Would appointing acolytes eliminate child altar servers?

[Andreas_Hofer]

John Lilburn, on I believe another post, gave a link to a case he had filed that would relate to this. The case was filed in a Tribunal in Australia, if I remember correctly, and although I do not believe that in Canon Law, one tribunal’s holding binds others, the findings and decision seem to indicate that the mere presence of a minister does not manadate in any way the necessity of using him. As I read the decision, only if the bishop specifically assigned him to a parish would his presence at a Mass indicate a mandatory use, if even that.

That is my understanding, that whether you have an instituted lector, or only a non-instituted lector, concelebrating priests do not read the OT and NT readings; only the Gospel. The other two are read by lectors, instituted or otherwise.

I don’t know if I’d search the canons for info on using instituted ministers, but in the GIRM the text is, IIRC, always clear to point out that *in the absence of *the pertinent ordinary minister, a suitable layperson may fill the role. I wouldn’t regard that as referring to mere physical presence, since certain factors can render a presence of the sort not really conducive to service (like being infirm or perhaps traveling and unknown to the parish). In the case of priests concelebrating and not carrying out the functions of lower ministries, I would believe this is the case when told so but if it is I think it is a very unfortunate outgrowth of our revival of concelebration. For instance, with our current laws it is conceivable that a parish with half a dozen priests would never experience Mass with a deacon, even though it has a ready supply of priest-deacons - you can say this emphasizes the unique character of each order but I think it takes it to the point of impoverishing our liturgical tradition. (If you look at worldwide numbers of permanent deacons you’ll find that the number in America is incredibly disproportionate to our numbers in the worldwide Church, so you can’t necessarily assume that a foreign parish with lots of priests will also have a cadre of deacons.)

 

[hilde_the_dog]

lak611

the alter boys in our parish use patens. I think it may be an order of the bishop. they were reinstated about a year ago.

 

[otjm]

The legally evasive part, in my mind, was instituting acolytes while deliberately and unnecessarily stopping short of filling all the positions so as to leave room for altar boys. However, I would contend that our overall use of extraordinary ministers in parish life does stand in tension with the bundle of laws we have regarding ministries.

For instance, I don’t know what Paul VI’s intention was in issuing Ministeriam quaedam but the practical effect was that the law drastically eliminated the need for newly allowed extraordinary ministers.

This is where we disagree; you see it as providing a drastic elimination of extraordinary minsiters, which I almost take to be a feeling that they should barely exist. I see the replacement of the minor orders with the instituted position as just that - a replacement that was primarily focused on seminarians, and the allowance of lay people into the position as mostly an afterthought.

Yet when laymen were allowed to serve extraordinarily they were no longer, after '67, serving in positions that had very slim possibilities for being filled by ordinary ministers because now instead of being reliant on seminarians basically every parish would have a pool of men able to produce at least a handful of lectors and acolytes. Still, the past 40 years have shown that our bishops have chosen not to fill these ministries even when they could have and have opted to, I would argue unnecessarily, use only extraordinary ministers. Isn’t that odd?

Only if you presume that by replacing two of the minor orders with two instituted postions - lector and acolyte - that either Rome in general, or Paul 6th in particular, did so in order that parishes would have a number of them. I would agree that the language is there that lay peope can also be instituted. However, after all the years that this option has been available, the silence is deafening. I take that more as a sign that it was simply something available, almost as an afterthought, than that it was the intention of the pope that parishes would abound in them. The alternative would be to presume some sort of massive rebvellion, or something bordering on it, by the world’s bishops; and that is a presumtion that simply doesn’t hold any water whatsoever. In any given decade, we have had bishops fairly well dispersed throughout the policitcal (if you will - conservative to liberal) spectrum. And it appears that one single bishop in the US is known for using the right to install alymen and is doing so. Again, there may be more, but they don’t seem to be surfacing.

While it goes beyond the question of instituted ministries I think the clearest example of the disjunction between norms and practice is our habitual use of EMHCs of whom, we are clearly told, we are not to make habitual use. Yet I think most of us have experienced the phenomenon of individuals having been regularly scheduled for the past few decades (how’s that for temporary deputation?) regardless of number of communicants that may be present. I think the same rut is in place with our instituted ministries - we’ve gotten so used to using extraordinary ministers that we’ve lost sight of the full set of criteria that could inform our decisions about when they should really be employed.

My experience is with Oregon. We have one large metropolitan city, Portland, and a number of other cities of medium size west of the Cascades. There are a number of parishes that have no priest assigned, but rather one who makes a circuit on Sunday, and the greatest majority of parishes have one priest. Mine has two - both Jesuits; teh pastor is now, I beleive, 75 and with no signs of retirng. Because the parish is growing, and very recently started a grade school, we now have a second priest, who appears to be just about as old, and not necessarily in as good a health, as the pastor. Picking on either one of them for using EMHCs simply isn’t going to carry any water. They use one at weekday Masses - for the Cup. They are not both there for weekday Mass, and don’t live “on campus”. Anyone who would like to insist that both priests need to be present for each Mass is free to do so; they won’t even get a response. And I would not call our parish “liberal”; we have had Perpetual Adoration for something like 10 years or better.

I would agree that there may be a hesitancy to appoint men to the position because of reaction by women to the issue. I do not, however, see instituting laymen as mandatory, nor the failure to do so as evasive.

 

[Andreas_Hofer]

This is where we disagree; you see it as providing a drastic elimination of extraordinary minsiters, which I almost take to be a feeling that they should barely exist. I see the replacement of the minor orders with the instituted position as just that - a replacement that was primarily focused on seminarians, and the allowance of lay people into the position as mostly an afterthought.

