Children in Sanctuary

[JesusisPeace]

I have a simple question that has probably been asked here before, but I could not find the answer too.

At a children’s Mass, are children allowed, after their Liturgy of the Word, to come onto the Sanctuary and sit around the altar during the Liturgy of the Eucharist?

Is there documentation forbidding this?

Thank you!

 

[John_Lilburne]

From the 2002 General Instruction of the Roman Missal:

“295. The sanctuary is the place where the altar stands, where the word of God is proclaimed, and where the priest, the deacon, and the other ministers exercise their offices. It should suitably be marked off from the body of the church either by its being somewhat elevated or by a particular structure and ornamentation.”

Ministers can be in the sanctuary. For example, the GIRM has (about the start of the Mass): “195. … Then the lector takes his own place in the sanctuary with the other ministers.”

The GIRM can be looked up at romanrite.com/girm.html .

 

[benedictgal]

I have a simple question that has probably been asked here before, but I could not find the answer too.

At a children’s Mass, are children allowed, after their Liturgy of the Word, to come onto the Sanctuary and sit around the altar during the Liturgy of the Eucharist?

Is there documentation forbidding this?

Thank you!

In a word, No.

This practice had been employed by LifeTeen until the Prefect Emeritus for the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments told the movement to stop it.

The only ones who should be in the sanctuary are listed in the second post.

 

[JesusisPeace]

Is there a specific spot in the GIRM that forbids this?

I need to be able to present a document that says “children in the Sanctuary are not allowed.”

Is there documentation of when this was forbidden in the LifeTeen movement?

 

[benedictgal]

Is there a specific spot in the GIRM that forbids this?

I need to be able to present a document that says “children in the Sanctuary are not allowed.”

Is there documentation of when this was forbidden in the LifeTeen movement?

Here is the posting on Adoremus regarding the LifeTeen issue:

Life Teen’s Liturgical Reform
Life Teen, the Phoenix-based Catholic youth organization, announced in July that it will cease its idiosyncratic liturgical practices. Monsignor Dale Fushek, Life Teen’s founder and former Vicar General under Bishop Thomas O’Brien, sent a letter July 2, saying that he confirms “our adherence to the new GIRM, and as always, our obedience to our own local Bishops”.

The letter asked that “all parishes that implement the LIFE TEEN model” make these changes. The teens will no longer surround the altar during the Eucharistic prayer; they will cease saying, “The Mass never ends, it must be lived”, at the end of Mass; the rock-party atmosphere before Mass will be toned down to “make sure there is a period of silence to begin the liturgical celebration”; and they will “make sure the music does not in any way detract from the action at the altar, ambo or chair”.

“I am sure these issues will be hard on some parishes and teens”, Monsignor Fushek wrote. His letter said that Phoenix Bishop Thomas Olmsted met in Rome with Cardinal Francis Arinze, of the Congregation for Divine Worship, about Life Teen.

Just because it is not listed in the GIRM, that does not give the celebrante carte blanche to do with as he pleases. RS provides relevant citation for this. While not specifically citing the prohbition against having children gather around the altar, the document notes that:

[11.] ***The Mystery of the Eucharist “is too great for anyone to permit himself to treat it according to his own whim, so that its sacredness and its universal ordering would be obscured”.***27 On the contrary, anyone who acts thus by giving free rein to his own inclinations, even if he is a Priest, injures the substantial unity of the Roman Rite, which ought to be vigorously preserved,28 and becomes responsible for actions that are in no way consistent with the hunger and thirst for the living God that is experienced by the people today. Nor do such actions serve authentic pastoral care or proper liturgical renewal; instead, they deprive Christ’s faithful of their patrimony and their heritage. For arbitrary actions are not conducive to true renewal,29 but are detrimental to the right of Christ’s faithful to a liturgical celebration that is an expression of the Church’s life in accordance with her tradition and discipline. In the end, they introduce elements of distortion and disharmony into the very celebration of the Eucharist, which is oriented in its own lofty way and by its very nature to signifying and wondrously bringing about the communion of divine life and the unity of the People of God.30 The result is uncertainty in matters of doctrine, perplexity and scandal on the part of the People of God, and, almost as a necessary consequence, vigorous opposition, all of which greatly confuse and sadden many of Christ’s faithful in this age of ours when Christian life is often particularly difficult on account of the inroads of “secularization” as well.31

