Female Altar Servers

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I won’t reply here because my answer to this is quite extensive.

Rather, I will lead you to a series of posts I started on my blog on this very issue.

A question was asked why we enjoy such high participation by so many young men in a smaller parish. I answer that in several posts, three of which have not yet been written. Those with links below are complete.

I want to add that we enjoy a solid vocation rate - both male and female. We aren’t talking about girls being led into some kind of “ministry”. Rather, there are girls headed off to more traditional convents like, Mary Mother of the Eucharist (which is bursting at its seams) among others. We are talking about a parish with about 700-800 families and an altar boy program of 60-65 young men. I can’t give numbers on male and female vocations other than to say Assumption Grotto has produced priests and nuns, several young men are in seminaries, and many more actively discerning who are too young to leave yet.

  1. *]All Male Program
    *]Masculinity of Discipline and Precision Required
    *]Headed by the Pastor
    *]Liturgically traditional parish with orthodoxy in doctrine
    *]Strong Catholic identity within the family
    *]Large homeschooling population
    Comment moderation is turned on within my blog. You welcome to comment there, but please don’t submit twice. I’m not filtering out people who disagree, but unwanted advertisements among other things.
 
I would just like to say that I am a female who was an altar server from fourth grade through my recent high school graduation. Being an altar server helped me to grow so much in my faith. It led to a deeper understanding and reverence of what is taking place during the Holy Mass. And it inspired me to become even more involved within the church by looking into a vocation to the religious life.

What I don’t understand is why so many people try to blame the changes within the church, such as allowing girls to serve, as the reason behind the vocations shortage. Let me just say this loud and clear…ALLOWING GIRLS TO SERVE AT MASS, IN NO WAY AFFECTS THE AMOUNT OF PEOPLE WHO GOD IS CALLING TO THE PRIESTHOOD / RELIGIOUS LIFE!!!

God continues to call many people to the priesthood/religious life. It is the PEOPLE who decide not to respond to the call. I think that there are many reasons why people disregard a call to the priesthood/religious life, such as…
  1. Parents actively discouraging or passively not encouraging their children to explore the priesthood or religious life
  2. Parents allowing thier children to miss the mass each weekend
  3. Parishes not encouraging vocations as actively as in the past - I know that at my parish, we pray each weekend for vocations, but throughout my life, never once did anyone ask me if I had ever thought of being a nun.
  4. Friends of people looking at religious life, discouraging them.
This last one I can definitely vouch for because in the past few years that I have been discerning a vocation, I cannot even count the number of times when friends who claim to be catholic told me not to be a nun, or that it was wierd to want to be a nun, or better yet, that I was crazy or out of my mind in even thinking about becoming a nun.

Now, it is through my experiences that I would say that having girls as altar servers is not the reason for less vocations. Instead, the reason for reduced vocations, is reduced encouragement within the church for vocations.
 
It’s a bad idea. They should use adult male Acolytes as the first choice. The use of altar-boys is a sort of grand-fathering in allowance for how things were pre-Vatican II. The use of altar-girls is just silly. That said, it is technically allowed – if the Bishop allows it AND the pastor allows it, AND the priest celibrating allows is, AND the girl’s parrents allow it, AND the girl agrees to do it. Some Bishop’s don’t allow it. Some priests and pastors also do not. Likewise, some parents don’t, and some girls refuse.
 
I am discussing this very topic on another board (to be specific, on Facebook’s “We’re not Crazy, We’re just Catholic”)
And there seems to be a split of yes and no. It is mostly the women with the yes, and the men with the no.

I, myself, am a no. I think it encourages a vocation for women that they cannot take part in.
 
PatienceAndLove said:
I am discussing this very topic on another board (to be specific, on Facebook’s “We’re not Crazy, We’re just Catholic”)
And there seems to be a split of yes and no. It is mostly the women with the yes, and the men with the no.

I, myself, am a no. I think it encourages a vocation for women that they cannot take part in.
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No it doesn’t. My girl altar servers are fully aware that only men can be priests. Give girls a break they are not that stupid 😛

Again people, it’s about their adult role models growing up and what is being taught while they are being trained. 😉
 
anamchara said:
No it doesn’t. My girl altar servers are fully aware that only men can be priests. Give girls a break they are not that stupid 😛

Again people, it’s about their adult role models growing up and what is being taught while they are being trained. 😉
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Then yours are better Catechized then I was. I was convinced I was going to be the first female pope.
 
Every time I see female “Altar Servers” I think of the feminist movement for “equality” and NOTHING else. Just another “modernism” added to the mass. I would rather have males no matter how noble or reverent the girls seem to be.
 
teachccd said:
What about older men who go up and serve mostly during the weekday Masses and even at some Sunday Masses?? Is this their discernment for a vocation?? Why don’t we start a new thread regarding old men as altar servers. Never heard a complaint there…:confused: teachccd:)
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Well guess what!!! I am an adult Male ALtar server who through my identification of serving at the altar has called me to Holy Orders which I begin formation in the Fall.😃
 
PatienceAndLove said:
Then yours are better Catechized then I was. I was convinced I was going to be the first female pope.
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:rotfl:you had a great deal of confidence my friend 😉 I have a very small group of altar servers. It’s a tiny parish. I can’t be picky about who serves anyway. If it were only boys the priest wanted then I’d have 5 altar servers and I can tell you the moms would never commit to that many Sundays. Parents whine if there kids have to come to more than one training:shrug::rolleyes: Luckily I was able to get three trainings out of them. But training has to be on going…to be honest sometimes I wish I had a more committed group of parents.

