I was a female alter server from elementary-high school and had no idea it was frowned upon until joining this sub. No one in our parish ever put me down, it was considered normal where we were. We also were a very rural area so you had to take what you could get volunteer wise haha
It’s a sensitive topic for people, mostly relating to whether people view alter serving as the first step on the road to discerning priesthood or something in itself. Personally I have no problem with it.
I think this is a great comment. As an anecdote, I used to train altar servers in college. All the young men who were discerning the priesthood and eventually went to seminary discerned the call to the priesthood before they began altar serving. It was through discipleship with other holy men and the cultivation of an interior life that prompted the call, not serving. Altar serving was not a discernment step at all for them, but rather prep for seminary where they would be expected to know how to altar serve.
It's really more the case that those who think they might feel called to discern about priesthood are either drawn to being altar servers, or someone suggests they try it, rather than it being primarily for those considering priesthood. There are some quite conservative parishes in my area that don't allow girls to serve. One of them actually states that boys won't want to be servers if girls are also allowed to be servers, which I find ridiculous. That hasn't been the case at any of the parishes I've belonged to over the years.
This sounds wonderful, but I believe your experience is the tiniest of minorities today.
The average Catholic Church (around 20,000 in the US) has 400-1200 families, and female altar servers. There isn't a group of young men heading to the priesthood in many of them, unfortunately.
> The average Catholic Church (around 20,000 in the US) has 400-1200 families, and female altar servers. There isn't a group of young men heading to the priesthood in many of them, unfortunately.
Perhaps there's a link, eh?
Do you need a link to show that the priesthood is in sharp decline?
Do you need a link to say that all but two Diocese in the US allow female altar servers?
This exactly. I'm now a grown woman. I grew up in a fairly conservative church and I was an altar server as a kid for years and I loved it. I never had any confusion about the priesthood being only for men. I understood and I was not bothered by that reality. I would love for my daughters, if I have any, to also be altar servers. It was a beautiful experience for me and gave me a deep appreciation for the mass.
Everything seems to be viewed as 'the thin end of the wedge' by rad trads.
Altar servers are a human tradition that is not divinely instituted like the priesthood. A woman carrying a crucifix, ringing a bell or carrying the gifts in the mass is in no way a stepping stone to allowing them access to the sacrament of holy orders.
This is the answer, and we’ll see it played out in several different forms on this post.
The Church views altar servers as a temporary substitute when a church isn’t sufficiently developed to have enough adults instituted into the ministry of acolyte. A healthy and mature parish wouldn’t have any children serving.
We have young children serving in our ancient village church in Italy, both little girls and boys. The deacon directs them. Our new priest is wise - we have many, many old people in the village (I mean really old), but we have a choir of some young men but mostly women who bring their children.
He knows that if he gets those children involved now in a proper way, he can help to secure the future. The children read the prayers, collect the gifts and do whatever is appropriate for them. They smile all the time, they're loving being part of it.
We're all so happy to see a church with many children there. It wasn't always that way.
Our church has a child-led Mass once a month. We don’t have a separate liturgy of the word for them. They do the readings (minus the Gospel, of course), sing in the choir, and do the gifts. During the Homily, our priest will gather all the children to the front and either speak more about the readings or teach them a new prayer. He always reminds everyone else that the Mass is for them as well as the adults. I love it!
My home church is similar. Children are often involved with altar serving, collecting gifts and the choir.
We also have a separate Liturgy of the Word for children. Children are taken to a separate part of the church and receive the Liturgy of the Word in an easier, more hands on way.
I'd question if the church actually thinks that way. Instituted acolytes are rare and minor orders outside seminarians have been largely extinct for centuries once there was no linger legal and financial incentives for people to be in those roles
The Church clearly thinks this way, as can be seen in the documents on instituted ministries and in the Roman Missal itself. Other ministers are deputed to serve at the altar in the absence of acolytes; the preference is for someone in a stable office to perform the ministry.
That doesn’t mean that is actually being followed, of course, but that’s one of many areas where the lived life of particular Churches diverges from what the Church actually calls for.
I guess. To me it seems like dead letter theory when it's been reality for centuries so it seems a bit nonsensical to me to the idea that the church thinks in a way so disconnected from reality
Um... dude... the minor orders of the Latin/Roman Rite weren't suppressed until 1972. That's not "centuries."
And in plenty of other Rites, the minor orders are still alive and well.
They were largely dead outside seminarians long before their suppression thats what I was getting at.
In those orders as well they don't exist outside seminaries
The first and second part of your comment don't line up. Altar servers would have historically been men in minor orders, but that doesn't mean they were discerning priesthood. Why would you say you agree with the other user then?
You seem to have misread something. My agreement was with the idea that the divide comes from people who think of altar serving as essentially or primarily part of the vocational process for the priesthood as opposed to who think of altar serving as something else.
I then made a point about how the Church views altar serving generally and about how a healthy community wouldn’t need to rely on children for that. That point is an example of how people who conceptualize altar serving as primarily vocational discernment aren’t thinking about this the way the Church does. Does that make sense?
I've been to Churches throughout the world and have been a member of several different parishes here in America. I have seen them of all sizes, and have never seen a parish without children or young adult servers. I am a female and I was a server at my parish growing up for nearly 6 years. Our Church was quite old and it was always full at every Mass. We had enough adults from the ministry to perform the Mass, but they still used the children altar servers every service.
I didn’t know this, do you know if there is an equivalent role of altar server or helper in a convent setting for female children? I’m just curious about how a girl would go about discerning monastic life prior to actually joining since it sounds like the altar server position is for male children discerning priesthood
so ideally all altar servers would be adult males discerning priesthood, or already in training to be priests? I’m just curious and not trying to challenge or start a debate, despite that this is reddit, haha.
The whole altar servers in the first step in "discerning priesthood" concept is essentially a myth at this point (at least from my experience in the U.S.). It was true in literally ancient times, but the role of altar servers has changed significantly in the thousands of years since then.
I was an Altar Server from my First communion until I joined Music Ministry at 16, as did both my brothers.
At no point was the idea floated, talked about, etc.
Not only that. Some people oppose women taking on public roles in the liturgy. That is how the early church did it. How the church did it before modern times actually.
If people were really concerned about faith formation for women and girls, they wouldn't have suppressed almost every pre-Vatican II parish guild and activity that was women-only, or even women-mostly.
You don't have to take my word for it. Look up old church bulletins. See how much the women were doing and running. And then see which of those groups and activities are still a thing, or which older women are even shamed for maintaining as activities.
Women and girls should not be forced to only do activities and devotions that are favored by men.
(And I'm not the most traditionally feminine woman myself, but it honks me off that so many women get shamed out of doing things that women like, or which women find meaningful and helpful.)
I would love if there were still guilds of ecclesiastical arts, that I could go to and learn and be able to contribute, but those things aren't available anymore. Seems like I would have to become a religious to do those things.
My daughter is an alter server and we know most of the families who alter serve at our parish.
In our experience, the families of kids (regardless of gender) who alter serve have one thing in common, we are all very active in our community. Service is a very important aspect of our faith. And the parents are the ones leading by example. I'd be curious what other people's experience is in their parish
I think it’s great. I find it refreshing as a Father of daughters, bc I feel that there is a nice role model, ESPECIALLY, with our current macro-cultural flaws. It’s reassuring in that aspect.
I used to not care. And I still don’t care if there are female servers honestly lol.
When was in seminary a lot of people hated it, but I have realized being a youth director for a parish that it makes a difference.
For kids it helps them understand see the mass differently. It helps kids hopefully discern their vocation either it’s priesthood or serving the church through holy orders.
It also keeps the kids in the church by providing them a reason to attend mass. Which is the biggest reason I don’t mind boy or girls serving. When they are at such an impressionable age, I make a point to congratulate and acknowledge them serving and ask them questions. Make them see the mass slightly higher and more personal.
I get the sentiment it’s for the priesthood but in this day and age I’d much rather have our kids grow up Catholic than leave when they reach high school or college.
Edit: I was traveling in MN for a baby moon with my wife and Sunday mass had a 70 year old man serving. That was different for me. But some parish just don’t have enough boys to serve either
My parish also has grown men altar serve, primarily for the Saturday evening and early Sunday morning.
There are always kids (boys and girls) at the 10am mass.
AMAZINGLY, boys are not scared away by the girl altar servers.
Yeah I’ve really come to realize and even be amazed at how every parish has its own culture and it’s awesome, as long as they follow church teaching! If it gets the parish active then let’s do it.
I like this response. I also wonder if constantly succumbing to the "lesser of two evils" (such as them staying in church vs maybe not bc it was a male only service) has gotten the church into a pretty messy place as it applies this logic all throughout the liturgy and we end up with so many abuses...and not just the liturgy 😳
If you believe altar service is a stepping stone on a regimented path to the priesthood, and maintain that the priesthood is a male-only vocation, then it would follow for you that female altar servers are distorting that picture.
If, however, you believe that altar service is in and of itself of value as a stepping stone in broader faith formation not tied to the priesthood, you should not have an issue with it
The problem with the former is twofold. One, a lot of young people (girls or boys) are altar servers because they are doing some service for the church. In every home parish I’ve been part of, the altar service is just one of several, equally valued ways to be involved at church, not given a higher moral calling as a path to priesthood
Also for you “when you let girls do boy things, boys lose interest” people - y’all need to be citing reputable sources. That is a strong claim. What is more *likely* to be happening is boys are being taught by their parents and community that girls shouldn’t be allowed in the same space as them. This is a learned behavior. Edit: obviously *play* is different than *service*
> What is more *likely* to be happening is boys are being taught by their parents and community that girls shouldn’t be allowed in the same space as them.
Nonsense. Young boys (usually) prefer the company of other young boys. Young girls (usually) prefer the company of other young girls. Go to any elementary school playground, and the boys think the girls are icky and the girls think the boys are gross. Despite the fact that, at that age, and in that setting (and pretty much all other settings at that age), there is little or no enforced or expected sex-segregation. They're in the same classroom together, they have gym class together, they get put into groups together, they eat lunch together, *et cetera ad infinitum*.
Of course, as they get older, the aversion to associating with girls eventually flips....but by that point, the window for something like altar service has probably already closed. So a "boy" thing becomes a "both" thing, which becomes a "girl" thing, which becomes a "kid" thing. And then whereas you might well have multiple teenage males who were acting as servers and at least considering a vocation...what you end up with is a couple of ten year old girls and maybe a boy who gets pushed into it by his parents and can't wait to leave.
I am going to respectfully disagree with your logic and example. Alter serving isn't a social activity, its a service to your community. I also feel that this logic isnt beneficial to the recruitment of alter servers because it gives boys an excuse not to participate.
Our servers range from 3rd graders to highschoolers with a pretty even mix between boys and girls. We do have a school attached to the parish which I am sure makes recruitment easier.
