The Catholic Yeti: Instituted Lectors and Acolytes

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Andreas_Hofer

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Scylla mentioned elsewhere that someone should start a thread on this, so I thought I’d humor her. Let’s set aside the Nebraskan Shangri-La for a moment and talk about the non-existent of these instituted ministries. Lectors and acolytes have functions proper to them that may be filled by deputed laymen in the absence of an instituted minister. Yet I think a straw poll of US dioceses would find that virtually none have ever instituted a single man to either ministry (outside of clerical formation).

The situation is certainly irregular. If we heard of a business that had had an “acting department manager” for the last forty years we would wonder what was up, but when our Church does it no eyebrows are raised. I suppose part of the story is that most people in the pews have never heard of institution to these ministries (I think most priests slip it into their homily priorities just after Friday penance), but the question nevertheless remains, and I would be interested to hear others’ speculation, “Why don’t we use them?”
 
My own two cents…

Originally, I think we didn’t roll over to acolytes because we already had a long tradition of the exception as the rule, i.e. we had been employing boys as faux acolytes for quite some time, so it was just the norm. I think it’s more suspicious now that it would be easy for every parish to have an acolyte since it’s no longer a step toward the priesthood, but I can at least see how we got into that bizarro world. Now that we’re in it, I don’t think we’ll ever leave. If we instituted acolytes, there would be an uproar about excluding women, patriarchal domination, etc. etc.

Lectors, on the other hand, make much less sense to me. When the position was opened to the general male laity we did not already have in place a tradition of extraordinary service. Once again, though, I think the fear of seeming to oppress women (or the misguided assumption that a male-only lectorate actually does) put the kibosh on the project. AFAIK no one ever payed attention to the provision that women were not supposed to read from within the sanctuary, which would have highlighted how truly extraordinary female service in such a capacity was seen to be, which further dulled Paul VI’s intention as expressed in the creation/reordering of the ministry. Instead, when every single Mass has at least one lector present (the priest), we create schedules for people to “fill-in” for the instituted lector we never instituted.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I was an altar boy and I think young boys serving at the altar is a great tradition. I also don’t have anything wrong with those who act as readers at Mass, especially since we’re all working in a system we’ve been told is “the way things are done.” I do have a problem, though, with having laws and structures in place that no one (including the popes - their Masses typically have female readers so I know they’re not using lectors exclusively) has any intention of enacting. If we like the idea of having ministries at Mass performed by ministers, we should institute some. If we don’t like that idea (as a Magisterium, as a Curia, as a Church as a whole - whoever you think should make the call), let’s stop writing our rubrics as if the ministers exist.
 
How common are these instituted ministries in the Church outside the US?
 
I think it could work if we gave the ministers additional duties beyond what lay people typically do at Mass now.

Say, have the lectors also be catechists. Have the acolytes do sacristan stuff. Give certain duties to the porters beyond unlocking the doors.
 
Digitonomy said:
How common are these instituted ministries in the Church outside the US?
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I’m not really sure. I never ran into one in the Diocese of Innsbruck, Austria. Other than that, I have no experience outside the US. Maybe our international members could answer to that.
 
It seems that if these are common throughout the world, except in the US or North America, then we can blame the attitudes of our local and national church heirarchies. On the other hand, if these positions are filled rarely throughout the world, then the consensus of a very diverse church would seem to be that while these ministries are an approved idea, they may not be a particularly good idea. I don’t know which of these is closer to the truth, but I think we need to look beyond our borders before we can accurately assess who or what is responsible for the dearth of such ministries here at present.
 
One ray of hope in Texas. In a recent issue of our diocesan newspaper, our Archbishop instructed pastors to search out men who would be good candidates to be trained as instituted acolytes. 🙂
 
Corki said:
One ray of hope in Texas. In a recent issue of our diocesan newspaper, our Archbishop instructed pastors to search out men who would be good candidates to be trained as instituted acolytes. 🙂
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My guesses would be Corpus Christi, Laredo, or Tyler. Any one of those correct?

Since that makes of at least two US dioceses, and I know there are more, perhaps people whose churches do use instituted ministries could comment on the flip side of the thread topic by speculating as to why their diocese has chosen to actually do it.
 
Andreas_Hofer said:
My guesses would be Corpus Christi, Laredo, or Tyler. Any one of those correct?

Since that makes of at least two US dioceses, and I know there are more, perhaps people whose churches do use instituted ministries could comment on the flip side of the thread topic by speculating as to why their diocese has chosen to actually do it.
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Nope 😃 Believe it or not - Galveston-Houston. Our new Archbishop is awesome but I am not very patient. I met him (again) this weekend and he asks for prayers, which I humbly offer and that I am sure he can use. This diocese was under much different “leadership” for 20 years so the wheels will turn slowly.
 
Why don’t more bishops institute lectors and acolyes (except as required for those preparing for ordination)?

