HELP! There are too many FEMALE ALTAR SERVERS in our diocese

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GloriaPatri4

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**After reading Psalm45:9’s thread (thank you Psalm45:9) **Altar Girls and the article
"JUST THE FACTS, PLEASE, ON ALTAR GIRLS
By HELEN HULL HITCHCOCK" that was linked it got me thinking about the over abundance of female altar servers we have at our parish and many of the other parishes in our diocese. I believe at our parish the numbers of boy and girl altar servers are about equal but at many of the paishes in our diocese the boys are outnumbered by the girls. I’m not aware if there has been any research done on the plummeting numbers of boy altar servers since girls were allowed to serve (was it 1994 or 1995?) but I think someone should conduct some sort of study so that we don’t have a bigger priest shortage than we already have now.

A few months ago I was at a Mass in which our bishop was the celebrant and **I saw one boy altar server and three or four girls. **At this Mass our diocesan directress of the offfice of worship wore an alb. The alb she was wearing looks very similar to a chasuble, view thread Does the Catholic Church permit women to wear chasubles?The alb was identicle to the albs the concelebrants were wearing that day. **When the directress attired in the chasuble looking alb and the female altar servers dressed in their alb looking albs processed down the center isle with all the other concelebrants I got a suspicious feeling that there was an agenda afoot. **This is just my opinion.

I believe I read somewhere that it is up to the local bishop to decide whether or not girls should be permitted to altar serve in his diocese. I also recall reading somewhere that even if the local bishop has allowed female altar servers it is up to each pastor whether or not he will allow it. If anyone has the info please link it.
 
I don’t think the rate of boy servers went down when girls were allowed to act as servers, but with more people in the server rotation, it just seems like there may be less…
As for this and connection to the Priest shortage… I would wiegh that much more on our dropping respect toward values and morals in todays world then girls being altar servers…

As for the thing with the Bishop… The servers probably volunteered or were scheduled… As for the alb thing… No clue… Could be trying to look nice for the Bishop or pushing the envelope… Who knows intent
 
We have many more boys than girls serving as altar servers. I’ve also noted that the female servers tend to be in the younger age bracket, while the male servers range from young boys to young men.
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We have more girls than boys. I believe that recently more girls are being born than boys. I wonder if this has anything to do with it?..
 
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CatholicCid:
I don’t think the rate of boy servers went down when girls were allowed to act as servers, but with more people in the server rotation, it just seems like there may be less…
As for this and connection to the Priest shortage… I would wiegh that much more on our dropping respect toward values and morals in todays world then girls being altar servers…

As for the thing with the Bishop… The servers probably volunteered or were scheduled… As for the alb thing… No clue… Could be trying to look nice for the Bishop or pushing the envelope… Who knows intent
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I know that WWIII will erupt in this forum with what I’m going to write, but I believe it to be true.

Female altar servers, just like Communion in the hand, resulted from liturgical experimentation in the 60’s and 70’s, that was finally regularized by the Vatican in the 1990’s (after some 20-30 years of abuse).

I was one of the very very few male altar servers at my parish as a child and teenager - and I would be made fun of by peers because precisely because I “served with girls” (!!!).

A few years later, we were assigned a new pastor, who found a very pastorally sensitive way to establish an all-boy server program. He explained that it was for the purpose of fostering and encouraging children and teens to think about a possible priestly or religious vocation. He equally invited the girls who were once servers, to become members of a girls’ choir, which received weekly talks from a team of missonary nuns. Once a year, during the summer, both groups of children and youth would make a retreat, for both reflection and fun, to a nearby seminary (for the boys) and a convent (for the girls) so they could actively learn about religious life. The boys would play baseball and do a rosary hike with our pastor and the seminarians from the seminary, and the girls and the nuns would play kickball and do arts and crafts. At the annual parish picnic, one highlight was the altar boys vs. the choir girls in a tug-of-war match, in which, you guessed it… the boys wound up dirty in the sand and lamenting their defeat!

Far from belittling and marginalizing the girls, our parish was blessed to have volunteer directors who directed the girls…becoming the only choir in the archdiocese where children sang gregorian chants and polyphony, in addition to vernacular music in two other languages.