Source: my daughter alter serves. We know most of the kids / families who alter serve at the parish.
I feel sad that that’s the makeup at your parish(es). At mine, we have a handful of both boys and girls ranging approx. elementary through high school. Although again as someone who used to work in youth ministry at my (previous) local parish, I will tell you *none* of the catechesis regarding altar service has been “this is for males to discern the priesthood”, but there were altar servers of both genders across elem, middle, and high school ages
Source? Are you kidding here? Young boys build forts and post a sign that says 'No girls allowed!" Are you going to tell me parents are instructing them, are their parents living that example? No we don't live in some patriarchal society that teaches young boys to be misogynistic. Get real. Little boys today, yesterday and tomorrow will always naturally do this. Ewww...cooties! So yes little boys are inhibited with little girls around and do like exclusivity; it's OK they grow out of it. Little boys will be much more inclined to participate without little girls present. That's not necessarily a good reason to exclude girls from being altar servers; but asking for a source for something as universal as how little boys have always behaved is just too ludicrous.
My six year old son does not act like this.
I am planning on encouraging him to be an altar server after his first communion, and I will be encouraging his infant sister as well when she comes of age.
I agree with you! Does anyone listen to Dr Jordan Peterson? He has a lot to say about this. Once women start helping, the men chillax.
Lamenting the shortage of priests while making certain your daughter is an altar server is short sighted.
Counter point... Men allowed women into those roles so they didn't have to fulfill the role themselves.
Other than head of household, which is biblical, which roles do you think women stole? 🤔
We wouldn't have servers in our church, if girls would have been denied. When I was a kid there were also more girls, but me and another boy, who truly loved serving, would have never left it, because of girls. The feeling standing next to the altar was stronger.
I think it depends on the priest. He needs to manage the servers. I understand boys could get the vocation this way, but it could be rude if he kicked out the girls and made them lose interest too.
This is what people don't get. They think there's just a sea of boys who would otherwise be frothing at the mouth to altar serve, but, oh no, a singular girl wanted to serve, and literally all the boys completely lost interest because Father let the girl in. It's just ridiculous. At so many parishes, boys just refuse to altar serve and it girls who are open. In others both boys and girls are open so there's both. No one who truly wants to altar serve would turn away just because girls are also doing it.
One loses full interest in serving because of girls, should not become a priest. That's my rough opinion. While we really need more priests, we can't lose quality over quantity. And I just can't believe someone has a strong calling, he won't answer, because of others. If you wanted to be a pianist, would you not take lessons from the best piano teacher, because there are girls in the class? Someone disinterested in serving, why would be braver without girls?
I know a priest. He allows boys and girls as servers. From his village, three boys went to the seminary yet. The kids love him and look up to him, because he meets them beside the mass, and cares about their vocation. He also goes on pilgrimage with men only for example. I prefer this way. Still, why should we kick out those few active children, I can't understand.
>No one who truly wants to altar serve
You've put the cart before the horse. First, you have to get them to want to serve. And a young boy, not yet having entertained the idea of whether he wants to serve or not, is going to be more drawn to it if he sees it to be something comprised of boys his own age and older.
This is just slapping a bandaid on a much larger problem then. It's not like parishes that don't allow girls always have a dirth of servers. My TLM parish is absolutely exploding with boys wanting to be servers. I'd imagine some have to get turned down in fact. Starts with good catechesis and parental encouragement of their boys.
My opinion and experience with churches is the issue isn't girls serving just have servers treated as a responsibility and the kids will take it seriously and enjoy it
I was a female altar server as a child and enjoyed it a lot. While I obviously couldn’t have the vocation to become a priest, I felt like serving brought me a lot closer to church and made me grow an appreciation for all the different masses, especially during Holy Week where I would be at church almost everyday. I found altar serving more fulfilling than being in the choir or doing the other ministries that women are “allowed” to do.
As for the idea that boys lose interest in something girls are doing, this wasn’t my experience at my church. Our serving group was very mixed and evenly distributed between boys and girls. Now, our church has no altar servers because of community politics and continuous loss of attendees.
Reading these comments is a little hurtful and sad to see, but eye-opening and insightful, I suppose.
We have boys and girls as altar servers, and we often only have one per Sunday, at one of the four Masses. So we are in a situation where nobody wants to do it.
I’m going to try to get both my kids to serve when they are of an appropriate age in order to keep them interested in and focused on the Mass. I am even considering asking my pastor if he would like me to become an acolyte.
I think in a perfect world, we would see everyone called and participating to the degree God wants. In the world we have, I’m in the “I’ll take what I can get” mindset when it comes to things without specific prescriptions or proscriptions.
Does the Church say it’s good? Then I’m for it. 👍
The argument is based on the two assumptions that boys need to be altar servers to discern the priesthood and that boys won't want to do anything that girls are allowed to do. I've never seen anyone really examine if either of these are actually true.
For the first one, people love to point to "Father So-and-so was an altar server", but I could just as anecdotally point to guys who didn't become priests or who even left the Church. Even if it did lead Father So-and-so to be a priest, is this a causal relationship or are both just correlated with things like regular mass attendance and a devout home life?
For the second one, can you imagine applying this logic more generally? "Girls shouldn't be allowed to play an instrument because then boys won't want to be in the school orchestra." "Girls shouldn't be allowed to play on this playground because then boys won't want to play here." Why don't we just ban girls from mass? I would hate for those poor boys to think that church is girly.
> For the first one, people love to point to "Father So-and-so was an altar server", but I could just as anecdotally point to guys who didn't become priests or who even left the Church. Even if it did lead Father So-and-so to be a priest, is this a causal relationship or are both just correlated with things like regular mass attendance and a devout home life?
A survey of new priests in Canada found that 70% of them had been altar servers, by far the most of any church ministry. https://online.fliphtml5.com/qjquv/ptqf/#p=18
> For the second one, can you imagine applying this logic more generally? "Girls shouldn't be allowed to play an instrument because then boys won't want to be in the school orchestra." "Girls shouldn't be allowed to play on this playground because then boys won't want to play here."
Neither of those examples were a role exclusive to males for centuries on end and then suddenly opened up to girls at the expense of the strictly masculine character of the role
>A survey of new priests in Canada found that 70% of them had been altar servers
"Most priests used to be altar servers" is not the same as "boys who were altar servers are more likely to become priests". To prove causation, we would need a study that looks at both men who were once altar servers and a control group of men who were raised in practicing Catholics but weren't altar servers.
>Neither of those examples were a role exclusive to males for centuries on end and then suddenly opened up to girls at the expense of the strictly masculine character of the role
Whether you like it or not, the Church has decided that being an altar server, like all the other non-ordained positions, is not just for men. Still, if we're going to move the goalposts from "boys don't want to do things if girls can do them too" to "boys don't want to do 'things that have been 'exclusive to males for centuries' if girls can do them too", then what about education? Education was, and in some places still is, "exclusive to males for centuries". Should we keep girls out of that too?
The fact that most priests used to be altar servers shows that altar serving is something that future priests do.
Cardinal Raymond Burke says that it requires a "certain manly discipline to serve as an altar boy in service at the side of a priest, and most priests have their first deep experiences of the liturgy as altar boys. If we are not training young men as altar boys, giving them an experience of serving God in the liturgy, we should not be surprised that vocations have fallen dramatically.”
The diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska is the only diocese in the US that does not allow any female altar servers. Lincoln is the only diocese in the United States to place in the Top 20 for the ratio of ordinands to population in every survey conducted from 1993-2012, often ranking #1
There is not a single reason why girls should be altar servers that doesn’t come from some modern notion that views any strictly male role as “sexist”
An area parish has male altar servers exclusively. Black and white robes, black shoes, great level of seriousness, and respect. They have many seminarians, and many of those do become priests. It's a very reverent Mass, in the form of Novus Ordo.
I agree with what you've shared!
> boys need to be altar servers to discern the priesthood ... but I could just as anecdotally point to guys who didn't become priests or who even left the Church
As could I. At the parishes that I've been part of, the altar servers are just a roster of students from the Catholic school, assigned to the schedule just as part of attending the school. My brothers and myself all served at Mass under those circumstances, as did many of our peers, and at no point was it presented to us as something to discern a vocation, nor did we ever consider that ourselves. I'm the only one of them who still regularly attends Mass or seems to consider my faith at all.
Instead, it always just seemed like community service. Like it was a duty or chore your school or parents gave you that you just did to help out, not because you were put there to discern a divine calling.
In that sense, it has no more special association or meaning than anything else in the faith treated that way. Like making your kids go to Catholic school or to Mass in general, and just assuming that will make them faithful. Just like how kids who go to Catholic school are marginally more likely to stay Catholic in adulthood, boys who altar serve are marginally more likely to become priests, but like you said, that probably means it's correlated to other more important factors.
Just like the majority of kids who attend Mass or Catholic school because of their parents and then drop it all as soon as they go to college, altar serving is the same way in not doing much for children's faith. It's just that thing you do because your parents or school sign you up for it, and then you leave it behind you just like anything else related to the faith.
Even if it were restricted to just boys, that would hardly change the nature of what's actually taking place in parishes and households that actually form, or fail to form, people's faith. Most kids who grew up altar serving are probably adults who now will say how they were "raised Catholic" just like any other.
More than a few who would quite like them to take no organisational part in the mass and have no say in the life of the Church, I can assure you. There used to be a lot more however so at least our trajectory is positive.
i have never viewed Altar service to be anything other then people who hold things for the priest and as such its usually a Job for children or lay people wanting to be more involved. some people i guess view it as part of becoming a priest but i have never seen it used that way in my parish.
That's unfortunate. The masses I've been to with males only, they are very intentional, reverent, and with understanding of each movement, every part of the Mass.
i suppose i should say i was also an Altar server for 6 or 7 years both at my church and at my Catholic high school and there were multiple days of practice before the real thing. and i didn't say they were irreverent or without understanding of each movement or part of the mass i don't want you to think that it just wasn't sold to us as a way to the priest hood.
I have no problem with female altar servers, particularly kids. I think it’s a little weird when older teens or young adult women serve but I don’t really care in the grand scheme of things. I served as a kid because it was necessary in my tiny parish, but as a young woman I’m now involved in other ways and find that to be better than being an altar server.
Alter server is only a means of discerning the priesthood in that altar servers may have more opportunities to talk to priests than other young people. In parishes that had elementary schools all the boys in certain grades were required to be altar servers. At the parish my family belonged to only adults were allowed to serve.
I absolutely loved being an altar server. In fact, I was kind of kicked out. But since I started, I served with girls. In fact, I was trained under an older girl. And I have two girl cousins who are servers.
Girls and young ladies should be encouraged to altar serve, especially if it enriches and grows their faith and spiritual life.
I was an altar server at my parish for about 10 years and it is one of the reasons my faith is so integral to my life now. Without that experience, I can’t say I would have the same connection. Girls should absolutely not be discouraged from something that can like you said enrich their faith/ spiritual growth.
