By Jenna Marie Cooper
OSV News
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?
A: The short answer is that yes, female altar servers are absolutely 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.
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, although echoes of them remained in the practice of instituting seminarians into the ministries of lector and acolyte. Keep in mind that seminarians are laity which means that ordination is not required for those ministries.
“Instituting” someone into the ministry of lector or acolyte means to establish him or her 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 revised the Code of Canon Law to clarify that girls and women could fulfill this role because what a lay man is able to do, so is a lay woman; all laity may fulfill functions not reserved for holy orders. Examples of other roles for laity are master of ceremonies, extraordinary minister of the Eucharist, cantor and commentator.
So, practically speaking, altar girls and women 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 all lay persons to be formally instituted in the stable 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 laity, as opposed to being fundamentally rooted in holy orders which would have made them properly male.
Our common baptismal priesthood is emphasized and is to be deeply appreciated.
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.