One of the hard things about being Catholic is seeing how many parents treat their faith.
 
true_believer said:
I.ALLOWING GIRLS TO SERVE AT MASS, IN NO WAY AFFECTS THE AMOUNT OF PEOPLE WHO GOD IS CALLING TO THE PRIESTHOOD / RELIGIOUS LIFE!!!

God continues to call many people to the priesthood/religious life. It is the PEOPLE who decide not to respond to the call. I think that there are many reasons why people disregard a call to the priesthood/religious life, such as…
  1. Parents actively discouraging or passively not encouraging their children to explore the priesthood or religious life
  2. Parents allowing thier children to miss the mass each weekend
  3. Parishes not encouraging vocations as actively as in the past - I know that at my parish, we pray each weekend for vocations, but throughout my life, never once did anyone ask me if I had ever thought of being a nun.
  4. Friends of people looking at religious life, discouraging them.
.
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T-B,

As I have mentioned in this thread, I am in a parish with 800-ish families. We have an all male altar server cadre and we currently have 6 men in the seminary from our parish.

Lux et Veritas comes from a similarly sized parish, again with all male altar servers and has a similar number of men in the parish.

The same is true for another parish in our Archdiocese.

Together, we are 3 parishes out of 420, but account for 20% of the vocations to the priesthood.

No parishes who allow altar girls comes even close to the number of vocations that a single one of our parishes produce.

Would it not be reasonable to assume that our of the 417 OTHER parishes in the Archdiocese, there would be at least one that has both altar girls AND supportive parents and peer groups and a vocation encouraging pastor?

But that doesn’t seem to be there. The only parish with both altar girls AND more than one vocation is a parish of about 1800 familes, and they have 2 men studying for the priesthood right now.

They are over twice our size, but have less than a third of the seminarians.

No other parishes AT All have more than 1 man studying for the priesthood.

T_B,

If the presence of altar girls do not have a negative effect on vocations, can you provide a single link to a parish ANYWHERE in the US that has both altar girls AND more than 4 men from that parish studying to the priesthood.

I can provide literally dozens of links to parishes that have all male altar servers and multiple seminarians.

There is also a really interesting caveat about this effect. If you get a new, young pastor in the near future, there’s a good bet that he came from a traditional parish with only altar boys. And he will also have a good idea of what to do if he wants to encourage vocations. 👍
 
Here is a sampling of our young men to be ordained this month in my city. Only a few mentioned altar sever as part of their calling but they really tribute their calling to the priests and others around them here’s the link if you want to read more about these wonderful young men. It’s inspiring to read about them 🙂
diocese-sacramento.org/herald/index.htm

1. 40 yrs Call to religious life: While enrolled at Chico State, Blank joined in a “Campus Crusade For Christ” and began “to take religion seriously,” engaging in conversations with priests and fellow students on issues of faith.
  1. 28yrs Call to religious life: Baptized a Methodist, Frazer began to feel drawn to the Catholic faith in the seventh grade. “Ultimately it was grace and the movement of the Holy Spirit” that determined his vocation, he said.
  2. 28yrs** Call to religious life:** Raised in a devout Catholic family, “very engaged in the life of the church,” he said, Gamas, one of five boys among six siblings, joined his brothers as an altar server while in the third grade. He was accustomed to praying the rosary every day, joined the church Youth for Christ group, and when an older brother enrolled in the seminary, Gamas followed in his footsteps.My brother was a good model for me,” he said. “Whenever he was home from the seminary, he told me a lot about being a Christian and was happy with life. That attracted me.”
  3. 28yrs Call to religious life: When he was a fifth grader, he became an alter server and met a priest who would change his life. It was his pastor, the late Father Richard Doheny.
    “He had seen something in me and had said, ‘You’ll be the first priest for this parish,’” LaBranch said.
    At the time it seemed to LaBranch, who gave serious thought to “being a teacher, getting married and having a family,” that it was kind of a crazy idea.
    There were, however, always close ties to priests at St. Mel, a place where LaBranch spent a fair amount of time and grew in his faith. Father Doheny really taught me more about the priesthood by the way he lived his life than any conferences we ever had,” he said.
    Code: 
                   **5. 27 yrs Call to religious life:** As a 10-year-old            while attending a minor seminary spiritual retreat at the Universidad            de Colima, Ojeda “experienced God in a way I’d never felt            before.”Seeing the joy of the seminarians inspired him to pursue            a vocation to the priesthood.“There was no job career, place or person that            fulfilled me with such overwhelming warmth,” he said. “It            was like I had been lost and now was home. I knew I wanted to be close            to God.”