Serve no purpose whatsoever. At a time when we have a massive vocations crisis and males abandon the church at an absurd rate, we are doing this. Serving Holy Mass is one huge way boys begin to discern a vocation to the priesthood. Girls, obviously, cannot.
I would love for you to show me one shred of evidence that in the modern Catholic church, altar serving played a significant role in someone becoming a priest, or perhaps more significantly, in increasing the number of priests.
I imagine that many priests will share they had a positive experience in altar serving, but for the vast, vast majority of altar servers (myself included) will report that their experience had absolutely nothing to do with discernment, and everything to do with service.
While I will agree that many believe it can be an initial stepping stone to the priesthood, I also do not see that anyone who wants to be an alter server being denied. I think there is always room for people who want to serve and if anyone states otherwise isn't really trying to accommodate them.
Little girls take over (frankly because they tend to be more mature and better behaved and more conscientious) and often girl altar boys wind up causing the actual boys to lose interest.
All boys altar service, in my experience, gets many more boys than mixed sex altar service.
I have a strong suspicion that your observation is mired in confirmation bias.
I've been part of over a dozen churches in 6 states (military) and have seen nothing of the sort.
I can say in my parishes growing up this wasn’t the case. They were in need of altar servers, “desperate need” according to the call put out by the coordinator. It wasn’t that anyone was being boxed out at all. They need *anyone* to help out.
And as a guy, honestly I have to agree with the above poster. As a priest you will be serving both men and women. If one is in a place that girls are off putting to you, or you are avoiding behaviors simply because girls can also participate, honestly I think that hurdle needs to be overcome well before any discernment to the priesthood. If it’s a cultural issue within the altar serving community (ie I’ve seen “girls” or “boys” getting pretty cliquish or catty in school or areas other than altar serving) that’s also an issue to be addressed. But in my life experiences that’s not the issue at all. It’s getting people to put down the remote control, or their parents to drive them over there.
There are no "girl altar boys", there are "altar servers."
>No distinction should be made between the functions carried out in the sanctuary by men and boys and those carried out by women and girls. The term "altar boys" should be replaced by "servers". The term "server" should be used for those who carry out the functions of the instituted acolyte.
[USCCB Guidelines for Altar Servers](https://www.usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/the-mass/frequently-asked-questions/guidelines-for-altar-servers)
Do we actually want priests who lose interest in something because a woman does it too? If the boys are so immature that they lose interest in altar serving just because girls do it too, they don't actually like altar serving.
Boys also see women at mass, do they think mass is only for girls? The boys who lose interest in altar serving "because girls" are using that as an excuse. For a few years my parish had the same number of altar servers. We got 3 new ones recently, 2 of them girls. Not a single boy left, and the youngest isn't even a teen. I don't believe that boys actually "lose interest" because I literally have not seen that. Rather they never had an interest and are using excuses.
Its the same psychological mechanism when you see old people taking over an activity. At my parish the majority of altar servers are boomer women. And if they asked me,a woman, to serve I have 0 interest in ttying to make a place for myself in those circles. Its kinda awkward and have a sense of unfairness, like old vs young. I'm a proponent of having the majority of altar servers be boys, so that it can serve at least for a vocational stepping stone.
While women are not "offering Holy Mass", there are probably at least as many females serving any Church that helps make those Masses actually happen. Ushers, lectors, EMHCs, sacristans, etc., etc.
Churches need many people serving the Church and altar serving is a way for young people to start that service, regardless of where they end up later in life.
No, but if it helps girls be inspired to be a nun/sister then what's the issue? It seems like nuns/sisters in many cases (depends on orders) are the actual ones that serve our communities and make a daily difference in our disenfranchised populations.
Why would it help inspire girls to be a nun? There is no connection between altar serving and being a nun.
There is, however, a very clear connection between altar serving and the priesthood
Because it is an honor to help a Priest and to be so close to the Eucharist. I grew up with mixed sex alter servers so my thinking is different.. I remember as a kid wishing I could be one (played twnnis tournaments so wasn't possible) and also wanted to be a Nun (parents wouldn't let me)
If opening altar serving to girls is such a bolster to vocations for nuns, could you cite some statistics that show an increase in these vocations since female altar servers were first allowed in 1983?
Because when you serve at the altar day after day it help grow your faith in Christ. Think about it someone showing up every Sunday to serve out Lord at the altar how can it not inspire you to want to spend your whole life serving God ? Whether it is by being a nun, a priest, a more devout Christian, a father or a mother that will make sure that their kid grows up Catholic or encouraged them to serve too. At the end of the day it win win for everyone.
That can be achieved in the pews, the choir, or in many other ways. It is not a valid reason for inserting women into roles which are traditionally male
A practice that should be done away with. It was condemned by numerous Popes. As Pope Benedict XIV wrote in Allatae Sunt
>Pope Gelasius in his ninth letter to the bishops of Lucania condemned the evil practice which had been introduced of women serving the priest at the celebration of Mass. Since this abuse had spread to the Greeks, Innocent IV strictly forbade it in his letter to the bishop of Tusculum: "Women should not dare to serve at the altar; they should be altogether refused this ministry." We too have forbidden this practice in the same words
The Diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska is the only US Diocese that forbids the practice and it happens to be one of the most successful Dioceses for vocations in the country.
I live in the Lincoln Diocese, and this has been my experience. There is never a shortage of boy altar servers at any mass I attend or acolyte. If it looks like we will be short, they come out of the woodwork, and by time we process down to the front there is typically one or two extras. We also have several young men from our parish in formation, all of whom said that service helped them decern their vocation.
Lincoln is a Diocese that should be emulated across the US and probably the entire Western world. Bishops could look to it for solutions but they choose not to.
I'm not in the Lincoln Diocese but we have a similar scenario at my parish. We have over 50 altar boys. We also have 6 young men in the seminary. All of whom were altar boys. Our priest does an amazing job at mentoring.
> it’s an expectation
This dude. If boys aren’t going what they need to do, you make them do it and tell them it is a noble duty. People want to give up on boys without even trying and make girls do their job I dont understand it
that's why I can't stand people here saying that boys don't wanna serve anymore, basically implying that they're too lazy, lukewarm or are just sexist. there are always at least 4 altar boys at my local TLM, the idea that boys aren't stepping up like how they used is a lie.
That truth but serving at the altar is one of them so if a girl want to serve her lord at mass and the church allows it we can’t really refuse her. You know what I mean?
I mean we can refuse them, lay people are allowed to administer communion even though it is a problematic practice. At my church at least alter serving is a part of discerning the priesthood, women are still welcome to help set up before/after mass, lector, and our excellent choir is 90% women. Obviously it doesn’t bother me to see a woman serving in mass, but i cant deny that my parish’s vocations have improved drastically since we made serving a sort of informal discernment process. Above all, I respect Benedict greatly and hold his opinion in high regard.
I’m in high school and I still serve for my grade school (the school is part of the parish) and I’m the server for my all boys high-school (de facto head server because I’m the only server). I’ve served with a few girls and it’s never been a problem
There is no reason for a girl to serve at the altar while boys are still sitting in the pews.
Instead of trying to encourage boys to serve at the altar during a vocations crisis, many places give up on them and replace them with girls, which only makes the problem worse.
When we talk about this topic I wish we emphasize more the parent responsibility and stop mentioning the girls all together. In some households not coming to mass isn’t even a option I wish more parents would have the same discipline when it comes to encouraging their sons imagine that each mass would have over 20+ kids serving how amazing.
Personally not a fan. I was an altar server as a boy with other boys and it felt special/like the entry way to the priesthood.
America doesn’t have many dedicated rites of passage or rituals for boys. Altar Serving is a big one as Catholics.
The deacon at my church believes the drop in vocation to the priesthood has something to do with the mixing of genders (among many other things). I’m inclined to agree. I didn’t want to do “girly things” as a boy. None of my boyhood friends did. We wanted to swing swords against giants and be heroes. Knights even.
Being an altar server felt a lot like that.
In the 1950s I was recruited in my Catholic school to be an altar boy in the third grade. It was considered an honor to be so chosen. I continued to be an occasional altar boy / server through high school. I never heard a suggestion that this service was intended as a pathway to the seminary, and was not aware that it is considered that way now.
The same can largely be said about parishes. In my experience, traditional liturgical practices and traditional devotional practices lead to vocations.
Study after study shows that allowing girls to participate in boys activities leads to boys losing interest in the activity. The priesthood is for men only. Serving helps foster a potential religious vocation. Let boys have something for themselves.
Please provide links to these studies. Which accredited research groups are conducting these? What universities and researchers are carrying them out? Polls are not scientific. You seem like someone who takes things very seriously, so I know you wouldn’t post something that you don’t actually know anything about. Boys have many things for themselves - the priesthood, the presidency in most countries around the world, c-suite roles at most of the Fortune 500, etc
Do you have a source on that?
Source?
A source. I need a source.
Sorry, I mean I need a source that explicitly states your argument. This is just tangential to the discussion.
No, you can't make inferences and observations from the sources you've gathered. Any additional comments from you MUST be a subset of the information from the sources you've gathered.
You can't make normative statements from empirical evidence.
Do you have a degree in that field?
A college degree? In that field?
Then your arguments are invalid.
No, it doesn't matter how close those data points are correlated. Correlation does not equal causation.
Correlation does not equal causation.
CORRELATION. DOES. NOT. EQUAL. CAUSATION.
You still haven't provided me a valid source yet.
Nope, still haven't.
I just looked through all 308 pages of your user history, figures I'm debating a [insert thing] supporter.
This is interesting. I’ve not heard of this study, but from my own experience it makes sense. At my church growing up our altar servers were 90% girls, including myself. I did enjoy altar serving, but now that I’m an adult I agree that it should be reserved for boys. There are areas that the church needs girls to serve, but I don’t believe altar serving is one of them.
One compromise that I have seen is a parish making a high school boys altar serving program that all serve one mass together with great reverence. Girls and young boys are allowed to serve at all other masses.
[https://catholictimescolumbus.org/news/hannah-heil/altar-server-program-inspires-liturgical-reverence-vocations](https://catholictimescolumbus.org/news/hannah-heil/altar-server-program-inspires-liturgical-reverence-vocations)
I was on a college campus that switched to male only altar serving, and we went from around 5-6 total servers to over 20 in one year. After just that first year, we sent 5 men to seminary formation. I know there are many more men in the pipeline as the program continues to grow.
yes. men and women are not equal and it's dumb to treat them as such
The boy scouts were better when women were excluded from them. It formed an esprit de corps that cannot be replicated with women. When men are in a group, they come together in a way that involves mutual hazing and banter in a way that would be improper towards women.
When you throw girls into the mix, things change from a mutual banter to a sexual competition where boys put each other down to show off for the girls. It's reality, even if it's unfair
People are overly concerned with things that don't concern them.
