On Altar Boys and Girls: a Translation and a Response

On August 7 there appreared in L’Osservatore Romano an article by Lucetta Scaraffia stating a “theological” case for female altar servers. What follows is a translation of that article and a response by Father Richard Cipolla.

An Experience to Educate in the Faith

At the school of altar servers

In the very old and very beautiful church of the Most Holy Crucifix in Todi, where this summer I am going to Mass each Sunday, the parish priest celebrates Mass assisted by at least four altar girls and altar boys, proud of their beautiful white tunics ornamented with red, composed and serious even if they are quite young, around ten years old. One of the most assiduous is a little boy who is smaller than the others, very spirited, who works at staying quiet at those moments in which the service requires him to be still, always the first to run here and there when a liturgical object is needed, but always intent on his important task that he takes very seriously. He is a living example of how a little boy is able to understand the importance of his role of assisting the priest at Mass; he is an example for us faithful adults of how one is able to follow with attention every phase of the liturgy. Can we be distracted ourselves when that server, so little and spirited, does not lose touch with any moment of the celebration of Mass?

On the occasion of a meeting in Rome, there was a discussion once again about altar servers. Rather than the latter term, I prefer, more correctly, the term “minister”, because I am fond of this older way of calling the young children who assist the priest. In the same way I like so much the expression, at one time used regularly, “to serve Mass”, because with these words as well the Catholic Church has interwoven that cultural tradition of so many generations that have preceded us. To be an altar server constitutes a way of living one’s own Christian identity that is intense and responsible, an experience unlike any other, quite different from reading of Sacred Scripture or attending catechism class, even if these are without doubt central moments in Catholic education. But to “serve Mass” means to assist close at hand, better still to collaborate directly in the central mystery of our faith. To be attentive in this place means to become responsible for the outcome of that constant miracle that is every liturgical celebration.

And one knows that for these young children the concrete participation and the experience have a weight that is not merely the learning of an apprentice or a moral lesson. A great educator like Maria Montessori knew this as well. She came to the point where she had constructed for her students liturgical objects and altars in miniature. This aroused a sense of perplexity in the Church. One can well understand the problems that arose from this unusual from of education in the religious life. But it is interesting that this educator had grasped the importance for the smallest children of this privileged way of approaching the sphere of the sacred.

To be an altar server has always been understood, in fact, as a service, but also as a privilege, because it brings one to the heart of the liturgical celebration, in the ambience of the altar, in direct contact with the Eucharist. The exclusion of little girls from all of this on the basis of belonging to the feminine sex, has always been a terrible onus, and has always purported a deep inequality deep within Catholic education, which has fortunately been wiped out already now for some decades. Even if perhaps many parish priests have resigned themselves to girl altar servers only in the absence of boys who are not available, for the girls to overcome this frontier has been very important, and in this way, in fact, this inclusivity is seen in the presence of a majority of girls at the tenth gathering of the “ministers” that just took place in the presence of the Pope.

For the girls to enter into the ambience of the altar signifies the end of any attribution of impurity to their sex. It signifies the possibility, even for them, of living this formative experience of extraordinary importance in religious education. It signifies a distinct caring for the liturgy and an approach to faith in the drawing near of one’s own heart.

And these happy children, rejoicing and proud of their role, who went to Rome to bring to Benedict XVI their affectionate enthusiasm, were, not certainly in intention but in fact, a concrete answer to the accusations, true and false, that we have seen to have been hurled against the Church. And this confirms that a venerable role, that of the altar server that assists the priest at the liturgy, still constitutes a decisive experience for education in the faith.

Reponse to the article:

That this wooly piece appeared in L’Osservatore Romano, which, despite occasional disclaimers, is the mouthpiece of the Vatican, can only cause consternation. By the adjective “wooly” I mean not well thought out and lacking in depth. I do not have the time and space to address all of the problems with Signora Scaraffia’s understanding of the role of the altar server. Her misunderstanding of the role of altar server is linked to a misunderstanding of the Liturgy itself, and this is a topic for a major essay. Let me address just a few of her wrong-headed understanding of altar servers.