Here is a list of 10 ideas:
  1. Embarrassment about old minor orders.
    Most bishops would be of an age that before their ordination they were required to become Exorcists who did not do exorcisms. It did not make much sense and perhaps they would rather forget it and keep quiet about the steps required for ordination today.
  2. Undermining parish priests.
    An instituted lector is forced upon a parish to do the readings. The parish priest is not free to pick and choose who they would like to encourage and reward.
  3. Promote celibate vocations.
    Often there will be prayers for “vocations to priesthood and the religious life.” To encourage this one approach would be to reduce other options, such as vocations to be instituted lectors and acolytes.
  4. Females may be disheartened by more “male only” ministries.
  5. Inertia, lack of confidence in this reform of the liturgy. Unsure how this new ministry will work out.
  6. Apparent lukewarm encouragement of instituted ministers by Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI. I have only found 4 mentions of them by John Paul II, which I have listed at romanrite.com/johnpaul.html . Only recently has Benedict XVI indicated he favours instituted acolytes, by refusing the purification indult for the USA.
  7. Concern about lay people in the hierarchy.
    The Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church has:
    “178. How are the people of God formed? 873 934
    Among the faithful by divine institution there exist sacred ministers who have received the sacrament of Holy Orders and who form the hierarchy of the Church. The other members of the Church are called the laity. …”. But the liturgical books give a special leadership role to instituted ministers, such as leading blessings in the Book of Blessings.
  8. A preference for children altar servers, rather than adults.
  9. Institution is quiet permanent. It is not clear how to stop someone being an instituted minister, short of a tribunal penalty of “loss of office” or excommunication.
  10. Nobody asks the bishop to be instituted.
 
Lots of good reasons, John. A lot of them were things that made perfect sense and had probably crossed my mind before but can be easy to forget when it gets time to articulate things. The purification indult was actually one of the instances that really got me thinking about the silliness of our present situation.

People are upset that EMHCs can no longer purify the sacred vessels. It’s obviously an irregular situation, but we’ve gotten used to it as the practical norm and everyone bellyaches about how the priest can’t be expected to purify so many vessels himself. My solution? Just institute acolytes - they’re more proper for extraordinary distribution of communion, anyway, and then Fr. would still have help with the purification. That suggestion gets shot down, though, because people say, "At our parish we use boy altar servers.’ Well, which irregular situation would you rather preserve, your young servers or your purification by the laity? You can’t have both. I think it would be quite possible to forge a via media anyway, by instituting a few acolytes but not enough to fully fill the ranks of the server cadre. Unfortunately, no one asks me.
 
Andreas_Hofer said:
Lots of good reasons, John. A lot of them were things that made perfect sense and had probably crossed my mind before but can be easy to forget when it gets time to articulate things …
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Thank-you. I hope they are helpful in understanding possible obstacles in the mind’s of some bishops in their reluctance to institute men who are not preparing for ordination.

But I do not see them as “good reasons”. To my mind they are more “likely excuses for failing to implement a liturgical reform directed by the Pope”.

The 1972 Motu Proprio Ministeria Quaedam includes:
“3. Ministries may be assigned to lay Christians; hence they are no longer to be considered as reserved to candidates for the sacrament of orders.
4. Two ministries, adapted to present-day needs, are to be preserved in the whole Latin Church, namely, those of reader and acolyte. …”

Today’s situation calls for an examination of conscience by the bishops with the power to implement it and the broader Catholic community who could have contributed.

(The full Motu Proprio is at romanrite.com/Churchdoc.html ).
 
My parish (also in the Diocese of Galvestion-Houston, Texas) has started pushing to fill acolyte slots too, there is at least one in/preparing(?) for that role. Things do seem much better than they had been for so long, but I’m still kind of in a wait-and-see mode too.
 
Here in the diocese of Austin Bishop Aymond instituted a new group of acolytes a few months ago. The readers are still commissioned by the pastor.
 
John_Lilburne said:
But I do not see them as “good reasons”. To my mind they are more “likely excuses for failing to implement a liturgical reform directed by the Pope”.
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I would definitely agree with you there. I noticed that in my above post I mentioned reasoned that “make sense,” which I meant to indicated they are likely reasons Catholics have dragged their feet, not that they are good. Perhaps it’s my German blood or cultural exchange, but I can’t for the life of me understand how we could have something on the books like that without it ever really being implemented.
 
To answer the question about the international situation, there are next to none here in Britain. We have Eucharistic Ministers *(I hate the term but the pastor keeps using it- so what can I do?) *& Readers. Not 2% of the parish congregation would have even **heard **of instituted acolytes & lectors.
 
Titus said:
To answer the question about the international situation, there are next to none here in Britain. We have Eucharistic Ministers *(I hate the term but the pastor keeps using it- so what can I do?) *& Readers. Not 2% of the parish congregation would have even **heard **of instituted acolytes & lectors.
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Thanks for the international (name removed by moderator)ut.
 
Can we use the Instituted Acolyte as a new form of subdeacon. I mean by this that he would be the counter balance to the Deacon next to Father? Having read the ceremonies of the Modern Roman Rite, I see that Msgr Peter Elliot has the same thought. The Instituted Acolyte would also be a good place to use the tunicle to distingush him from servers and from commnuion ministers.

Down here is Australia I have only meet two Instituted Acoyltes, they are both from Sydney and they are not seminarians.

P.S. Please be nice to me, it is my first post.
 
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