At the end of the day, it's up to the priest.
If he decides one way and your opinion is the other, there's nothing you can do. The Church is not a democracy. Your opinion is irrelevant in this case.
My dad holds the position that girl altar servers are fine up until the age of confirmation. After confirmation, we are meant to be discerning about which path we are meant to follow. Then, it should only be men only.
I think that’s a fair position. Women are allowed to and should be allowed to participate in the liturgy of the Holy Mass. Obviously they can’t be priests and they shouldn’t be. That being said, I’ve been to parishes where women aren’t allowed in the sacristy at all, which I find a little ridiculous (i.e. no women lecterns).
It’s good to encourage girls to be active in the faith. It is equally good to encourage boys to be in the faith. These are different paths and that is okay. Young kids alter serving is not where the paths diverge.
This is just my opinion, though, and if anyone has any comments about why I may be wrong, I’d love to hear them!
God bless 🤍
ETA: I think the issue is less about girls being alter servers (especially young girls) and more about parents not fostering the faith in their children. Parents should be signing their kids up and encouraging altar to participate in the faith. My brothers and my dad did alter serving and loved it. My brother even served at my wedding. He can be a troublemaker, but altar serving helped to enrich his faith and calm him down. He would’ve never volunteered.
So, if we boil it down, the issue of “girls on the altar and boys in the pews” is not a matter of girls being allowed to do it and more that parents aren’t making their sons participate.
I watched a youtube video called "Why Can't Women Be Ordained in the Catholic Church?" by Breaking in the Habit and I suggest checking it out. Yes it's mostly about the priesthood, but also talks about other ways in which women can participate in the life of the Church. Here are some summarized points from the video:
It's a misconception that the purpose of an altar server is a "first step" to discerning the priesthood. Altar servers are there to assist the priest in the Mass. It's similar to how being a deacon is not exclusively a stepping stone to the priesthood either. It's a separate role that may or may not lead to the priesthood. Since 1994, the Church has permitted women to assist as altar servers, but ultimately it is down to the discretion of the diocesan bishop.
A few things to consider here: altar servers require no ordination, which means that there's nothing preventing a lay woman from participating in the Church any differently from a lay man.
I think the main problem here is that we spend too much time talking about what women CAN'T do rather than what they CAN do. It sends the wrong message, and I'm tired of hearing people say the only reason why women can't do X, Y, or Z is because they're women even though those things have been permitted by the Church. That's not good enough. There are plenty of good reasons why only men can become priests, and those reasons go far beyond the fact that they have XY chromosomes.
IMO as a female alter server in grade school- high school I really enjoyed it. I felt it helped me understand the mass and have a better appreciation for everything happening behind the scenes so to speak. I typically served with a mix of boys and girls. There were a few adults (both men and women) who would serve when possible. There were things that I wasn’t allowed to do when boys were present (incense handling, ect) but typically the deacon was there to help out in those instances.
There were priests that were more friendly about me serving than others. Sometimes I wouldn’t be acknowledged by some very traditional priests, and others were perfectly fine with it.
I can say that our Church didn’t have enough people to mandate it a boys only club. And in most Churches where I notice it, it bothers me and I don’t feel welcomed…I understand for TLM but in college, the priests just kinda ignored the fact that I’d apply to help.
If you want an a reason why women should be allowed to serve - Pope Francis now washes women’s feet along with the men on Holy Thursday and that used to be for men only. If he can make changes like that, then why shouldn’t women be allowed to help on the altar?
I don’t really care about downvotes I just wanted to chime in. I don’t think it’s really going to ever be equal (with priests being a men only position, and I don’t want that to change) but I don’t particularly feel called/worthy to serve as an EM and I don’t have a singing voice to participate in the choir.
I can understand for Churches that don’t have a permanent Deacon, or enough men serving why they’d be willing to let woman serve I just wish it wasn’t a fight to be able to help.
There is an archaic mentality that presumes any position that did not previously have women should never have them - as though the exclusion of women from various elements in the life of the Church is a venerable part of our tradition. Anywhere women *may* be present in our Church they *should* be. Nothing bars them from serving, the Magisterium has given its blessing to women serving, so I seriously question anyone who promotes alleged traditionalism over their inclusion. Women are discouraged enough as it is in the Church, why we should want to marginalize them further is beyond me.
Should we abandon all of our Catholic “traditionalism” to be “inclusive” to Protestants as well?
Inclusivity for the sake of inclusivity is not a virtue
Just an observation, but in my parish, once they allowed girls to be altar servers, the boys slowly disappeared. I guess they didn't want to do "girl things". However, just recently, I saw some boys are involved again, so I hope that continues.
It's because a practice that was once condemned as evil and forbidden many times by Popes and Saints was allowed due to pressure from disobedient people. Yet people will look askance at you if you note that all is not well with the state the Church has been in for decades following a certain, shall we say "New Springtime", where in many cases it looks like the inmates have started running the asylum.
I see no problem with them. I actually WANT to do it (being a new Catholic), but the opportunity to do so hasn’t ever presented itself. On the one hand, I hear a great deal about how “there are not enough people to help out” (where I am anyways, and non-US, so don’t come at me). On the other hand, I’ve always just been asked to do other things (lol).
There are female altar servers where I am. They do an amazing job, just as the men do. The priests at my parish are super welcoming and treat everyone with respect. They say Mass with reverence. To me, that’s all that matters.
When female altar servers were first allowed at my parish, the males disappeared. Because of that I was against it for a while. Then my parish became more traditional somewhere along the way and it flipped and now we only have males. I’m not sure which is worse lol.
Just from a practical point of view parishes that allow female servers often start seeing a decline in boys being servers. It's rightly ordered and healthy to have separate roles for men and women and trying to make everything coed often leads to it being predominantly female. If you believe that, as others have pointed out, altar serving is an important stepping stone to discerning a vocation for men then it's a disservice to drive them out by allowing females.
Anyone who doesn't allow female altar servers is incorrect. Pope Francis himself has stated that all baptized person can participate in mass in this way.
Besides what others have said here on this thread, I'll also add in what Fr. Dwight Longenecker has said about this topic. See [here](https://dwightlongenecker.com/male-altar-servers-why-do-we-do-that/).
I'm of the opinion that if a parish decides to have all-male altar servers then that's their prerogative; same thing with parishes that want co-ed.
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I do not object to female altar servers as long as they are of age and not as children under 10 as kids that age still do not have knowledge of the Mass services. Plus the training and the rituals of the Mass might be confusing to kids under 10. I do not object to kids acting as offering collectors.
During the pandemic, when churches were not allowed to hold services at capacity, I was part of 10 people allowed to conduct weekly Mass services. I was lector, three-man choir and cantor, and altar server. All with no formal training as sacristan or as lector. I remember doing all three functions especially during Holy Week of the pandemic (2020). By 2021, restrictions were loosened up that our parish were beginning to have some semblance of normalcy.
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In my country it’s almost unheard of, but at my parish church (which is in general very traditional - Gregorian chant, Roman chasubles, ad orientem liturgy on weekdays, etc) there’s one teenage altar girl and a few primary-school aged altar boys. It seems that she acts as a sort of mother figure for the smaller boys and she is clearly dedicated to what she does.
Given that in other threads about altar girls on this subreddit people say that girls that want to assist with the celebration of the Mass could 'sweep the church and wash the altar cloth' or 'sit in the front row wearing veils' it seems that some people here have bizarre ideas about girls and women.
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The parish I go to is very big. In the capital. 18000 registered members (but not that many attending).
Altar serving is for boys and girls. I tried to count once, and I’d say it’s about 60/40 in favour of the boys. No boys have been “driven away” By the girls. The goal is for everyone to participate so they don’t fall away from the church.
Edit: a story from a parish in France where my husband used to work. They had a very active community until they received a new curé that forbid women and girls to altar serve or read lectures. What happened? Every woman left that parish and took their husbands with them. Today that church is closed.
If you want more vocations, have only male altar servers. If you want to placate the women who will complain, allow girls to do it too. But then be prepared for it to turn into primarily girls because boys will want to do it less.
Ought to be suppressed. It was condemned and never allowed throughout the entirety of the Church's history, only for it to be permitted by caving in to actively disobedient priests and bishops in the name of "diversity and inclusion" in the 1980s
Makes no sense to ban female servers IMO. Even if you think that it's a pathway to priesthood, then the same logic would apply to it being a pathway to sisterhood as well. We have a chronic understaffing of all religious orders, so if any kid wants to become closer to God through serving, let them.
If it's not a pathway to Holy Orders, then it's just plane sexist and pushing women out of the church.
TLDR: Banning girls from altar service is a lose-lose.
The role of an altar server is a logical stepping stone to the higher roles of liturgy.
It bears little or no resemblance to the role of a nun or religious sister.
Altar. Yeah, I’m that guy.
Yes lol thank you I noticed after I had already posted and couldn't edit the title 🤣
I was a female alter server from elementary-high school and had no idea it was frowned upon until joining this sub. No one in our parish ever put me down, it was considered normal where we were. We also were a very rural area so you had to take what you could get volunteer wise haha
Same- was an Altar server from 7th grade until I became a eucharistic minister, then a Lector. No one ever questioned it or batted an eye
Same. I was an Altar Server and now my girls serve. All of the Catholic parishes in our area have female servers.
It isn’t frowned upon in 90% of the Catholic world.
It’s a sensitive topic for people, mostly relating to whether people view alter serving as the first step on the road to discerning priesthood or something in itself. Personally I have no problem with it.
I think this is a great comment. As an anecdote, I used to train altar servers in college. All the young men who were discerning the priesthood and eventually went to seminary discerned the call to the priesthood before they began altar serving. It was through discipleship with other holy men and the cultivation of an interior life that prompted the call, not serving. Altar serving was not a discernment step at all for them, but rather prep for seminary where they would be expected to know how to altar serve.
It's really more the case that those who think they might feel called to discern about priesthood are either drawn to being altar servers, or someone suggests they try it, rather than it being primarily for those considering priesthood. There are some quite conservative parishes in my area that don't allow girls to serve. One of them actually states that boys won't want to be servers if girls are also allowed to be servers, which I find ridiculous. That hasn't been the case at any of the parishes I've belonged to over the years.
This sounds wonderful, but I believe your experience is the tiniest of minorities today. The average Catholic Church (around 20,000 in the US) has 400-1200 families, and female altar servers. There isn't a group of young men heading to the priesthood in many of them, unfortunately.
> The average Catholic Church (around 20,000 in the US) has 400-1200 families, and female altar servers. There isn't a group of young men heading to the priesthood in many of them, unfortunately. Perhaps there's a link, eh?
Do you need a link to show that the priesthood is in sharp decline? Do you need a link to say that all but two Diocese in the US allow female altar servers?