I hardly think the admission of laymen was an afterthought considering the drastic liturgical changes underway and the attempts across the board to allow the laity greater ministerial action in the liturgy. But if you want me to show all my cards I will make it very clear that, yes, I do think the Church’s own documents allowing for the extraordinary performance of certain ministries means they are not meant to be stable positions. I’m entirely open to the Church having changed her mind on that as the years progressed, but I’m simply pointing to the disjunction between official positions and practice.

Only if you presume that by replacing two of the minor orders with two instituted postions - lector and acolyte - that either Rome in general, or Paul 6th in particular, did so in order that parishes would have a number of them. I would agree that the language is there that lay peope can also be instituted. However, after all the years that this option has been available, the silence is deafening. I take that more as a sign that it was simply something available, almost as an afterthought, than that it was the intention of the pope that parishes would abound in them. The alternative would be to presume some sort of massive rebvellion, or something bordering on it, by the world’s bishops; and that is a presumtion that simply doesn’t hold any water whatsoever. In any given decade, we have had bishops fairly well dispersed throughout the policitcal (if you will - conservative to liberal) spectrum. And it appears that one single bishop in the US is known for using the right to install alymen and is doing so. Again, there may be more, but they don’t seem to be surfacing.

If using the laity were truly the afterthought you claim it is, the bishops would not have been using extraordinary ministers anyway - clerics would have performed the functions themselves as they had always done, since the extension of these ministries to the laity was never really envisioned as a general norm anyway.

My main beef, though, is not to say that instituting laymen to ministries is somehow mandatory and thus any bishop who doesn’t is a rebel, rather that the way in which Americans and perhaps the rest of the Church is implementing extraordinary ministry smells fishy because it is contrived. For instance, we know that for a good reason, such as lack of space, congregations can stand during the consecration. Now, let’s prescind from the fact that most of the world doesn’t think lack of kneelers constitutes one of those good reasons and ask: wouldn’t you think it was suspicious if a parish that was entirely capable of doing so refused to install kneelers because if they did they would have to kneel during Mass? The parish would recognize a means well within its reach to achieve an ordinary liturgical situation but decline to use it out of preference for the extraordinary allowances.

Or let’s say a priest knows he’s going to be asked to bless a certain object when he visits his family but he doesn’t like the formula in the Book of Blessings so he intentionally leaves it at the rectory in order to be able to say, “Well, I don’t have my book with me so I’ll just have to come as close as I can.” Well, he’s right, he’s in extraordinary circumstances, but to get to them he had to omit a fairly easy action. Wouldn’t that seem fishy?

The main point is, we’ve got liturgical standards of ordinary and extraordinary, and have had ample opportunity to achieve the ordinary means of fulfilling them, but we haven’t done this. I know the above examples imply a sort of intention to avoid the norms but I don’t mean to ascribe bad intent so much as to show that our application of these norms has been counterintuitive. If you know that something is prescribed to be ordinarily red but may be blue in extraordinary circumstances and then see the whole organization except for one or two people using blue it’s time either for an enforcement of the policy or a change in the rules to reflect what you really want to happen. I think if the Church is fine with this (non-use of instituted ministries) she should stop calling the means she prefers or at least has no problem with as the worldwide norm an *extraordinary *circumstance.

 

[DIT]

Well, you probably do have acolytes, as that is part of the process of someone studying for the priesthood. It used to be a minor order, but minor orders were done away with and instituted lectors and instituted acolytes are what remain.

There appear to be only and extreme few dioceses which are instituting me as acolytes who are not studying for the priesthood (excuse me, I think permanent deacons may also be instituted before ordination).

Deacon, whether permanent or transitional, must first receive the minor orders of lector and acolyte. These minor orders are the foundational and natural progression toward ordination. What has happened is that the remaining minor orders (porter, exorcist, etc) have been “waived” for ordination but can still be instituted by the bishop if he so desired.

Please remember that all bishops are priests and all priests are deacons. It is the natural progression through the heirarchy of the church. Also, a deacon is a deacon whether permanent or transitional (meaning continuing on to the presbyter/priesthood). All are ordained and all perform the same functions inside/outside the church. The deacon is ordained for the service of the church while priests are ordained for sacramental ministry. But a deacon performs sacramental ministry by performing baptisms, witnessing marriages, leading funeral services outside of Mass, leading benediction, and assisting the priest at Mass. A priest is a deacon too, he has a level of service required of him as well.

 

[John_Lilburne]

Deacon, whether permanent or transitional, must first receive the minor orders of lector and acolyte. These minor orders are the foundational and natural progression toward ordination. What has happened is that the remaining minor orders (porter, exorcist, etc) have been “waived” for ordination but can still be instituted by the bishop if he so desired.

The 1972 Motu Proprio Ministeria Quaedam has different ideas.

"… Among the particular offices to be preserved and adapted to contemporary needs are those that are in a special way more closely connected with the ministries of the word and of the altar and that in the Latin Church are called the offices of reader and acolyte and the subdiaconate. It is fitting to preserve and adapt these in such a way, that from this time on there will be two offices: that of reader and that of acolyte, which will include the functions of the subdiaconate.

In addition to the offices universal in the Latin Church, the conferences of bishops may request others of the Apostolic See, if they judge the establishment of such offices in their region to be necessary or very useful because of special reasons. To these belong, for example, the ministries of porter, exorcist, catechist, as well as others to be conferred on those who are dedicated to works of charity, where this ministry had not been assigned to deacons.

It is in accordance with the reality itself and with the contemporary outlook that the above-mentioned ministries should no longer be called minor orders;"

The full document is at romanrite.com/Churchdoc.html .