Florida Catholic | Transitional or Permanent Deacons

Transitional or permanent deacons?

What are the differences between the two?

Published: 12.14.07

Transitional deacons in the Pensacola-Tallahassee wear the clerical clothing (“Roman collar”) worn by priests. Permanent deacons wear secular clothing and may be identified by a deacon’s pin, usually worn on the lapel.

• Deacons are ordained and commissioned by Christ through the bishop to minister to the needy and the poor and to be ministers of word and sacrament, working in obedience to the bishop and in close fraternal cooperation with priests.

• Men who are to be ordained priests are ordained deacons prior to priesthood. These men are sometimes referred to as transitional deacons, because they are in the process of transition into priesthood. Men who are ordained deacons who will not be ordained to the priesthood and will remain as deacons are referred to as permanent deacons.

• In the Diocese of Pensacola-Tallahassee, transitional deacons wear the clerical clothing (“Roman collar”) worn by priests. Permanent deacons wear secular clothing and may be identified by a deacon’s pin, usually worn on the lapel. Both transitional and permanent deacons wear the alb and stole, and sometimes a dalmatic (a long, wide-sleeved tunic), for liturgical functions. Deacons’ stoles cross the body diagonally to distinguish them from the stoles worn by priests.

• If they are married at the time of their ordination, permanent deacons remain married. Men who are single at the time of their ordination take a promise of celibacy. Should a permanent deacon’s wife die, he then enters the celibate state. Those ordained transitional deacons also remain celibate.

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Transitional or permanent deacons?

What are the differences between the two?

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