Posted on 01/21/2009 1:31:06 PM PST by NYer
The altar servers at Holy Family Catholic Church in St. Louis Park, Minn., are a sight to behold. In their white surplices and black cassocks — red for special feasts like Christmas and Pentecost — six carry candles, while others process in with the cross, Sacramentary and incense thurible and boat. Between 12 and 20 altar servers assist at every Mass, every Sunday. On special feasts, the head count jumps to more than 30.
And the most astonishing facet of the scene: All of the altar servers are boys.
It’s a sight that must put a smile on the heavenly face of St. John Bosco (1815-1888), the great priest-mentor who promoted the banding together of boys in religious activities. The Church celebrates his feast on Jan. 25.
Holy Family Church is one of a number of parishes that, after deciding to go with an all-boy corps of altar servers, have seen a notable increase in the number of boys participating in the life of the parish.
At Holy Family, the decision was made 10 years ago, when only a few boys were servers. The surge was on immediately. Today, more than 60 boys stand at the ready.
“What’s happened is: The younger boys can’t wait to get on the altar,” says parishioner Bob Spinharney. “And the older boys, to their great credit, stay on even beyond high school age. So the younger boys always have role models to look up to.”
Spinharney and fellow parishioner Mark Rode got the approval of their pastor, Father Thomas Dufner, for the altar boy program. Then they built key elements, like a hierarchy of services and names for each position.
Starting at age 10 as “leads” (beginners who observe from the altar), boys can stay as servers into their early 20s. Along the way, they progress to “torchbearer,” holding one of six candles for processing and during the Gospel reading and consecration; “mains,” serving the priest and ringing bells; “cross” and “book” with Sacramentary duties; and “thurifer” and “boat,” assisting with the incense during consecration. At each Mass, an older boy is designated “master of ceremonies” to lead and supervise the “troops.”
What drove the two men to suggest the experiment a decade ago? Two observations.
One: “When boys and girls are mixed on the altar, the boys tend to be less participative. They defer to the girls,” explains Spinharney. And two: “Many priestly vocations come from the altar. We’re trying to drive new vocations.”
Father Dufner expounds on those points. “Girls tend to be more reliable and get jobs done more effectively,” he says, “so the boys tend to drop out.” At the same time, he notices that boys are excited about being part of an all-male group that is hierarchical and advancement-oriented.
“And, clearly, reverent worship of God the Father through Jesus Christ in the liturgy is a calling card for vocations,” adds Father Dufner. In fact, one of the two current seminarians from this parish — from which four men have been ordained in the last 10 years — was an altar server. Both seminarians come back often to help the youngsters on Sundays, as do server alumni like Spinharney’s college-age son Jordan. The alumni become mentors.
“Boys 7 and 8 are glued to the Mass, watching their friends and brothers,” says Rode. “They can’t wait.”
According to Spinharney, no parent has complained about the absence of female altar servers. Instead of a dramatic immediate shift, the girls were allowed to phase out by age and were reminded of the many other services they could provide.
“The last two girls became some of our finest lectors,” points out Father Dufner.
Altar Apprenticeship
St. Michael Parish in Annandale, Va., also has an all-male server corps. Father Jerry Pokorsky, the pastor, says that when altar girls were permitted, they became the norm. The boys stopped volunteering.
“Lay readers and extraordinary ministers serve the people,” he says. “The altar boy serves the priest. He’s the hands of the priest. He would be an apprentice, either in a real or symbolic way, for the priesthood.”
When parents ask why their daughters can’t become altar servers, “they may not agree, but they do understand,” Father Pokorsky says.
With help from the parish’s Immaculate Heart of Mary Sisters, this new pastor is working on a Helpers of Mary ministry for girls to visit nursing homes.
When discussing the question of female altar servers, “It is important not to [use] political categories such as rights, equality, discrimination, etc., which only serve to fog the issue,” wrote Legionary Father Edward McNamara, professor of liturgy at the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum, on the Zenit news service website. “We are dealing with the privilege of serving in an act of worship to which nobody has any inherent rights.