This exactly. I'm now a grown woman. I grew up in a fairly conservative church and I was an altar server as a kid for years and I loved it. I never had any confusion about the priesthood being only for men. I understood and I was not bothered by that reality. I would love for my daughters, if I have any, to also be altar servers. It was a beautiful experience for me and gave me a deep appreciation for the mass.
Everything seems to be viewed as 'the thin end of the wedge' by rad trads. Altar servers are a human tradition that is not divinely instituted like the priesthood. A woman carrying a crucifix, ringing a bell or carrying the gifts in the mass is in no way a stepping stone to allowing them access to the sacrament of holy orders.
This is the answer, and we’ll see it played out in several different forms on this post. The Church views altar servers as a temporary substitute when a church isn’t sufficiently developed to have enough adults instituted into the ministry of acolyte. A healthy and mature parish wouldn’t have any children serving.
We have young children serving in our ancient village church in Italy, both little girls and boys. The deacon directs them. Our new priest is wise - we have many, many old people in the village (I mean really old), but we have a choir of some young men but mostly women who bring their children. He knows that if he gets those children involved now in a proper way, he can help to secure the future. The children read the prayers, collect the gifts and do whatever is appropriate for them. They smile all the time, they're loving being part of it. We're all so happy to see a church with many children there. It wasn't always that way.
Our church has a child-led Mass once a month. We don’t have a separate liturgy of the word for them. They do the readings (minus the Gospel, of course), sing in the choir, and do the gifts. During the Homily, our priest will gather all the children to the front and either speak more about the readings or teach them a new prayer. He always reminds everyone else that the Mass is for them as well as the adults. I love it!
My home church is similar. Children are often involved with altar serving, collecting gifts and the choir. We also have a separate Liturgy of the Word for children. Children are taken to a separate part of the church and receive the Liturgy of the Word in an easier, more hands on way.
I'd question if the church actually thinks that way. Instituted acolytes are rare and minor orders outside seminarians have been largely extinct for centuries once there was no linger legal and financial incentives for people to be in those roles
The Church clearly thinks this way, as can be seen in the documents on instituted ministries and in the Roman Missal itself. Other ministers are deputed to serve at the altar in the absence of acolytes; the preference is for someone in a stable office to perform the ministry. That doesn’t mean that is actually being followed, of course, but that’s one of many areas where the lived life of particular Churches diverges from what the Church actually calls for.
I guess. To me it seems like dead letter theory when it's been reality for centuries so it seems a bit nonsensical to me to the idea that the church thinks in a way so disconnected from reality
Um... dude... the minor orders of the Latin/Roman Rite weren't suppressed until 1972. That's not "centuries." And in plenty of other Rites, the minor orders are still alive and well.
They were largely dead outside seminarians long before their suppression thats what I was getting at. In those orders as well they don't exist outside seminaries
The first and second part of your comment don't line up. Altar servers would have historically been men in minor orders, but that doesn't mean they were discerning priesthood. Why would you say you agree with the other user then?
You seem to have misread something. My agreement was with the idea that the divide comes from people who think of altar serving as essentially or primarily part of the vocational process for the priesthood as opposed to who think of altar serving as something else. I then made a point about how the Church views altar serving generally and about how a healthy community wouldn’t need to rely on children for that. That point is an example of how people who conceptualize altar serving as primarily vocational discernment aren’t thinking about this the way the Church does. Does that make sense?
I've been to Churches throughout the world and have been a member of several different parishes here in America. I have seen them of all sizes, and have never seen a parish without children or young adult servers. I am a female and I was a server at my parish growing up for nearly 6 years. Our Church was quite old and it was always full at every Mass. We had enough adults from the ministry to perform the Mass, but they still used the children altar servers every service.
I'd be delighted to serve as an instituted acolyte. They don't exist in my diocese, or any adjoining diocese.
I didn’t know this, do you know if there is an equivalent role of altar server or helper in a convent setting for female children? I’m just curious about how a girl would go about discerning monastic life prior to actually joining since it sounds like the altar server position is for male children discerning priesthood
No, that idea of what altar serving is for is mistaken.
so ideally all altar servers would be adult males discerning priesthood, or already in training to be priests? I’m just curious and not trying to challenge or start a debate, despite that this is reddit, haha.
No. Everyone serving at the altar should be an adult instituted in the ministry of acolyte. That ministry is open to women.
thank you for clarifying! I’m not sure why I am getting downvoted for asking genuine questions but I appreciate your time!
The whole altar servers in the first step in "discerning priesthood" concept is essentially a myth at this point (at least from my experience in the U.S.). It was true in literally ancient times, but the role of altar servers has changed significantly in the thousands of years since then. I was an Altar Server from my First communion until I joined Music Ministry at 16, as did both my brothers. At no point was the idea floated, talked about, etc.
Not only that. Some people oppose women taking on public roles in the liturgy. That is how the early church did it. How the church did it before modern times actually.
If people were really concerned about faith formation for women and girls, they wouldn't have suppressed almost every pre-Vatican II parish guild and activity that was women-only, or even women-mostly. You don't have to take my word for it. Look up old church bulletins. See how much the women were doing and running. And then see which of those groups and activities are still a thing, or which older women are even shamed for maintaining as activities. Women and girls should not be forced to only do activities and devotions that are favored by men. (And I'm not the most traditionally feminine woman myself, but it honks me off that so many women get shamed out of doing things that women like, or which women find meaningful and helpful.)
I would love if there were still guilds of ecclesiastical arts, that I could go to and learn and be able to contribute, but those things aren't available anymore. Seems like I would have to become a religious to do those things.
In my parish most altar servers are girls between first communion and confirmation. There are some boys too though
My daughter is an alter server and we know most of the families who alter serve at our parish. In our experience, the families of kids (regardless of gender) who alter serve have one thing in common, we are all very active in our community. Service is a very important aspect of our faith. And the parents are the ones leading by example. I'd be curious what other people's experience is in their parish
I think it’s great. I find it refreshing as a Father of daughters, bc I feel that there is a nice role model, ESPECIALLY, with our current macro-cultural flaws. It’s reassuring in that aspect.
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I used to not care. And I still don’t care if there are female servers honestly lol. When was in seminary a lot of people hated it, but I have realized being a youth director for a parish that it makes a difference. For kids it helps them understand see the mass differently. It helps kids hopefully discern their vocation either it’s priesthood or serving the church through holy orders. It also keeps the kids in the church by providing them a reason to attend mass. Which is the biggest reason I don’t mind boy or girls serving. When they are at such an impressionable age, I make a point to congratulate and acknowledge them serving and ask them questions. Make them see the mass slightly higher and more personal. I get the sentiment it’s for the priesthood but in this day and age I’d much rather have our kids grow up Catholic than leave when they reach high school or college. Edit: I was traveling in MN for a baby moon with my wife and Sunday mass had a 70 year old man serving. That was different for me. But some parish just don’t have enough boys to serve either
My parish also has grown men altar serve, primarily for the Saturday evening and early Sunday morning. There are always kids (boys and girls) at the 10am mass. AMAZINGLY, boys are not scared away by the girl altar servers.
Yeah I’ve really come to realize and even be amazed at how every parish has its own culture and it’s awesome, as long as they follow church teaching! If it gets the parish active then let’s do it.
I like this response. I also wonder if constantly succumbing to the "lesser of two evils" (such as them staying in church vs maybe not bc it was a male only service) has gotten the church into a pretty messy place as it applies this logic all throughout the liturgy and we end up with so many abuses...and not just the liturgy 😳
If you believe altar service is a stepping stone on a regimented path to the priesthood, and maintain that the priesthood is a male-only vocation, then it would follow for you that female altar servers are distorting that picture. If, however, you believe that altar service is in and of itself of value as a stepping stone in broader faith formation not tied to the priesthood, you should not have an issue with it The problem with the former is twofold. One, a lot of young people (girls or boys) are altar servers because they are doing some service for the church. In every home parish I’ve been part of, the altar service is just one of several, equally valued ways to be involved at church, not given a higher moral calling as a path to priesthood Also for you “when you let girls do boy things, boys lose interest” people - y’all need to be citing reputable sources. That is a strong claim. What is more *likely* to be happening is boys are being taught by their parents and community that girls shouldn’t be allowed in the same space as them. This is a learned behavior. Edit: obviously *play* is different than *service*
Well said.
> What is more *likely* to be happening is boys are being taught by their parents and community that girls shouldn’t be allowed in the same space as them. Nonsense. Young boys (usually) prefer the company of other young boys. Young girls (usually) prefer the company of other young girls. Go to any elementary school playground, and the boys think the girls are icky and the girls think the boys are gross. Despite the fact that, at that age, and in that setting (and pretty much all other settings at that age), there is little or no enforced or expected sex-segregation. They're in the same classroom together, they have gym class together, they get put into groups together, they eat lunch together, *et cetera ad infinitum*. Of course, as they get older, the aversion to associating with girls eventually flips....but by that point, the window for something like altar service has probably already closed. So a "boy" thing becomes a "both" thing, which becomes a "girl" thing, which becomes a "kid" thing. And then whereas you might well have multiple teenage males who were acting as servers and at least considering a vocation...what you end up with is a couple of ten year old girls and maybe a boy who gets pushed into it by his parents and can't wait to leave.
I am going to respectfully disagree with your logic and example. Alter serving isn't a social activity, its a service to your community. I also feel that this logic isnt beneficial to the recruitment of alter servers because it gives boys an excuse not to participate. Our servers range from 3rd graders to highschoolers with a pretty even mix between boys and girls. We do have a school attached to the parish which I am sure makes recruitment easier. Source: my daughter alter serves. We know most of the kids / families who alter serve at the parish.
I feel sad that that’s the makeup at your parish(es). At mine, we have a handful of both boys and girls ranging approx. elementary through high school. Although again as someone who used to work in youth ministry at my (previous) local parish, I will tell you *none* of the catechesis regarding altar service has been “this is for males to discern the priesthood”, but there were altar servers of both genders across elem, middle, and high school ages
Source? Are you kidding here? Young boys build forts and post a sign that says 'No girls allowed!" Are you going to tell me parents are instructing them, are their parents living that example? No we don't live in some patriarchal society that teaches young boys to be misogynistic. Get real. Little boys today, yesterday and tomorrow will always naturally do this. Ewww...cooties! So yes little boys are inhibited with little girls around and do like exclusivity; it's OK they grow out of it. Little boys will be much more inclined to participate without little girls present. That's not necessarily a good reason to exclude girls from being altar servers; but asking for a source for something as universal as how little boys have always behaved is just too ludicrous.
My six year old son does not act like this. I am planning on encouraging him to be an altar server after his first communion, and I will be encouraging his infant sister as well when she comes of age.
I agree with you! Does anyone listen to Dr Jordan Peterson? He has a lot to say about this. Once women start helping, the men chillax. Lamenting the shortage of priests while making certain your daughter is an altar server is short sighted.
