Topic summary
Subdiaconate
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Subdeacon.
Latin Church
The order of subdeacon no longer exists in the Roman Catholic Church. Prior to the reform instituted by Pope Paul VI with his motu proprioMinisteria quaedam of 15 August 1972, the subdiaconate was regarded as the lowest of the major orders of the Latin Church. Paul decreed that "the major order of subdiaconate no longer exists in the Latin Church" and that the functions previously assigned to the subdeacon are now entrusted to the acolyte and the lector; he also decreed that, where the local episcopal conference so desired, the acolyte could be called a subdeacon.