There was great camaraderie within both groups and especially between both groups - the girls would sing a solemn Mass once a month that was served by a team of altar boys.

It’s not about sexism or discrimination, it’s about taking advantage of the opportunities we are given. It would be wrong and damaging to the Church to overlook the importance of seriously developing the spirituality of children. But it is just as wrong to ignore the importance and opportunity presented by a good, solid all-male altar server program, truly a “garden of vocations” AS WELL as supporting a solid program to foster religious vocations in girls.

If my parish’s experience is not convincing enough, then look at stats involving vocations in seminaries and convents in liberal dioceses versus more traditional ones. The numbers speak for themselves.
 
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EJ79:
I was one of the very very few male altar servers at my parish as a child and teenager - and I would be made fun of by peers because precisely because I “served with girls” (!!!).
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I go to a TLM parish so we have no female servers. I recently went back to my hometown for a funeral and the servers were all female. I asked the son of a cousin why he wasn’t serving and he replied that it was no longer cool to serve since the girls were allowed to serve. In fact all the male servers had drifted away leaving only female servers in that parish.
 
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SnorterLuster:
I go to a TLM parish so we have no female servers. I recently went back to my hometown for a funeral and the servers were all female. I asked the son of a cousin why he wasn’t serving and he replied that it was no longer cool to serve since the girls were allowed to serve. In fact all the male servers had drifted away leaving only female servers in that parish.
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Yes this is basically what happened in my experience too - what a lost opportunity to foster priestly vocations within a group of boys or young men.
 
In my opinion I don’t think we have too many female alter servers, and while I understand where many are coming from about the effects being an Alter Server has in fostering a priestly vocation, my gut reaction, based on some experience, is that being an Alter Boy these days is not really as effective as some think it is and perhaps never was. (I’m not saying here that it has no effect just not as much as some think). My opinion is this, Priestly Vocations, as a norm, are first fostered in the home supported by an active parish life.I was in a religious congregation for many years. It was my family that was the greatest influence on me for being involved as I was. In my experience, you just don’t have families fostering vocations like that. Secondly, again I going from my experience, but I grew up in Chicago. The parish, especially with its school (I was a Choir Boy, Alter boy and patrole boy and was involved in many other activities of the parish and school), was the center of ones life that cannot be equaled today except in a limited way. How many alterboys today live with in walking distance of their parish church? Finally, going back to my point about the family, my experienced brought me to the realization that their was at best and indifference about all things “Church” amoung many families if not hostility for one reason or another and this was before the scandles broke at the end of the 20th Century - although I believe there was a realization of these peoblems long before the media got hold of it- and these scandles haven’t help. So I say there are not to many girl alter servers and to remove these young ladies from the alter will not have any real positive effect on priestly vocations.
 
They are about even at our parish. My daughter was recruited. We didn’t plan on it except after repeated requests we eventually let our daughter become one. Did we do the right thing?

God Bless…
 
check it out! the poll results are a bell curve, that’s pretty cool 😃
 
Female altar servers and EMHC’s (M & F) should be phased out.

Also the Church needs to recruit more deacons to support the priests.

james
 
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matthew1624:
They are about even at our parish. My daughter was recruited. We didn’t plan on it except after repeated requests we eventually let our daughter become one. Did we do the right thing?

God Bless…
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YES, you did the right thing.

My 9 year granddaughter is an altar server. She is very reverant and does a wonderful job. It is a matter of opinion, of course, however, it seems to me that it is up to the priests and parents to instill the love of the Mass and alter serving to boys and girls. Girls know they will never be a priest, this is an opportunity to serve God in a unique and beautiful way. Mary Magdeline might have been an alter server. We cannot blame lack of priests to fewer alter boys. I think it is due to the damage done by a few priests who have made the headlines. Parents are not anxious for their sons to go to the seminary.

love and peace
 
I attend two churches, one during the week, the other on Sunday. The Sunday Mass is Traditional Latin Mass, hence no females. The weekday and Saturday Masses are Novus Ordo. They seldom have servers except for a deacon or two if at all. The attendance isn’t very high during the week except in the early mornings. The Mass then is extremely orthodox and well attended. The Sunday Masses at the church have two girls that serve. One is planning on becoming a cloistered Dominican Nun. The other wants to be a fighter pilot for the Navy. Both are good girls and very devout.