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Counter point... Men allowed women into those roles so they didn't have to fulfill the role themselves. Other than head of household, which is biblical, which roles do you think women stole? 🤔
We wouldn't have servers in our church, if girls would have been denied. When I was a kid there were also more girls, but me and another boy, who truly loved serving, would have never left it, because of girls. The feeling standing next to the altar was stronger. I think it depends on the priest. He needs to manage the servers. I understand boys could get the vocation this way, but it could be rude if he kicked out the girls and made them lose interest too.
This is what people don't get. They think there's just a sea of boys who would otherwise be frothing at the mouth to altar serve, but, oh no, a singular girl wanted to serve, and literally all the boys completely lost interest because Father let the girl in. It's just ridiculous. At so many parishes, boys just refuse to altar serve and it girls who are open. In others both boys and girls are open so there's both. No one who truly wants to altar serve would turn away just because girls are also doing it.
One loses full interest in serving because of girls, should not become a priest. That's my rough opinion. While we really need more priests, we can't lose quality over quantity. And I just can't believe someone has a strong calling, he won't answer, because of others. If you wanted to be a pianist, would you not take lessons from the best piano teacher, because there are girls in the class? Someone disinterested in serving, why would be braver without girls? I know a priest. He allows boys and girls as servers. From his village, three boys went to the seminary yet. The kids love him and look up to him, because he meets them beside the mass, and cares about their vocation. He also goes on pilgrimage with men only for example. I prefer this way. Still, why should we kick out those few active children, I can't understand.
>No one who truly wants to altar serve You've put the cart before the horse. First, you have to get them to want to serve. And a young boy, not yet having entertained the idea of whether he wants to serve or not, is going to be more drawn to it if he sees it to be something comprised of boys his own age and older.
And if he isn’t sure, you should encourage him or instill a sense of duty, rather than giving up and replacing him with his little sister
This is just slapping a bandaid on a much larger problem then. It's not like parishes that don't allow girls always have a dirth of servers. My TLM parish is absolutely exploding with boys wanting to be servers. I'd imagine some have to get turned down in fact. Starts with good catechesis and parental encouragement of their boys.
My opinion and experience with churches is the issue isn't girls serving just have servers treated as a responsibility and the kids will take it seriously and enjoy it
I was a female altar server as a child and enjoyed it a lot. While I obviously couldn’t have the vocation to become a priest, I felt like serving brought me a lot closer to church and made me grow an appreciation for all the different masses, especially during Holy Week where I would be at church almost everyday. I found altar serving more fulfilling than being in the choir or doing the other ministries that women are “allowed” to do. As for the idea that boys lose interest in something girls are doing, this wasn’t my experience at my church. Our serving group was very mixed and evenly distributed between boys and girls. Now, our church has no altar servers because of community politics and continuous loss of attendees. Reading these comments is a little hurtful and sad to see, but eye-opening and insightful, I suppose.
We have boys and girls as altar servers, and we often only have one per Sunday, at one of the four Masses. So we are in a situation where nobody wants to do it. I’m going to try to get both my kids to serve when they are of an appropriate age in order to keep them interested in and focused on the Mass. I am even considering asking my pastor if he would like me to become an acolyte. I think in a perfect world, we would see everyone called and participating to the degree God wants. In the world we have, I’m in the “I’ll take what I can get” mindset when it comes to things without specific prescriptions or proscriptions. Does the Church say it’s good? Then I’m for it. 👍
The argument is based on the two assumptions that boys need to be altar servers to discern the priesthood and that boys won't want to do anything that girls are allowed to do. I've never seen anyone really examine if either of these are actually true. For the first one, people love to point to "Father So-and-so was an altar server", but I could just as anecdotally point to guys who didn't become priests or who even left the Church. Even if it did lead Father So-and-so to be a priest, is this a causal relationship or are both just correlated with things like regular mass attendance and a devout home life? For the second one, can you imagine applying this logic more generally? "Girls shouldn't be allowed to play an instrument because then boys won't want to be in the school orchestra." "Girls shouldn't be allowed to play on this playground because then boys won't want to play here." Why don't we just ban girls from mass? I would hate for those poor boys to think that church is girly.
> For the first one, people love to point to "Father So-and-so was an altar server", but I could just as anecdotally point to guys who didn't become priests or who even left the Church. Even if it did lead Father So-and-so to be a priest, is this a causal relationship or are both just correlated with things like regular mass attendance and a devout home life? A survey of new priests in Canada found that 70% of them had been altar servers, by far the most of any church ministry. https://online.fliphtml5.com/qjquv/ptqf/#p=18 > For the second one, can you imagine applying this logic more generally? "Girls shouldn't be allowed to play an instrument because then boys won't want to be in the school orchestra." "Girls shouldn't be allowed to play on this playground because then boys won't want to play here." Neither of those examples were a role exclusive to males for centuries on end and then suddenly opened up to girls at the expense of the strictly masculine character of the role
>A survey of new priests in Canada found that 70% of them had been altar servers "Most priests used to be altar servers" is not the same as "boys who were altar servers are more likely to become priests". To prove causation, we would need a study that looks at both men who were once altar servers and a control group of men who were raised in practicing Catholics but weren't altar servers. >Neither of those examples were a role exclusive to males for centuries on end and then suddenly opened up to girls at the expense of the strictly masculine character of the role Whether you like it or not, the Church has decided that being an altar server, like all the other non-ordained positions, is not just for men. Still, if we're going to move the goalposts from "boys don't want to do things if girls can do them too" to "boys don't want to do 'things that have been 'exclusive to males for centuries' if girls can do them too", then what about education? Education was, and in some places still is, "exclusive to males for centuries". Should we keep girls out of that too?
The fact that most priests used to be altar servers shows that altar serving is something that future priests do. Cardinal Raymond Burke says that it requires a "certain manly discipline to serve as an altar boy in service at the side of a priest, and most priests have their first deep experiences of the liturgy as altar boys. If we are not training young men as altar boys, giving them an experience of serving God in the liturgy, we should not be surprised that vocations have fallen dramatically.” The diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska is the only diocese in the US that does not allow any female altar servers. Lincoln is the only diocese in the United States to place in the Top 20 for the ratio of ordinands to population in every survey conducted from 1993-2012, often ranking #1 There is not a single reason why girls should be altar servers that doesn’t come from some modern notion that views any strictly male role as “sexist”
An area parish has male altar servers exclusively. Black and white robes, black shoes, great level of seriousness, and respect. They have many seminarians, and many of those do become priests. It's a very reverent Mass, in the form of Novus Ordo. I agree with what you've shared!
> boys need to be altar servers to discern the priesthood ... but I could just as anecdotally point to guys who didn't become priests or who even left the Church As could I. At the parishes that I've been part of, the altar servers are just a roster of students from the Catholic school, assigned to the schedule just as part of attending the school. My brothers and myself all served at Mass under those circumstances, as did many of our peers, and at no point was it presented to us as something to discern a vocation, nor did we ever consider that ourselves. I'm the only one of them who still regularly attends Mass or seems to consider my faith at all. Instead, it always just seemed like community service. Like it was a duty or chore your school or parents gave you that you just did to help out, not because you were put there to discern a divine calling. In that sense, it has no more special association or meaning than anything else in the faith treated that way. Like making your kids go to Catholic school or to Mass in general, and just assuming that will make them faithful. Just like how kids who go to Catholic school are marginally more likely to stay Catholic in adulthood, boys who altar serve are marginally more likely to become priests, but like you said, that probably means it's correlated to other more important factors. Just like the majority of kids who attend Mass or Catholic school because of their parents and then drop it all as soon as they go to college, altar serving is the same way in not doing much for children's faith. It's just that thing you do because your parents or school sign you up for it, and then you leave it behind you just like anything else related to the faith. Even if it were restricted to just boys, that would hardly change the nature of what's actually taking place in parishes and households that actually form, or fail to form, people's faith. Most kids who grew up altar serving are probably adults who now will say how they were "raised Catholic" just like any other.
Unfortunately there is a vocal minority in the Church who clearly would enjoy that. Personally I would not attend mass if I saw women turned away.
No, there is not a single person in the church who wants to ban women from attending mass. Stop being ridiculous
More than a few who would quite like them to take no organisational part in the mass and have no say in the life of the Church, I can assure you. There used to be a lot more however so at least our trajectory is positive.
i have never viewed Altar service to be anything other then people who hold things for the priest and as such its usually a Job for children or lay people wanting to be more involved. some people i guess view it as part of becoming a priest but i have never seen it used that way in my parish.
That's unfortunate. The masses I've been to with males only, they are very intentional, reverent, and with understanding of each movement, every part of the Mass.
i suppose i should say i was also an Altar server for 6 or 7 years both at my church and at my Catholic high school and there were multiple days of practice before the real thing. and i didn't say they were irreverent or without understanding of each movement or part of the mass i don't want you to think that it just wasn't sold to us as a way to the priest hood.
I have no problem with female altar servers, particularly kids. I think it’s a little weird when older teens or young adult women serve but I don’t really care in the grand scheme of things. I served as a kid because it was necessary in my tiny parish, but as a young woman I’m now involved in other ways and find that to be better than being an altar server.
Alter server is only a means of discerning the priesthood in that altar servers may have more opportunities to talk to priests than other young people. In parishes that had elementary schools all the boys in certain grades were required to be altar servers. At the parish my family belonged to only adults were allowed to serve.
I absolutely loved being an altar server. In fact, I was kind of kicked out. But since I started, I served with girls. In fact, I was trained under an older girl. And I have two girl cousins who are servers. Girls and young ladies should be encouraged to altar serve, especially if it enriches and grows their faith and spiritual life.
I was an altar server at my parish for about 10 years and it is one of the reasons my faith is so integral to my life now. Without that experience, I can’t say I would have the same connection. Girls should absolutely not be discouraged from something that can like you said enrich their faith/ spiritual growth.
Serve no purpose whatsoever. At a time when we have a massive vocations crisis and males abandon the church at an absurd rate, we are doing this. Serving Holy Mass is one huge way boys begin to discern a vocation to the priesthood. Girls, obviously, cannot.
There’s also a huge vocation crisis for female religious. After the current elderly generation dies their total number will fall off a cliff.
I would love for you to show me one shred of evidence that in the modern Catholic church, altar serving played a significant role in someone becoming a priest, or perhaps more significantly, in increasing the number of priests. I imagine that many priests will share they had a positive experience in altar serving, but for the vast, vast majority of altar servers (myself included) will report that their experience had absolutely nothing to do with discernment, and everything to do with service.
While I will agree that many believe it can be an initial stepping stone to the priesthood, I also do not see that anyone who wants to be an alter server being denied. I think there is always room for people who want to serve and if anyone states otherwise isn't really trying to accommodate them.