“The question should be framed as to what is best for the good of souls in each diocese and parish. It is thus an eminently pastoral and not an administrative decision, and this is why it should be determined at the local level.”
The Church opened the altar service position to girls in 1994 in a letter from the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments. “The Holy See’s recommendation is to retain as far as possible the custom of having only boys as servers,” explains Father McNamara. “But it leaves to the bishop the choice of permitting women and girls for a good reason and to the pastor of each parish the decision as to whether to act on the bishop’s permission.”
Positive Peer Pressure
At Holy Family, Jean Prather sees nothing but positive effects in her son and daughters from the all-boy altar-service policy. Nick is 16 and has risen through the ranks. Oldest daughter, Emily, also in high school, has been a lector since fourth grade.
“They both have their place to contribute in the Mass. Emily wanted to do that after she saw an older teenage girl lector. It really is a positive peer pressure thing.”
“I always like to tell Nick what a special job he has to be so close to Jesus and serve him,” continues Prather. “He has learned such reverence. He really listens and brings things up that Father talks about in his homilies.”
Prather, too, believes participating in the liturgy can open boys’ hearts to hearing a call to a priestly or religious vocation.
But she stresses what the change has done for the parish as well as the servers in lifting people’s hearts to God. The surplices, cassocks and reverential pageantry are “what King Jesus deserves,” she says. “The reverence and beauty and example brings people into the reverence and glory of the Mass by having these altar boys not only as servers but as examples.”
As young as they are, says Rode, they understand there’s something really special going on at the altar: “We truly have the Real Presence.”
Staff writer Joseph Pronechen is based in Trumbull, Connecticut.
Father Edward McNamara, professor of liturgy at the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum, was asked about the Church’s position on female altar servers. The following is excerpted from his response.
A 1994 letter from the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments [clarified] that girls may serve at the altar. But bishops are not bound to permit them to do so, nor could the episcopal conference limit the bishop’s faculty to decide for himself.
The letter states: “It will always be very appropriate to follow the noble tradition of having boys serve at the altar. As is well known, this has led to a reassuring development of priestly vocations. Thus the obligation to support such groups of altar boys will always continue.”
The letter also recommends to bishops to consider “among other things, the sensibilities of the faithful, the reasons which would motivate such permission and the different liturgical settings and congregations which gather for the holy Mass.”
Among the pastoral factors to be weighed is the obvious yet often forgotten fact that boys and girls are different and require different motivational and formative methods.
Preteen boys … tend to reject sharing activities with girls. They also tend to have a greater need for such structured activities than girls, who are usually more mature and responsible at this stage of life.
It is also true that groups of boy servers have fostered vocations to the priesthood. But to be fair, this usually happens within a broader culture of openness to a vocation in which other elements come into play, such as the example and spiritual guidance given by good priests and family support.
It is very difficult to lay down precise rules in a matter like this since the situation may vary widely between parishes.
When the new pastor came to my church, he wanted to get rid of all the female altar servers. He changed his mind when he saw how few of the boys wanted to be servers.
I know I’m going to sound sexist, but I like the Church with only Altar Boys, I still can’t get use to Altar Girls, but I have the old Church mentality, and can’t get into it becoming modern.
We have both boys and girls Alter Servers. We also have a very active Youth Ministry. I think this helps. Three of the boys who turned 18 last year joined our parish Knights of Columbus Council 13966.
As the article notes, the girls are more reliable, but the boys defer to them and then drop out. And of course for pre-teen boys anything that girls are involved in is somewhat suspect. So you have to recruit heavily before just giving up.
We are fortunate in our parish - the deacon in charge runs the altar server program along military lines, with "drill" and promotion to military ranks, which causes many of the girls to drop out as they think it's "icky".
Another alternative is to have separate teams of girl and boy servers. That is what they did at my old Episcopal parish, and it kept the boys in the program pretty well.
The idea of letting the girls serve as lay readers (or song leaders, although I think that whole concept stinks) is another excellent idea to keep the girls involved while protecting the boys' special role.
