Three excellent altar servers at the Sunday Mass at Fatima, Portugal, last October Recently I visited Mom and Dad back home (Shippensburg, Pennsylvania). To help out the local pastor, I always take some of the Masses at my home parish. Two excellent female servers served these Masses. There is no question that in general girls are more motivated and more competent servers than boys, especially at the age most kids serve the Mass. In fact, they are so zealous for the things of God at that age that few boys want to serve with them. Many Catholic women tell me “when I was a girl I wanted to be a nun,” and this is precisely the age they excel at altar serving. Personally, I am inspired by the devotion and maturity of female servers. At Star of the Sea, we have forgone female servers, and this has not been easy. It is harder to form boys at that age for divine service; it’s much easier to work with girls. I'm sure we would also find female priests a comforting and delightful alternative to many of us priests who suffer from the "bachelor syndrome:" Catholic priests are often wanting in sensitivity and social skills. Which is why, on a purely human level (apart from the divine mandate), the Church is well-advised to limit the priesthood to men. If women were to be ordained I'm fairly sure that male priests would gladly surrender the Church's pastoral work to those who are more naturally more caring, relational, and zealous for religion.
Our procession into Mass in Fatima on October 1 It's been three years since I decided to develop a male-only altar server program at my parish. The decision ignited a culture war around us. Google “Star of the Sea San Francisco” and you will get many negative articles about a misogynist pastor at a retrograde parish. For twenty-five years I had offered the Holy Mass assisted by female servers, and at school Masses and outside of the parish I still enjoy the help of female servers in my sacred liturgical duties. But I am more convinced than ever that the Church's decision to allow girl servers was a mistake. In just about every place I've offered Mass, most of the boys and men have deserted the altar. I concelebrated Sunday Mass at Fatima, Portugal, a few months ago, for example. Of the 13 scheduled servers, only three were male. In the parishes, the shrines, the cathedrals--where have the boys and men gone? They have abrogated their sacred duties. Religion has become women’s work. God bless our women! But God help our men. Given this natural apathy in the human male for things spiritual, we should in charity expect them to serve. It will lead them out of themselves, give them a sense of sacred responsibility, and bring many into the priesthood. If we have a crisis of priestly vocations, and if we have a crisis of fatherhood and male identity, a modest solution, at least, would be to expect them to serve at the altar. Let them do it. Expect them to do it. Give them space to do it.
A dear parishioner went to Sunday Mass last week at another parish, a very fine parish in our city. “All of the servers were women!” she complained. “Where have all the men gone?”
A dear parishioner went to Sunday Mass last week at another parish, a very fine parish in our city. “All of the servers were women!” she complained. “Where have all the men gone?”
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