Her basic claim that serving at the altar is basically educational is both wrong headed and beside the point. Whatever one thinks of Maria Montessori’s having children play at celebrating Mass, the role of the altar server can never be reduced to education in the faith. Of course, the server learns parts of the Mass; he learns what to say and do and certain moments in the Mass. He carries cruets, he brings the missal to the priest in the Novus Ordo, he moves the Missal to the gospel side in the Extraordinary Form, he learns to bow at the name of Jesus, he rings the bells at the consecration where bells are still used, he watches and listens and absorbs what he sees and hears. In some sense this is education, but this is certainly not the traditional understanding of the altar server. The server plays his role in the offering up of the Holy Sacrifice. It is a role that is learned and a role that should be taken seriously. But it is certainly not the basis of greater participatio actuosa than someone in the pew who is participating in Mass. This whole fanciful notion that the closer one is to the altar the more one participates and the more one learns, has no basis in fact or Tradition. One wonders how many times it has to be said that participation in the Mass does not depend at all on what function one is fulfilling at the Mass. Participatio actuosa, which means participation in the act, not active participation, depends upon the individual’s openness to what is happening at the Mass, whether in the pew or kneeling in the sanctuary.

The most problematical part of Signora Scaraffia’s piece is her analysis of the phenomenon of female altar servers. Her attitude reminds me of the phenomenon of Communion in the hand. What was allowed as an exception to Tradition because of the lobbying of bishops egged on by liturgical innovators inflamed by romanticism and secularism has become the norm in so many places, the “ordinary” way of receiving Holy Communion. In the same way, female servers at the altar are allowed by an interpretation of Canon 230 in the 1983 Code of Canon Law that allowed bishops to approve female servers in their diocese. The letter in 1994 that gave this interpretation nevertheless referred to the “noble tradition of having boys serving at the altar.” A further qualification in 2001 said that priests are not compelled to have female altar servers.

It may seem problematical to many people to suggest that the interpretation of Canon 230, paragraph 2, to allow female servers, was influenced by pressures from secular society. But I shall indeed suggest that this interpretation was a cave-in to secular pressure without an honest examination of the Church’s tradition of male altar servers. Rather than engaging with the history of altar servers in the Church, I will rather speak directly about the Italian word commonly used for altar server, a word that Signora Scaraffia uses affectionately: chierichetto. The word literally means “little cleric” or “little priest”. The important aspect of what it means to serve at the altar that was entirely omitted by the Scaraffia article is the relationship of the altar boy to the priest. This relationship has been eroded deeply by the functionalism that lies at the heart of the culture of the Novus Ordo Mass. The fact is that the altar server has traditionally been understood as not only being located in the ambience of the altar but also within the ambience of the priest. The ministers within the sanctuary function within the ambience of the priest who is persona Christi capitis who is necessarily, in the teaching of the Church, male. This has nothing to do with issues of “impurity” that Scaraffia alludes to without any reference to Church teaching. This has nothing to do with “equality” between the sexes. This has to do with the ontological distinction between male and female that is a gift from God. Pope John Paul II’s sermons on the theology of the body are a beginning of the necessary theological work that must be done on human sexuality as ontological. A distinction does not imply inequality. To speak of a chiericetta is a dogmatically logical impossibility. A girl serving at the altar can never be a “little priest”. This is difficult to understand for those brought up in a culture in which equality in a secular sense trumps any meaning of distinction.

One practical corollary of the traditional restriction of altar servers to boys is the relationship between altar boys and vocations to the priesthood. The “nearness” of the boy to the priest in the sanctuary as he serves Mass involves the possibility of the boy following the priest in his vocation. This is impossible for a girl. The priest has an obligation to encourage his male altar severs to consider a vocation to the priesthood. He must do this by not only words but also by the inculcation of a kind of fellowship between the altar boys and himself. In an age shattered by sexual scandals concerning priests and boys, it would seem, according to the dictates of the secular society that revels in such failings of the priests of the Church, impossible to speak of a priest inculcating vocations among altar boys by fostering fellowship with priests. But that is exactly what was done in former times, and what must be done today.

What this means is that female altar servers are relegated to being merely functionaries, without any reference to the Tradition of the Church that insists on male altar servers because of their relationship within the sanctuary to the priest as the icon of Christ, the man who stands in persona Christi. To reduce serving at the altar, as does Signora Scaraffia, to religious education or a sentimental and un- Christian understanding of equality, is to falsify Catholic Tradition, something that should not be done in the pages of L’Osservatore Romano.

Father Richard G. Cipolla
St. Mary’s Church
Norwalk, CT