Somebody on FR has a parish where the girls serve at the altar but wear nuns' habits instead of the cassock and surplice. Because after all this is supposed to be a recruiting team for vocations. Not a "right", as the article notes.
I think your rector ought to have another shot at it -- maybe phase the girls out gradually or start separate-sex teams.
. . . and I say this as a mom whose daughter was one of the female members of the Altar Server Elite -- who pledge to serve all the way through high school and lead the teams.
As a long-time altar boy when growing up, it is not that I am opposed to girl altar servers. It is just that so long as the Church says that women cannot become priests, then allowing girls to be altar servers drastically reduces one of the main avenues for vocation recruitment.
The path to the priesthood frequently leads through altar boy service. It is an excellent opportunity to expose boys to the potential of a religious vocation. The Church has a priest shortage, especially in my diocese of San Bernardino. Yet, the Bishop allows girls to serve on the altar, thereby reducing the potential to recruit young men to the priesthood.
It's been a long day, and my eyes are tired . . . but glancing at your post, I registered it, "So you have to sedate heavily . . ." On reflection, I suppose it might work . . . ;-)
Women participate in all areas of our parish life outside the sacerdotal; if any of them don't like things as they are, I've never heard them complain about it.
If you got rid of the girls and made the boys special, they would show.
We have 275 Altar Boys in a parish of 900 families.
>>In our parish, we have no altar girls, no “sex-traordinary ministers”, no she-deacons, no chick songleaders, and no liturgical dancers. The only women allowed on the other side of our altar rail during mass are lay lectors (epistle only) and the occasional visiting nun (invariably wearing the traditional attire).<<
Exactly like our parish. We have two Holy Masses on Saturday and Six on Sunday (including a TLM)
Females only Lector. My daughter and I cover the 6:30pm on Sunday one weekend a month.
LOL!
Silly me, I thought it was supposed to have some utility for the liturgy. I agree, though, that no form of service, from ordination to cleaning bathrooms, is a "right."
There are altar girls now? What happened to the different roles in the church for men and women?
When I went to Catholic church the boys were altar boys and the girls were in sodality.
Agreed. I believe this has recently been documented and proven. There is no reason to have girls serve at the altar; I have the older girls assisting the teachers in religious education. That works quite well :-)
The thought process was to allow the girls to serve at the altar as a form of equality. As the article points out, the girls do a great job but boys often shy away from altar service. As another poster noted, the purpose of having altar boys is to stimulate vocations. Girls can never be priests, hence the practice should be dropped. In many parishes, that is precisely what happened.
What's keeping you away from the Catholic Church?
I ran the altar server program at our parish for over 10 years. This involved recruiting, training and scheduling the entire group. I can't tell you how much pressure I got from feminists, female lay teachers, and even the Dominican sisters who ran the school to include girls in the program. Once the pastor conceded the participation of the boys, particularly the high school aged boys dropped off immediately.
Just talking about the girls and boys thing.
In some cases, "girl altar servers" at some churches may be teenage, and may start show signs of maturity.
this is maturity that a cassock and surplice may not be able to hide.
For priests with normal feelings/attractions, this may cause there to be a temptation on the altar.
A person who has strong homosexual attractions should not be a priest, in my opinion.
I remember someone talking about a visit by Father Benedict Groeschel, CFR to Atlanta (Cathedral) where there was some very attractive woman in the Sacristry in a very skimpy outfit (circa 2000 give take a few years).
Father Groeschel (who appears on EWTN) did not feel that a woman should be in the Sacristy with her bossoms somewhat liberally exposed...
There is something to be said about removing temptation from the altar.
What most priests and altar boys wear is not very revealing and it is hard to tell the "build" of the person except if they might be overweight or underweight.
A well built person, even a priest, is normally not discernable in all the vestaments that a priest normally wears for Mass.
Maybe that is one reason for these: modesty... Which seems to be missing from our culture...
We do have female cantors, and the choir is back behind the altar, but that was the previous organist's doing and it was more for him than to satisfy any liturgical insanity.
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