Furthermore, the Directory for Masses with Children, although having some degree of latitude, does not make any allowances for having children up on the sanctuary. In fact, the document breaks down what should happen when children comprise most of the faithful in attendance at Mass and when the adults are in the majority.

Here is the link to the Directory:

adoremus.org/DMC-73.html

I hope this helps.

 

[Seatuck]

Is there a specific spot in the GIRM that forbids this?

I need to be able to present a document that says “children in the Sanctuary are not allowed.”

Is there documentation of when this was forbidden in the LifeTeen movement?

Church documents usually work the opposite . They tell what can happen. See the previous post for the documentation on Life Teen.

 

[JesusisPeace]

Thank you for the responses! Any additional information would be very helpful!

 

[JesusisPeace]

So there is no specific document that forbids this?

While I appreciate the work of Adoremus magazine, it has no binding effect upon anyone.

Are there any other possible documents?

 

[lancebermudez]

this be a little off the first post here but i think it goes along with it.
where can i find information on the priest calling up the children for the our father at mass. I read some where that children can be up front with father and the deacon but not next to the alter but around it. I also read some where that the father, deacon and children should not hold hands during the our father but are they aloud to shake hands the father, deacon, and children at the sign of peace? I find this a little distracting and worry it could cause sandal in the parish.

 

[Seatuck]

So there is no specific document that forbids this?

While I appreciate the work of Adoremus magazine, it has no binding effect upon anyone.

Are there any other possible documents?

It’s like I said. The church doesn’t work this way. The burden of proof lies with someone who is doing something that isn’t in the rubrics of the mass. You won’t find any instruction in any church document that allows children in the Sanctuary.

The Code of Canon Law (1983) does mandate: “The liturgical books approved by the competent authority are to be faithfully observed in the celebration of the sacraments; therefore, no one on personal authority may add, remove, or change anything in them” (Canon 826.1). (Note that this Canon repeated a previous mandate found in both Vatican II’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy (1963) and the Instruction on the Worship of the Eucharistic Mystery, No. 45 (1967),

 

[Seatuck]

Maybe this will help-

ewtn.com/expert/answers/non-ordained.htm

 

[benedictgal]

So there is no specific document that forbids this?

While I appreciate the work of Adoremus magazine, it has no binding effect upon anyone.

Are there any other possible documents?

Redemptionis Sacramentum and the link to the Directory for Masses with Children that I posted are your best bets.

RS makes it perfectly clear that the priest, nor anyone else, for that matter, is allowed to change anything in the approved liturgical books of the Holy See. In other words, they do not have the authority to tack on anything to the Mass based on their own personal idiosyncracies.

Just because it’s not explicitly listed in the GIRM, that does not give the priest nor anyone else the authority to add anything similar to what you described. Such action is what got LifeTeen in trouble as well as the Neocatechumenal Way (although the Way had a different set of problems altogether).

 

[japhy]

So there is no specific document that forbids this?

The Congregation for Divine Worship, in 1981, made a pronouncement on the subject (Notitiae 17 (1981) 61):
During the liturgy of the eucharist, only the presiding celebrant remains at the altar. The assembly of the faithful take their place in the Church outside the presbyterium, which is reserved for the celebrant or concelebrants and altar ministers. (source)
So no, neither children, nor teens, nor adults, are permitted to stand around the altar or otherwise in the sanctuary during the Liturgy of the Eucharist.

While I appreciate the work of Adoremus magazine, it has no binding effect upon anyone.

The Adoremus Bulletin web site does host some binding documents from the Church on its web site. The Directory for Masses with Children is one such document.