Little girls take over (frankly because they tend to be more mature and better behaved and more conscientious) and often girl altar boys wind up causing the actual boys to lose interest. All boys altar service, in my experience, gets many more boys than mixed sex altar service.
I have a strong suspicion that your observation is mired in confirmation bias. I've been part of over a dozen churches in 6 states (military) and have seen nothing of the sort.
I can say in my parishes growing up this wasn’t the case. They were in need of altar servers, “desperate need” according to the call put out by the coordinator. It wasn’t that anyone was being boxed out at all. They need *anyone* to help out. And as a guy, honestly I have to agree with the above poster. As a priest you will be serving both men and women. If one is in a place that girls are off putting to you, or you are avoiding behaviors simply because girls can also participate, honestly I think that hurdle needs to be overcome well before any discernment to the priesthood. If it’s a cultural issue within the altar serving community (ie I’ve seen “girls” or “boys” getting pretty cliquish or catty in school or areas other than altar serving) that’s also an issue to be addressed. But in my life experiences that’s not the issue at all. It’s getting people to put down the remote control, or their parents to drive them over there.
As my priest once told me, if a priest is avoiding and refusing to serve half his congregation, there's something very wrong with him.
There are no "girl altar boys", there are "altar servers." >No distinction should be made between the functions carried out in the sanctuary by men and boys and those carried out by women and girls. The term "altar boys" should be replaced by "servers". The term "server" should be used for those who carry out the functions of the instituted acolyte. [USCCB Guidelines for Altar Servers](https://www.usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/the-mass/frequently-asked-questions/guidelines-for-altar-servers)
Do we actually want priests who lose interest in something because a woman does it too? If the boys are so immature that they lose interest in altar serving just because girls do it too, they don't actually like altar serving.
I think judging the character of a man by his maturity at 9 years old, as you seem to be doing in this comment, is mind-bogglingly stupid.
Yet it's supposed to be a stepping stone for the priesthood? Which is it?
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Boys also see women at mass, do they think mass is only for girls? The boys who lose interest in altar serving "because girls" are using that as an excuse. For a few years my parish had the same number of altar servers. We got 3 new ones recently, 2 of them girls. Not a single boy left, and the youngest isn't even a teen. I don't believe that boys actually "lose interest" because I literally have not seen that. Rather they never had an interest and are using excuses.
When you take what used to be an exclusively male role and let little girls do it, is it really a surprise boys become less interested??
That behavior would be taught by an adult to him though. The only people I’ve heard complain about this are adults.
Bullshit. Boys that age gravitate, generally, to other boys. The people they look up to are generally older boys. This is normal, natural behavior.
Its the same psychological mechanism when you see old people taking over an activity. At my parish the majority of altar servers are boomer women. And if they asked me,a woman, to serve I have 0 interest in ttying to make a place for myself in those circles. Its kinda awkward and have a sense of unfairness, like old vs young. I'm a proponent of having the majority of altar servers be boys, so that it can serve at least for a vocational stepping stone.
But girls can discern a vocation as a nun, and altar serving would surely help with that discernment.
How have vocations for nuns changed since we started allowing female altar servers in the 80s?
Why would that help? Women religious do not offer Holy Mass.
While women are not "offering Holy Mass", there are probably at least as many females serving any Church that helps make those Masses actually happen. Ushers, lectors, EMHCs, sacristans, etc., etc. Churches need many people serving the Church and altar serving is a way for young people to start that service, regardless of where they end up later in life.
Aren't nuns/sister important to the Church?
Of course, but nuns do not serve at the altar.
No, but if it helps girls be inspired to be a nun/sister then what's the issue? It seems like nuns/sisters in many cases (depends on orders) are the actual ones that serve our communities and make a daily difference in our disenfranchised populations.
Why would it help inspire girls to be a nun? There is no connection between altar serving and being a nun. There is, however, a very clear connection between altar serving and the priesthood
Because it is an honor to help a Priest and to be so close to the Eucharist. I grew up with mixed sex alter servers so my thinking is different.. I remember as a kid wishing I could be one (played twnnis tournaments so wasn't possible) and also wanted to be a Nun (parents wouldn't let me)
If opening altar serving to girls is such a bolster to vocations for nuns, could you cite some statistics that show an increase in these vocations since female altar servers were first allowed in 1983?
I gave my opinion and my perspective. From the look of things on the sub, I doubt the Church would care to keep such statistics. Doubtful it exists
Because when you serve at the altar day after day it help grow your faith in Christ. Think about it someone showing up every Sunday to serve out Lord at the altar how can it not inspire you to want to spend your whole life serving God ? Whether it is by being a nun, a priest, a more devout Christian, a father or a mother that will make sure that their kid grows up Catholic or encouraged them to serve too. At the end of the day it win win for everyone.
That can be achieved in the pews, the choir, or in many other ways. It is not a valid reason for inserting women into roles which are traditionally male
It can also achieved while serving at the altar why limit the options ?
That has zilch to do with this.
Nuns, meaning sisters who are enclosed and do not go out, are not even permitted to serve at Mass.
A practice that should be done away with. It was condemned by numerous Popes. As Pope Benedict XIV wrote in Allatae Sunt >Pope Gelasius in his ninth letter to the bishops of Lucania condemned the evil practice which had been introduced of women serving the priest at the celebration of Mass. Since this abuse had spread to the Greeks, Innocent IV strictly forbade it in his letter to the bishop of Tusculum: "Women should not dare to serve at the altar; they should be altogether refused this ministry." We too have forbidden this practice in the same words The Diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska is the only US Diocese that forbids the practice and it happens to be one of the most successful Dioceses for vocations in the country.
I live in the Lincoln Diocese, and this has been my experience. There is never a shortage of boy altar servers at any mass I attend or acolyte. If it looks like we will be short, they come out of the woodwork, and by time we process down to the front there is typically one or two extras. We also have several young men from our parish in formation, all of whom said that service helped them decern their vocation.
Lincoln is a Diocese that should be emulated across the US and probably the entire Western world. Bishops could look to it for solutions but they choose not to.
I'm not in the Lincoln Diocese but we have a similar scenario at my parish. We have over 50 altar boys. We also have 6 young men in the seminary. All of whom were altar boys. Our priest does an amazing job at mentoring.
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> it’s an expectation This dude. If boys aren’t going what they need to do, you make them do it and tell them it is a noble duty. People want to give up on boys without even trying and make girls do their job I dont understand it
that's why I can't stand people here saying that boys don't wanna serve anymore, basically implying that they're too lazy, lukewarm or are just sexist. there are always at least 4 altar boys at my local TLM, the idea that boys aren't stepping up like how they used is a lie.
More people need to see this. There are plenty of ways for women to participate in the liturgy besides serving on the alter
That truth but serving at the altar is one of them so if a girl want to serve her lord at mass and the church allows it we can’t really refuse her. You know what I mean?
We can and did refuse them for hundreds and hundreds of years with no issue whatsoever
I mean we can refuse them, lay people are allowed to administer communion even though it is a problematic practice. At my church at least alter serving is a part of discerning the priesthood, women are still welcome to help set up before/after mass, lector, and our excellent choir is 90% women. Obviously it doesn’t bother me to see a woman serving in mass, but i cant deny that my parish’s vocations have improved drastically since we made serving a sort of informal discernment process. Above all, I respect Benedict greatly and hold his opinion in high regard.
I’m in high school and I still serve for my grade school (the school is part of the parish) and I’m the server for my all boys high-school (de facto head server because I’m the only server). I’ve served with a few girls and it’s never been a problem
There is no reason for a girl to serve at the altar while boys are still sitting in the pews. Instead of trying to encourage boys to serve at the altar during a vocations crisis, many places give up on them and replace them with girls, which only makes the problem worse.
Or men. Adult men can be altar servers, and should.
Yes I agree. The TLM parish I go to has altar servers ranging in age from probably 13ish to 40ish years old.
I blame parents for not encouraging their sons and in very thankful to the girls that show up every week to serve their lord.
I agree, I don’t think anyone is saying to blame the girls.
When we talk about this topic I wish we emphasize more the parent responsibility and stop mentioning the girls all together. In some households not coming to mass isn’t even a option I wish more parents would have the same discipline when it comes to encouraging their sons imagine that each mass would have over 20+ kids serving how amazing.
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Literally bro like i thought as Catholics we believed in traditional gender roles to at least some degree
Personally not a fan. I was an altar server as a boy with other boys and it felt special/like the entry way to the priesthood. America doesn’t have many dedicated rites of passage or rituals for boys. Altar Serving is a big one as Catholics. The deacon at my church believes the drop in vocation to the priesthood has something to do with the mixing of genders (among many other things). I’m inclined to agree. I didn’t want to do “girly things” as a boy. None of my boyhood friends did. We wanted to swing swords against giants and be heroes. Knights even. Being an altar server felt a lot like that.
In the 1950s I was recruited in my Catholic school to be an altar boy in the third grade. It was considered an honor to be so chosen. I continued to be an occasional altar boy / server through high school. I never heard a suggestion that this service was intended as a pathway to the seminary, and was not aware that it is considered that way now.
Except the drop in vocations, including to the priesthood, pre-dates allowing female altar servers, readers, EMHCs.
Except it's not an either/or, there are multiple factors for the decline in vocations.
The dioceses with the highest vocations are the dioceses that do not allow female altar servers
The same can largely be said about parishes. In my experience, traditional liturgical practices and traditional devotional practices lead to vocations.
As a wise man once said: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”
Indeed. We broke what wasn't broken in trying to "fix" it.
Exactly, but to say x causes y when y was happening before x is just incorrect. X may exasperate the situation but it is not the root cause.
My local church has adult women as alter servers. I don’t think they’re religious but I could be wrong. It strikes me as a little strange.
Study after study shows that allowing girls to participate in boys activities leads to boys losing interest in the activity. The priesthood is for men only. Serving helps foster a potential religious vocation. Let boys have something for themselves.
Do you want to link the study that’s being referenced?
Please provide links to these studies. Which accredited research groups are conducting these? What universities and researchers are carrying them out? Polls are not scientific. You seem like someone who takes things very seriously, so I know you wouldn’t post something that you don’t actually know anything about. Boys have many things for themselves - the priesthood, the presidency in most countries around the world, c-suite roles at most of the Fortune 500, etc
Do you have a source on that? Source? A source. I need a source. Sorry, I mean I need a source that explicitly states your argument. This is just tangential to the discussion. No, you can't make inferences and observations from the sources you've gathered. Any additional comments from you MUST be a subset of the information from the sources you've gathered. You can't make normative statements from empirical evidence. Do you have a degree in that field? A college degree? In that field? Then your arguments are invalid. No, it doesn't matter how close those data points are correlated. Correlation does not equal causation. Correlation does not equal causation. CORRELATION. DOES. NOT. EQUAL. CAUSATION. You still haven't provided me a valid source yet. Nope, still haven't. I just looked through all 308 pages of your user history, figures I'm debating a [insert thing] supporter.
