six brother deacons, the deacon today is to be so bound to the ministry of his bishop that in the face of the bishop’s peril, the deacon would cry out, “Father, where are you going without your deacon?”