American Jesuits mount a campaign to keep girls at the altar, while parish priests favor males as possible future priests.
“Save the altar girls.” The prestigious and influential American Jesuit journal, America, which has always been one of the most liberal examples of “Made in the USA” Catholicism, is now mounting a campaign to save the altar girls, who have been penalized by parish priests favoring males as “potential future priests.”
The Jesuits, whose journal articles have not gone unnoticed by the Vatican, say that serving mass is not a sacrament, and not even a ministry. It is simply a “service” that is open to all - even to lay people. The issue of altar girls is, in fact, purely “pastoral.”
The first altar girls appeared in the most “progressive” countries, such as the United States, Holland, and France immediately after the Second Vatican Council. Until 1994, the Vatican considered this “opening” an “abuse” to be tolerated.
For girls to enter the space of the altar means the end of any attribution of impurity to their sex; it means that they too can have this important formative experience in religious education, a different focus than liturgy, and an approach to faith through its heart.
In its weekly journal, America, the Society of Jesus defends the participation of female altar servers, who have been replaced by their male peers in some US dioceses from Phoenix, Arizona to Lincoln, Nebraska. The Jesuits oppose the “masculinist” tendency that pushes some priests to exclude girls from participating as altar servers during mass. This exclusion of girls is justified by some parishes with the need to promote the involvement of boys to incentivize them to follow the path of faith toward a possible priestly vocation.
John Paul II was the first Pope to lend his support to altar girls in 1995 (one year after the issuance of the Vatican Communication on Female Altar Servers), as did Benedict XVI.
Indeed, on 5 November 1995 a small historical-liturgical revolution took place around the Pope. For the first time in a Roman parish, 4 girls served the Mass celebrated by Karol Wojtyla.
Never before had the Pope - in an Italian church, much less in Rome - been accompanied by girls during the Eucharist, despite the fact that the Vatican had approved altar girls in March 1994.
Before ’94, the presence of girls at the altar was individually decided by parish priests, with the tacit approval of some of the more courageous bishops.
During his trips abroad, the Polish Pope was sometimes “assisted” at the altar by groups of girls. The ice was broken on the morning of 5 November 1995 in the Parish of Santi Mario e Famiglia Martiri in Romanina, a suburb on the outskirts of Rome, where Karol Wojtyla celebrated Mass alongside Michela, Eleonora, Giovanna, and Serena.
The girls, all eleven years old, served mass very naturally alongside the altar boys, surrounded by concelebrant priests and then-Cardinal Camillo Ruini. Both the girls and boys wore the “tarcisiano,” - the characteristic long white cassock with two horizontal red lines - without betraying any embarrassment or hesitation.
At the end of the celebration, parish priest Father Giuseppe Manfredi said: “For us it is normal that girls serve mass. Today, for the Pope’s celebration, we chose the most grown-up girls.”
The Holy See restricted itself to a statement that it was “normal for girls to serve mass beside the Pope, because it is prescribed by a Vatican document,” clarifying that “this does not mean that the Church is willing to review its rejection of female priesthood.”
Now, an anti-altar girl “counter-reform” is infuriating America's Jesuits. It has been nearly two decades since the Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship, after having long studied the question, formally empowered the bishops to authorize priests to allow girls in white cassocks and skirts into the "presbytery,” once a sacred area absolutely forbidden to the fair sex.
To avoid even the smallest opening for female claims to the priesthood, in 1994 the Vatican rushed to emphasize that the decision did not in any way change its attitude toward the priesthood which, for the Catholic Church, remained closed to women.
There are many examples in Church history of those who become priests because of their service as altar boys in their youth. For them, altar service was a gateway to the priesthood.
Since 1994, it has been left to the discretion of individual bishops whether to allow girls to serve at the altar. For many in the Church, this concession is a problem, as in the future it could cause girls to ask to be ordained.
In August 2010, the topic found a place on the front page of the Osservatore Romano, with a piece by Lucetta Scaraffia entitled “At the School of the Altar Boys.” In it we read that “the exclusion of girls from altar service signifies a deep inequality in Catholic education.”
And again: “For girls to enter the space of the altar signifies the end of any attribution of impurity to their gender. Being an altar girl is an intense and serious way to experience one’s own Christian identity, an unparalleled experience, very different from the reading of Holy Scriptures or going to catechism, which are without a doubt central points in a Catholic education,” emphasizes the daily paper of the Holy See.
“But serving mass means assisting from up close, collaborating directly in the central mystery of our faith, and to be attentive to this is to be responsible for the success of the constant miracle that is every liturgical celebration, “ says Lucetta Scaraffia.
“And we know that for boys, concrete participation, the experience, carries much more weight than simply study or moral lessons. The great educator Maria Montessori also knew this – she built her students some liturgical objects and miniature altars, causing much perplexity in the Church. We can well understand the problems that this peculiar form of religious education posed, but it is interesting that the pedagogue knew the importance, for the youngest children, of this privileged way of approaching the sacred.”
Indeed, being an altar boy has always been perceived as a service, but also as a privilege, as it brings the server to the heart of the liturgical celebration - into the space of the altar, and in direct contact with the Eucharist.
The exclusion of girls from all of this, simply because of their sex, “has always weighed heavily, and signifies a deep inequality within Catholic education that, fortunately, was eliminated several decades ago.”
Even if many parish priests are perhaps resigned to altar girls “only in the absence of available boys, it was very important for girls to overcome this barrier, and in fact this was how it was understood.”