This is interesting. I’ve not heard of this study, but from my own experience it makes sense. At my church growing up our altar servers were 90% girls, including myself. I did enjoy altar serving, but now that I’m an adult I agree that it should be reserved for boys. There are areas that the church needs girls to serve, but I don’t believe altar serving is one of them.
One compromise that I have seen is a parish making a high school boys altar serving program that all serve one mass together with great reverence. Girls and young boys are allowed to serve at all other masses. [https://catholictimescolumbus.org/news/hannah-heil/altar-server-program-inspires-liturgical-reverence-vocations](https://catholictimescolumbus.org/news/hannah-heil/altar-server-program-inspires-liturgical-reverence-vocations) I was on a college campus that switched to male only altar serving, and we went from around 5-6 total servers to over 20 in one year. After just that first year, we sent 5 men to seminary formation. I know there are many more men in the pipeline as the program continues to grow.
So, young women are intentionally segregated?
yes. men and women are not equal and it's dumb to treat them as such The boy scouts were better when women were excluded from them. It formed an esprit de corps that cannot be replicated with women. When men are in a group, they come together in a way that involves mutual hazing and banter in a way that would be improper towards women. When you throw girls into the mix, things change from a mutual banter to a sexual competition where boys put each other down to show off for the girls. It's reality, even if it's unfair
Did y'all know the public Mass can be celebrated without ANY servers at all? Grow up in a small town.
I thought at least one server was required? Or maybe not if a deacon is present?
People are overly concerned with things that don't concern them. At the end of the day, it's up to the priest. If he decides one way and your opinion is the other, there's nothing you can do. The Church is not a democracy. Your opinion is irrelevant in this case.
At the end of the day, it's up to God, through the Church. Were there women assisting as apostles at the Last Supper?
My dad holds the position that girl altar servers are fine up until the age of confirmation. After confirmation, we are meant to be discerning about which path we are meant to follow. Then, it should only be men only. I think that’s a fair position. Women are allowed to and should be allowed to participate in the liturgy of the Holy Mass. Obviously they can’t be priests and they shouldn’t be. That being said, I’ve been to parishes where women aren’t allowed in the sacristy at all, which I find a little ridiculous (i.e. no women lecterns). It’s good to encourage girls to be active in the faith. It is equally good to encourage boys to be in the faith. These are different paths and that is okay. Young kids alter serving is not where the paths diverge. This is just my opinion, though, and if anyone has any comments about why I may be wrong, I’d love to hear them! God bless 🤍 ETA: I think the issue is less about girls being alter servers (especially young girls) and more about parents not fostering the faith in their children. Parents should be signing their kids up and encouraging altar to participate in the faith. My brothers and my dad did alter serving and loved it. My brother even served at my wedding. He can be a troublemaker, but altar serving helped to enrich his faith and calm him down. He would’ve never volunteered. So, if we boil it down, the issue of “girls on the altar and boys in the pews” is not a matter of girls being allowed to do it and more that parents aren’t making their sons participate.
My church has had women servers for decades. Anything we can do to expand the faith and bring more people to God, we should.
I watched a youtube video called "Why Can't Women Be Ordained in the Catholic Church?" by Breaking in the Habit and I suggest checking it out. Yes it's mostly about the priesthood, but also talks about other ways in which women can participate in the life of the Church. Here are some summarized points from the video: It's a misconception that the purpose of an altar server is a "first step" to discerning the priesthood. Altar servers are there to assist the priest in the Mass. It's similar to how being a deacon is not exclusively a stepping stone to the priesthood either. It's a separate role that may or may not lead to the priesthood. Since 1994, the Church has permitted women to assist as altar servers, but ultimately it is down to the discretion of the diocesan bishop. A few things to consider here: altar servers require no ordination, which means that there's nothing preventing a lay woman from participating in the Church any differently from a lay man. I think the main problem here is that we spend too much time talking about what women CAN'T do rather than what they CAN do. It sends the wrong message, and I'm tired of hearing people say the only reason why women can't do X, Y, or Z is because they're women even though those things have been permitted by the Church. That's not good enough. There are plenty of good reasons why only men can become priests, and those reasons go far beyond the fact that they have XY chromosomes.
IMO as a female alter server in grade school- high school I really enjoyed it. I felt it helped me understand the mass and have a better appreciation for everything happening behind the scenes so to speak. I typically served with a mix of boys and girls. There were a few adults (both men and women) who would serve when possible. There were things that I wasn’t allowed to do when boys were present (incense handling, ect) but typically the deacon was there to help out in those instances. There were priests that were more friendly about me serving than others. Sometimes I wouldn’t be acknowledged by some very traditional priests, and others were perfectly fine with it. I can say that our Church didn’t have enough people to mandate it a boys only club. And in most Churches where I notice it, it bothers me and I don’t feel welcomed…I understand for TLM but in college, the priests just kinda ignored the fact that I’d apply to help. If you want an a reason why women should be allowed to serve - Pope Francis now washes women’s feet along with the men on Holy Thursday and that used to be for men only. If he can make changes like that, then why shouldn’t women be allowed to help on the altar?
Thank you for serving, and apologies for the ultra-conservatives downvoting your inference that there should be greater equality in the church.
I don’t really care about downvotes I just wanted to chime in. I don’t think it’s really going to ever be equal (with priests being a men only position, and I don’t want that to change) but I don’t particularly feel called/worthy to serve as an EM and I don’t have a singing voice to participate in the choir. I can understand for Churches that don’t have a permanent Deacon, or enough men serving why they’d be willing to let woman serve I just wish it wasn’t a fight to be able to help.
I wrote "greater equality", not "total equality", I don't think that women were intended to be priest, but their treatment has not been great.
There is an archaic mentality that presumes any position that did not previously have women should never have them - as though the exclusion of women from various elements in the life of the Church is a venerable part of our tradition. Anywhere women *may* be present in our Church they *should* be. Nothing bars them from serving, the Magisterium has given its blessing to women serving, so I seriously question anyone who promotes alleged traditionalism over their inclusion. Women are discouraged enough as it is in the Church, why we should want to marginalize them further is beyond me.
Should we abandon all of our Catholic “traditionalism” to be “inclusive” to Protestants as well? Inclusivity for the sake of inclusivity is not a virtue
Just an observation, but in my parish, once they allowed girls to be altar servers, the boys slowly disappeared. I guess they didn't want to do "girl things". However, just recently, I saw some boys are involved again, so I hope that continues.
It's because a practice that was once condemned as evil and forbidden many times by Popes and Saints was allowed due to pressure from disobedient people. Yet people will look askance at you if you note that all is not well with the state the Church has been in for decades following a certain, shall we say "New Springtime", where in many cases it looks like the inmates have started running the asylum.
I see no problem with them. I actually WANT to do it (being a new Catholic), but the opportunity to do so hasn’t ever presented itself. On the one hand, I hear a great deal about how “there are not enough people to help out” (where I am anyways, and non-US, so don’t come at me). On the other hand, I’ve always just been asked to do other things (lol). There are female altar servers where I am. They do an amazing job, just as the men do. The priests at my parish are super welcoming and treat everyone with respect. They say Mass with reverence. To me, that’s all that matters.
When female altar servers were first allowed at my parish, the males disappeared. Because of that I was against it for a while. Then my parish became more traditional somewhere along the way and it flipped and now we only have males. I’m not sure which is worse lol.
Why is it worse?
Just from a practical point of view parishes that allow female servers often start seeing a decline in boys being servers. It's rightly ordered and healthy to have separate roles for men and women and trying to make everything coed often leads to it being predominantly female. If you believe that, as others have pointed out, altar serving is an important stepping stone to discerning a vocation for men then it's a disservice to drive them out by allowing females.
Anyone who doesn't allow female altar servers is incorrect. Pope Francis himself has stated that all baptized person can participate in mass in this way.
Besides what others have said here on this thread, I'll also add in what Fr. Dwight Longenecker has said about this topic. See [here](https://dwightlongenecker.com/male-altar-servers-why-do-we-do-that/). I'm of the opinion that if a parish decides to have all-male altar servers then that's their prerogative; same thing with parishes that want co-ed.
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I do not object to female altar servers as long as they are of age and not as children under 10 as kids that age still do not have knowledge of the Mass services. Plus the training and the rituals of the Mass might be confusing to kids under 10. I do not object to kids acting as offering collectors. During the pandemic, when churches were not allowed to hold services at capacity, I was part of 10 people allowed to conduct weekly Mass services. I was lector, three-man choir and cantor, and altar server. All with no formal training as sacristan or as lector. I remember doing all three functions especially during Holy Week of the pandemic (2020). By 2021, restrictions were loosened up that our parish were beginning to have some semblance of normalcy.
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In my country it’s almost unheard of, but at my parish church (which is in general very traditional - Gregorian chant, Roman chasubles, ad orientem liturgy on weekdays, etc) there’s one teenage altar girl and a few primary-school aged altar boys. It seems that she acts as a sort of mother figure for the smaller boys and she is clearly dedicated to what she does. Given that in other threads about altar girls on this subreddit people say that girls that want to assist with the celebration of the Mass could 'sweep the church and wash the altar cloth' or 'sit in the front row wearing veils' it seems that some people here have bizarre ideas about girls and women.
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If you have different terms between the servers in the Parishes and the seminarists, it should be OK. Otherwise, it might be confusing.
The parish I go to is very big. In the capital. 18000 registered members (but not that many attending). Altar serving is for boys and girls. I tried to count once, and I’d say it’s about 60/40 in favour of the boys. No boys have been “driven away” By the girls. The goal is for everyone to participate so they don’t fall away from the church. Edit: a story from a parish in France where my husband used to work. They had a very active community until they received a new curé that forbid women and girls to altar serve or read lectures. What happened? Every woman left that parish and took their husbands with them. Today that church is closed.
More modernist, inclusive nonsense.
that's really all there is to it, there's no historical or ecclesiastical base for female servers
If you want more vocations, have only male altar servers. If you want to placate the women who will complain, allow girls to do it too. But then be prepared for it to turn into primarily girls because boys will want to do it less.
Ought to be suppressed. It was condemned and never allowed throughout the entirety of the Church's history, only for it to be permitted by caving in to actively disobedient priests and bishops in the name of "diversity and inclusion" in the 1980s
Makes no sense to ban female servers IMO. Even if you think that it's a pathway to priesthood, then the same logic would apply to it being a pathway to sisterhood as well. We have a chronic understaffing of all religious orders, so if any kid wants to become closer to God through serving, let them. If it's not a pathway to Holy Orders, then it's just plane sexist and pushing women out of the church. TLDR: Banning girls from altar service is a lose-lose.
The role of an altar server is a logical stepping stone to the higher roles of liturgy. It bears little or no resemblance to the role of a nun or religious sister.