Holy Orders Batman!

What’s a cardinal? (No, not the bird kind, the church kind.) What’s the difference between an archbishop and a bishop? How do you become a monsignor? These questions all deal with Holy Orders and the meaning of terms surrounding this sacrament. They are often confused and deserve some clarification.

Holy Orders is the sacrament in the church for bringing about some order to her holiness. It is a gift from God to ensure both fidelity to the larger mission of the church and a central focus to a community of believers, whether that community is religious or parochial (parish) in nature. Holy Orders derive both directly from Christ and from his relationship to his disciples. There are three orders traditionally part
of the church: deacon, priest, and bishop. All other titles are just that: titles for deacons, priests, and bishops. What follows is clarification of some of these terms, though each title could deserve a lot more explanation that it will get.

A cardinal should be a superb bishop who serves in one of two capacities; either as a bishop in a Metropolitan area (e.g. Chicago, Boston, New York, Washington DC, etc.) or as one of the Pope’s advisors. Technically the first kind are known as cardinal archbishops, though no one calls them that. The advisors to the pope are almost all cardinals both because they should be the most best, most experienced advisors to
ensure that he does not fall into error and because, at points, they have to enact a sanction against a brother bishop. For some reason, bishops (especially bishops who are cardinals or archbishops) are more apt to take a sanction if it comes from a cardinal than if it comes from a lowly bishop. It is possible for a priest to become a cardinal and remain a priest. This is true of an American intellectual priest, Avery
Cardinal Dulles, who made a very important contribution to the Church’s self understanding in his book Models of the Church. Nonetheless, this is very rare.

An archbishop is the bishop of an archdiocese. An Archdiocese is located either in a larger city or an area where, per capita, there is a large percentage of Catholics. If you’ve ever driven through Dubuque, Dyersville, and points in between, it makes sense that the Archdiocese of Dubuque is the archdiocese.

A monsignor is either a priest who has an important assignment (pastor of a Cathedral/Basilica) or is a venerable and respected priest. These titles are bestowed directly from the pope after some scrutiny from his brother priests. Don’t you think Monsignor Miller has a nice ring to it? Just kidding!

There was, at one time, the title “Archdeacon” for an important deacon in a diocese but this has disappeared. The Archdeacon tended to be an important advisor to a bishop and may come back into usage with the renewal of the permanent diaconate though there is no indication of it doing so.