Altar Servers with Gender-based Roles

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PetraG

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First of all, before we start, let’s be clear that I do understand that the USCCB guidelines for altar servers say “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” and “The determination that women and girls may function as servers in the liturgy should be made by the bishop on the diocesan level so that there might be a uniform diocesan policy.” (http://www.usccb.org/prayer-and-wor...ed-questions/guidelines-for-altar-servers.cfm) but that these are guidelines that a bishops may elect to use, rather than binding rules. I totally get that; but in any event that is NOT my question.

My question is this: does anyone here have EXPERIENCE with parishes that have both male and female altar servers but do have differences in the roles carried out by the boys and those carried out by girls?

If so, in your experience, how has that worked out? A parish in my area is changing from a program in which both boys and girls served without any distinctions to one that has some distinctions, but only for older servers given more advanced duties that the younger servers do not have.

That still seems odd to me, but I’d like to know what those who have experience with this–either in having done this or having seen it done or just in helping out with altar server training generally–have to say about the idea. I don’t want to get specific about how the division of duties between older/younger and boys/girls looks on the local level because (a) I don’t want to prejudice the answers that come in and (b) I don’t want this to become a critique about a particular parish’s program. I am asking about how this idea works on a practical level and in the general sense.
 
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PetraG said:
I am asking about how this idea works on a practical level and in the general sense.
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I am the head MC of my parish and am very interested from this angle as well.

It seems logistically messy
 
Do you have male and female MCs, or is that something for adult men only?
 
PetraG said:
does anyone here have EXPERIENCE with parishes that have both male and female altar servers but do have differences in the roles carried out by the boys and those carried out by girls?
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No, absolutely not. The roles are the same, and boys and girls interchange between the roles of cross bearer, candle bearers, and handling incense.
 
PetraG said:
older servers given more advanced duties that the younger servers do not have.
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That doesn’t have anything to do with sex, though.

That makes sense. Our 8 year olds don’t handle the thurible or hot charcoal and incense. Our high schoolers do that, boys and girls.
 
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Theprodigalson84j said:
Girls should not serve the altar. This modernism needs to end.
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That is also not my question. As noted in the OP, the USCCB clearly indicates that restricting altar serving to males only is the prerogative of the bishop.

The guidelines do call for this policy to be set by the bishop rather than on a parish-by-parish basis. This makes sense in this age when pastors do not stay at the same parish for decades on end. Changing the policy every time the pastors move is a bit too much upheaval, I’d think.
 
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PetraG said:
As noted in the OP, the USCCB clearly indicates that restricting altar serving to males only is the prerogative of the bishop.
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Actually, it’s the prerogative of the priest celebrating Mass. Rome made it clear that even if the Bishops allow for female altar servers, priests are under no obligation to have them since no one has a “right” to be in a ministry.

 
Phemie said:
Actually, it’s the prerogative of the priest celebrating Mass. Rome made it clear that even if the Bishops allow for female altar servers, priests are under no obligation to have them since no one has a “right” to be in a ministry.
https://adoremus.org/2007/12/31/Letter-on-Altar-Servers/
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Well, no, not even a particular boy may insist on serving at the altar.
I stand corrected.
Having said that, the bishops did say it was preferable to have a diocese-wide policy. Like the guidelines of the USCCB itself, however, it is a suggested policy that allows a choice, not a mandate that compels one way of doing things.
 
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I don’t really have a dawg in this particular fight, but the only difference in roles that I have noticed in our parish is that I can’t recall ever having seen a girl handling the thurible.

D
 
1ke said:
One of our high school girls started handling the thurible this year.
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When I used to do training, the guys seemed more into handling fire than the girls. Not all–and certainly not all the guys wanted to do it!–but the girls were more likely to do it because they were needed than that they were in a hurry to deal with live charcoal.
 
Our bishop once stated that altar girls would be phased out through attrition but then he was bumped up to archbishop and assigned elsewhere.

We have two parishes in the process of merging presently. Mass is celebrated without any dedicated altar servers in the “lesser” parish. While at the “greater” parish, there is a full staffing of robed altar servers. Bells are never rung during the elevation in either parish. So the servers are apparently under-trained.
 
Reverent_Howler said:
Bells are never rung during the elevation in either parish. So the servers are apparently under-trained.
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It sounds like they have been appropriately trained to know that if the priest wants to include the optional ringing of bells they should ring them and otherwise should not do so of their own volition.
 
None of the parishes in my diocese divide altar server duties strictly by gender and I don’t think it is very practical unless there are a multitude of servers of both genders at every mass.

That being said I have never seen a girl be thurifer or vimp (handle bishops miter and crozier) or be MC. Training for those positions tends to be by invitation only at many churches and girls just don’t get invited.
 
Deditus_Domina said:
That being said I have never seen a girl be thurifer or vimp (handle bishops miter and crozier) or be MC.
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I have; it likely depends on whomever the bishop has tasked with training his servers (or the priest, in the case of thurifer).

I really see no point in separating tasks by gender. I can’t imagine any purpose that would serve.
 
SuscipeMeDomine said:
It sounds like they have been appropriately trained to know that if the priest wants to include the optional ringing of bells they should ring them and otherwise should not do so of their own volition.
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Right. At one of the parishes I attend, there’s no ringing of bells precisely because of the pastor’s request. The bells are there, and typically, so are the servers, but I know he’s not a fan.
 
Here in the Philippines we don’t have any such issues because because females are not permitted to be altar servers or EMHC’s.
 
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I was an adult when this change occurred decades ago, the change from the time when altar servers were only boys to when girls were allowed to be altar servers.
I recall several objections about this change at the time. One was that being an altar server was a channel for boys who would decide to be priests. This avenue then would be pretty much become ineffective, it was said.
There was also the question as to whether boys would decide that this was not a role for boys, but with the feminization of this, boys would see it instead as something that girls do. This, it seemed, was something that younger teenage boys could well feel.
However, as far as I could see, these questions were never seriously investigated, I presume because this was a fait accompli. and any findings from such research were no matter.
Questions up to the time of this change about this possibility were widespread decades ago, and this change did not occur because of any official declaration of the Church, but because an official in the Vatican, apparently on his own, suddenly announced that this change has occurred.
I am saying these things not to make any judgements in the matter, but to help fill out what some people thought.
 
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