    **6.29 yrs Call to religious life:** When he was            six years old, he told his mother he wanted to be a priest when he grew            up. “My mom taught me how to pray, to serve people,” said            Rata, who became an altar server at the age of seven, and found praying            the rosary and going to Mass interwoven into the fabric of his life.Further encouraged by the support of his parish priest,            Rata entered the seminary after just one year of college.
7. 38 yrsCall to religious life: For Snyder, the call to religious life couldn’t have come earlier. He recalled a story told to him as a child by his mother, a devout Catholic and “woman of prayer,” who offered the unborn child she carried to serve God.
Family life involved sitting up front at church every Sunday Mass, and studying the priests he admired and sometimes imitated as a child by donning a white sheet which served as his vestment.
 
I am curious as to why Pope JPII formally allowed the use of female altar servers? Further, why wasn’t it explained to all Catholics worldwide so there wouldn’t be all this wasted debate? Pope JPII invoked a change that was certain to confuse and upset literally millions of people. Why no explanation for the change?

We all hear rants about “liberals” who “forced” the Pope to allow female altar servers by disregarding the existing instructions. I don’t believe the Church works that way, so I do wonder why the change was made.

If you look at it, approval to use female altar servers were given yet language in RS strongly (if not explicitly) supports. Somewhat mixed signals like that really waste a lot of resources within the Church.
 
anamchara said:
you had a great deal of confidence my friend 😉 I have a very small group of altar servers.** It’s a tiny parish. I can’t be picky about who serves anyway.** If it were only boys the priest wanted then I’d have 5 altar servers and I can tell you the moms would never commit to that many Sundays. Parents whine if there kids have to come to more than one training. Luckily I was able to get three trainings out of them. But training has to be on going…to be honest sometimes I wish I had a more committed group of parents.

One of the hard things about being Catholic is seeing how many parents treat their faith.
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Most small/tiny parishes I know, particularly Eastern Catholic ones have large, formal and very well trained teams of all-male altar servers.

There are ways around the excuses you outlined. Maybe you first need to recognize good parents and then actively recruit their sons to serve? Perhaps you can find some young men in the 18 to perhaps 30 age group that might just be discerning a vocation to sign-up as servers?

There are a ton more ideas out there, and if your pastor is supportive, I am sure things can be greatly improved.
 
After reading many of the posts about this subject and thinking about it; I went to mass last night and saw both a boy and a girl as the altar servers.
My heartfelt reaction was that they both were so very innocent, like the angelic children they probably are; it made no difference to me whether they were male or female.

:heaven:
 
Yes said:
Most small/tiny parishes I know, particularly Eastern Catholic ones have large, formal and very well trained teams of all-male altar servers.

There are ways around the excuses you outlined. Maybe you first need to recognize good parents and then actively recruit their sons to serve? Perhaps you can find some young men in the 18 to perhaps 30 age group that might just be discerning a vocation to sign-up as servers?

There are a ton more ideas out there, and if your pastor is supportive, I am sure things can be greatly improved.
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The five boys I mentioned are it my friend, and the priest would give me a resounding NO if I went in that direction. He does not push for vocations, unfortunately. He thinks it’s a lonely life. I am the one who has mentioned it to the boys and has tried to make sure they are getting fired up about what they do.
 
RosalieM said:
After reading many of the posts about this subject and thinking about it; I went to mass last night and saw both a boy and a girl as the altar servers.
My heartfelt reaction was that they both were so very innocent, like the angelic children they probably are; it made no difference to me whether they were male or female.

:heaven:
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It is amazing how incredibly sweet they are up there, thank you for saying this ❤️:hug1:
 
RosalieM said:
After reading many of the posts about this subject and thinking about it; I went to mass last night and saw both a boy and a girl as the altar servers.
My heartfelt reaction was that they both were so very innocent, like the angelic children they probably are; it made no difference to me whether they were male or female.

:heaven:
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Thank you for your kindness…
MY GRANDCHILDRED!!!

Ages 14 1/2 and 11…
 
I understand, Rosalie, I have seen some of the sweetest children up on the altar, in fact there is one very holy young teenage girl who serves often. It is a nice sight, yet feelings really don’t matter when it comes to truth.

I would really like to help out and be a priest but I am a father who is married with two girls. My place in life is to be a father and raise my little girls. My feelings don’t matter no matter how much I want to help. I am sure there are some places where they would kinda accept me as a pseudo priest, especially if I acted all fruity and supported women priests.

anamchara, I wonder why your priest seems like that. It would seem to me that being an active priest is one of the most fulfilling and rich lifestyles to lead. It might be lonely at times but standing up for truth, trying to be loyal and following God usually is lonely.

I find I am one of the only ones who doesn’t criticize the Pope in my diocese when I go to workshops, and I am just a layman. I can imagine how hard it would be for a Priest in my diocese.

In Christ
Scylla
 
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