Question Corner: Should girls be altar servers?

Q: I am a 14-year-old boy, and growing up I learned to serve the Mass. At first I never served with girls (my old church did not allow it). They stated that serving was a gateway to the priesthood and since girls cannot be priests they “should” not be servers. Recently I started serving at two new churches. The first is a quite large church that allows female servers. The second church is a traditional Latin Mass church — this church has zero girl servers. The Latin Mass church takes the view that most servers will at least try to be priests so no girls should serve. Just because girl servers were traditionally “banned,” does that mean that we should not have them? Are they allowed? Should they be? I asked my local priests about this but it being such a controversial topic I could not get a solid answer.

A: The short answer is that yes, female altar servers are officially allowed in the Church today.

It is true that prior to the late 20th century girls and women were not permitted to be altar servers in the way we currently understand this role, although I’m not sure saying women were totally “banned” is the most accurate way to phrase this.

For instance, one of the jobs of pre-Vatican II altar boys was to make the Latin responses at Mass. But back in our grandparents’ day, it wasn’t unheard of for trained girls to “assist at Mass outside the rail,” meaning that they prayed the Latin responses while kneeling at the altar rail, even if they didn’t actually enter the sanctuary or handle the sacred books vessels during Mass.

I think historically, the connection between altar serving and priesthood and thus masculinity came about because “acolyte” (a technical canonical term for altar serving) was one of the four “minor orders” — along with that of porter, lector and exorcist — that a seminarian would receive as part of his progress towards the priesthood. After Vatican II, St. Paul VI did away with “minor orders” as such, although echoes of them remained in the practice of instituting seminarians into the ministries of lector and acolyte.

“Instituting” someone into the ministry of lector or acolyte means to establish them in this role in a more stable, permanent and ongoing way. This is different from how most parish lectors and altar servers serve on what is technically an “as needed” basis.

Perhaps as a reflection of the role these instituted ministries have in priestly formation, the current Code of Canon Law, which was published and took effect in 1983, explicitly allowed lay men to be instituted as lectors and acolytes in Canon 230, 1 as it was originally written. However, the code was silent on the subject of women serving at the altar as non-instituted acolytes, and in 1994 St. John Paul II stated that girls and women could fulfill this role.

So, practically speaking, “altar girls” have been specifically allowed since 1994. There was a further clarification regarding the background theology of this in 2021, when Pope Francis issued the “motu proprio” letter “Spiritus Domini,” changing the text of canon 230 to allow lay persons of either gender to be formally instituted in the roles of lector and acolyte.

“Spiritus Domini” was especially interesting to theologians and canon lawyers since it specified that participation in these ministries was rooted in baptism, meaning they are therefore applicable to male and female members of the faithful equally, as opposed to being fundamentally an anticipation of holy orders, which would have made them properly male.

The question of whether or not women and girls “should” be altar servers is a different question, one where different people will naturally have different opinions. Some might point out the pastoral benefits of an all-boys altar server team in promoting priestly vocations, while others might appreciate how allowing female altar servers emphasizes our common baptismal priesthood.

Jenna Marie Cooper, who holds a licentiate in canon law, is a consecrated virgin and a canonist whose column appears weekly at OSV News. Send your questions to CatholicQA@osv.com.

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