Good news: subdeacons

In many places, clergy and people are reaching into old vestment chest and hauling out the dalmatics and tunicles which have not seen the light of day since the 1970s. Masses are being celebrated which increasingly represent and resemble the old ritual and ethos of the 'High Mass'. (A little girl in S Thomas's was fascinated by the sight of the three clergy one behind the other "like carriages in a train". It did not occur to her unpolluted mind to complain about how they 'had their backs to the people'.) I think this is all splendid. It means, of course, that very often a priest has to use his diaconal status rather than his presbyteral. But does this matter (any more than it matters that we all find it practical to give communion from the ciborium in the Tabernacle rather than, as the newer texts prefer, from hosts consecrated in the same Mass)? And the restoration by Benedict XVI of his Cardinal Deacons functioning in dalmatics and mitres suggests that by receiving a sacerdotal ministry a man does not lose the right to appear publicly in a diaconal role.

But suppose there are not three clergy. According to the old rules, anybody who had entered the clerical state by being tonsured, or possessed a 'minor order' - one thinks nowadays of a Reader or a commissioned Acolyte - could (maniple-less) function as a subdeacon, and many Anglo-Catholic shrines in the 1960s acquired Readers for just this purpose. But it meant a lot of pointless swotting to get the 'qualification'.

I think the role of Subdeacon is ripe for revival. Despite its abolition by Paul VI and its disuse in the C of E since 1559, the order is of enormous antiquity. And it has considerable advantages.

It does not legally exist. A bishop cannot ordain a Deacon without creating somebody who, in civil as well as canon law, has the significant status of a Clerk in Holy Orders. And doing this is circumscribed by statute and canon. He cannot license a Reader without having regard to the canons and regulations. But canons and statutes and regulations know absolutely nothing whatsoever of subdeacons. So in ordaining them a bishop would be performing a legal nullity. He wouldn't have to worry about anything except the suitability of the candidate for the role! And, because the law of the Church, and the praxis of mainstream Anglicanism, have no place for the Subdeacon, the order couldn't turn into an automatic stepping-stone to the priesthood, as the diaconate has. The subdeacon would remain a Minister in the local church to which he was ordained.

This seems to me one way of beginning the recovery of the Sunday Parish Mass as a corporate interaction of varied ministries. Go on, you know it makes sense.