Bishop Emeritus Bruskewitz Conveys Tonsure and the Subdiaconate

Joyful in the hope of the priesthood of Christ, the Fraternity of Saint Peter is pleased to have three new Subdeacons and a new class of twelve tonsurandi for the North American District. Most Rev. Fabian Bruskewitz, Bishop Emeritus of Lincoln, traveled to Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary on Saturday, October 19, 2013, to administer the Subdiaconate and Rite of Tonsure.

The Subdiaconate conveys the privilege of touching the sacred vessels, chanting the Epistle, and the responsibility of preparing the necessities of the Eucharist.

The Rite of Tonsure is administered early in the second year of formation, and is the point at which a seminarian ends life in civilian clothes to be invested with the cassock and surplice. The 1911 Catholic Encyclopedia gives an excellent overview of the rite:

(From the Latin verb tondere, “to shear.”)

A sacred rite instituted by the Church by which a baptized and confirmed Christian is received into the clerical order by the shearing of his hair and the investment with the surplice. The person thus tonsured becomes a partaker of the common privileges and obligations of the clerical state and is prepared for the reception of orders. The tonsure itself is not an ordination properly so called, nor a true order. It is rather a simple ascription of a person to the Divine service in such things as are common to all clerics. Historically the tonsure was not in use in the primitive Church during the age of persecution. Even later, St. Jerome (in Ezech., xliv) disapproves of clerics shaving their heads. Indeed, among the Greeks and Romans such a custom was a badge of slavery. On this very account, the shaving of the head was adopted by the monks. Towards the end of the fifth, or beginning of the sixth, century, the custom passed over to the secular clergy.

As a sacred rite, the tonsure was originally joined to the first ordination received, as in the Greek Church it still is to the order of lector. In the Latin Church it began as a separate ceremony about the end of the seventh century, when parents offered their young sons to the service of God. Tonsure is to be given by a candidate’s ordinary, though mitred abbots can bestow it on their own subjects. No special age for its reception is prescribed, but the recipient must have learnt the rudiments of the Faith and be able to read and write. The ceremony may be performed at any time or place. … According to canon law, all clerics are bound to wear the tonsure under certain penalties. But on this subject, Taunton (loc. cit. inf.) says: “In English-speaking countries, from a custom arising in the days of persecution and having a prescription of over three centuries, the shaving of the head, the priestly crown, seems, with the tacit consent of the Holy See, to have passed out of use. No provincial or national council has ordered it, even when treating of clerical dress; and the Holy See has not inserted the law when correcting the decrees of those councils.”

Many thanks to Bishop Bruskewitz for his tireless support of the Fraternity of Saint Peter.

In your kindness, please pray for our new subdeacons and tonsured seminarians, as well as all the seminarians, deacons, and priests of the Fraternity.