While traditional in belief I don’t see any real problem with altar servers being female .In fact I have a much bigger problem with Extraordinary Ministers of Communion, which I truly believe needs to be done away with or at least severly curtailed.
 
Hey I consider myself somewhat of a traditionalist, I had a friendly debate with our Priest on the use of Latin in the Holy Mass, I talk and try to gently correct priest’s respectfully who don’t follow the rubrics. All that aside, I don’t see the big problem with gemale altar-servers, I mean grant it, it’s impossible for them ever to be priests. But why not allow the other sex to feel a little holiness at mass? I mean I know my spiritual life greatly benefited thanks to serving, girls can be just as if not more spiritual than young boys. So as long as the Church doesn’t prohibit it, let it be. If say the girls were putting on too much make than I could see a problem as that would be an irreverent distraction. However many of the boys are wearing dirty sports shoes while they participate in the re-representation of the Eternal Sacrifice. So I think lets not go to extremes here. If there was something inherently evil, wrong or immoral about it Holy Church wouldn’t allow it, we have to trust those in charge. After all submission to a higher authority is the essence of Catholicism is it not? Just my opinion.
 
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Jakub:
Also the Church needs to recruit more deacons to support the priests.

james
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Deacons are not recruited like people are recruited for a job or the military. It is a call that needs to be carefully discerned.
 
This is an issue where I strongly feel there can be no compromise. Female altar servers have never been part of the liturgical tradition of the church, East or West, and only came about because of dissent in the 70s and 80s, and sadly, regretfully, the Vatican caved in in 94 an premitted(though it by no means madate) females to serve on the altar, and the church is worse off for it.

Yes, I know there may be the occasional case of female altar serves becoming nuns and such, but those cases are rare, and in fact, the parishes that produce the most female vocations to religous orders are in fact the parishes that also produce the most vocations to the seminaries, and they are traditional leaning parishes that have no female altar serves, such as SS Cyrill & Methodius in Detroit and St. Agnes in St. Paul MN. Even the parish I attend in Columbus OH, St. Patrick, a parish that has no altar girls has produced the most female religous vocations in the diocese.
 
Deaconswife,

There are many meanings for the word recruit in the dictionary, to enroll and to seek and enroll, to replenish, to renew or restore.

They are out there, but many sit on their hands, yes its a calling, but who in the Church is reaching out ?

I hear more about the roles of women and laity within the Church, then the need for deacons, priests, nuns, monks and friars.

Today’s homilies contain very few talks about these needs.

james
 
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JNB:
This is an issue where I strongly feel there can be no compromise. Female altar servers have never been part of the liturgical tradition of the church, East or West, and only came about because of dissent in the 70s and 80s, and sadly, regretfully, the Vatican caved in in 94 an premitted(though it by no means madate) females to serve on the altar, and the church is worse off for it.

Yes, I know there may be the occasional case of female altar serves becoming nuns and such, but those cases are rare, and in fact, the parishes that produce the most female vocations to religous orders are in fact the parishes that also produce the most vocations to the seminaries, and they are traditional leaning parishes that have no female altar serves, such as SS Cyrill & Methodius in Detroit and St. Agnes in St. Paul MN. Even the parish I attend in Columbus OH, St. Patrick, a parish that has no altar girls has produced the most female religous vocations in the diocese.
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Note that altar girls are an option. Meaning that a diocese or bishop cannot force a pastor to have them. This is the pastor’s discretion.
 
I must confess that I didn’t really read the thread, but I do wish to say something for your consideration.

Perhaps the reason for so many females (and the reason they allowed them) is because not enough males were willing to serve.

The Church does not allow female ordination, so it makes no sense to exclude women where they are allowed, I would not change parishes for this reason, but I’m sure many women would be upset with a Pastor who rejected females where they were allowed.

Perhaps I would change. I don’t know. A Pastor like that certainly sounds like an over rigid person.
 
I never heard of a parish allowing girls because there weren’t enough boys.

What I have seen are parishes where the only male in the sanctuary is the priest.

I have also never seen a parish that promoted female servers being a high source of vocations.
 
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