JENNIFER ZICKEL is outraged because her daughters will not be able to serve as altar girls at the Corpus Christi Catholic church in the Arlington, Virginia area. The pastor has ended the practice, returning to the traditional custom of altar boys, and there is very little protest. Nevertheless, The Washington Post writesof the dissatisfaction of Zickel and a few others. Even though women typically outnumber men on altars in Catholic churches, and the Novus Ordo liturgy is often infused with a feminine, heart-throbbing sensibility, Zickel ran out of church in tears when she learned her little girls will not be altar servers someday, as if she had been told they would be forcibly confined to convents for the rest of their lives.

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Sage McLaughlin writes:

This woman in Arlington is heartbroken, in all her solipsistic silliness, that her daughters cannot serve Mass at her parish. The most honest answer I ever got from a girl on the question of why it was such a grand idea for girls to serve Mass was a foot-stamping, “Well, it’s just something I have always wanted to do.” This is the total depth of thinking on such subjects by a certain kind of liberal–it’s something I want, and that settles the matter. Whether it’s really good for the Church is a mere irrelevancy, an issue not even deemed worthy of consideration.

The Knights of the Altar was once a kind of program for recruiting boys into the service of the Mass by creating a feudal Order of young men who would serve the Priest at Mass, and who would train each incoming acolyte. It was all very hierarchical–the Sergeant at Arms was the second-in-command, who was responsible for overseeing the training of all the altar boys, and depending upon one’s rank, one might carry either a candle, the Book of the Canon, the processional cross, or a censer. I can remember how proud I was to have attained the rank of “censer” at Mass, since it was reserved for the most senior altar boys and was at that time generally only used for special Masses such as Easter or Christmas Vigil.

I say all this because it points out something crucial, which is that boys have to be recruited to do such things with an ethos that appeals to their masculine predisposition to hierarchy, and also to their best instincts such as chivalry (a Knight of the Altar could get into big trouble for besmirching the Order by, for example, making a girl cry–not that I would know anything about that…). Everybody knows that you can’t have programs like that at Catholic parishes anymore, because it’s considered sexist simply to try to appeal to boys as boys. A woman told me once that if boys were attracted to male-only clubs and activities, then that was because they were chauvinists and ought to be “reformed.” That this might simply be boys’ nature was not even a serious possibility to her mind. The male-only priesthood is the real target of this assault on hierarchy and masculine exclusivity, though most people deny this obvious fact. (Liberals are always denying such obvious connections, until they think they don’t have to anymore.)

 Laura writes:

That’s true. The male priesthood is the real target and making altar servers coed naturally made it less appealing to boys. As is so often the case, it’s not a question of equilibrium but of which sex will dominate. For instance, girls mature faster than boys and can make boys of the same age look clumsy and inept when handling delicate pitchers and cloths as altar servers do. This is sometimes very apparent with boy and girl altar servers working together. The girls tend to dominate.

In coed organizations, competition and hierarchy are considered mean, rigid and unfair. But, as you say, this is exactly what appeals to boys. Boys don’t like to compete with girls anyway and are strongly driven to differentiate themselves. So the issue is whether there will be mostly girl altar servers or all boy altar servers. Equality is impossible.

The above applies to the priesthood too, though not for quite the same reasons. If women were priests, they would dominate. The priesthood would appeal to men much less. Priests must already work in a woman’s world, no doubt a major factor in reduced vocations. As the Post pointed out, there are twice as many lay ministers as priests and three quarters of the lay ministers are women.

Mr. McLaughlin adds:

You say that boys don’t like to compete with girls, and this is of course true. They also hate being put on the spot around girls, which is why boys will freely recite poetry in front of class at an all-male institution, but in coed schools they simply will not do this without suffering extreme insecurity, which they will tend to cover up by treating the activity as trivial and unserious, i.e., by becoming cut-ups.

The shocking slovenliness of present-day altar “servers” (girls included, who first introduced open-toed shoes to the modern altar) is, similarly, a consequence of boys’ aversion to competing with girls in really serious settings, and is the same everywhere: school, church, and politics.

Amelia B. writes:

This topic came up among my (conservative, faithful Catholic) friends recently. It boils down to the question: is altar serving related to the office of the priest, or related to the proper function of the laity?

The norms governing altar serving are within the power of the Church to change as she will. (For example, the Church can’t change the core of the Eucharistic sacrifice, which was instituted by Christ, but the she can change the particular details of the Eucharistic liturgy.) The norms governing servers at the alter fall into the latter category- about which the Church can licitly make changes with the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Briefly put, it is my understanding that prior to Vatican II the office of altar serving was one of the four offices of the minor orders (porter, lector, exorcist, acolyte), which were distinguished from the major orders (subdeacon, deacon, priest and bishop). I believe the hope was that men would be ordained to these offices in succession, thus linking very tightly the office of acolyte (altar server) and that of the ordained priest.

The Second Vatican Council simplified these orders, and returned many of them to the laity. In most parishes, for instance, men and women serve as lectors, which I find to be a healthy participation of the laity in the Eucharist. It is my understanding that altar serving was also re-oriented towards the laity in this way, and intentionally dropped its hierarchical and symbolic connection with the priesthood. Thus, girls are now able to serve as altar servers without violating the important masculine role of the priest. Being an altar server isn’t about preparing for the priesthood anymore- it’s about being a part of the laity. This is a valid change in ordering and symbolism that the Church is within her rights to make. And for the function of serving on behalf of the laity, girls as well as boys are fully capable of being chosen.

Some closing comments:

– I agree that this issue is often taken up by those wishing to push a feminist agenda on the Church. However, I myself am firmly in line with the Church’s teaching on reserving the priesthood to men- so please realize that these issues can be distinguished.

– To the best of my knowledge, it is currently up to the discretion of the local bishop as to whether or not to permit girls to serve.

– The point raised above about boys needing a masculine ethic about the things they do I believe is valid, but I’m not sure is important enough to override the fact that, if altar serving is a representation of the service of the laity, then girls should be included. Girls are, after all, 50% of the laity. Excluding girls in the hope of winning vocations from the boys reduces the unique-in-its-own-right service of altar serving to a bid for vocations- something that I feel diminishes its uniqueness.

– Also, to run from Church crying is not always an evil- if my bishop were to announce the restriction of the laity to receive the Blood of Christ to only a minimal number of days a year, as has happened in several dioceses, I might run from Church crying as well.

Laura writes:

First, I have not meant to suggest that girls who have served on the altar have done something wrong. When it was permissible in their parishes and they served well, they made their own valuable contribution. Many girls have sacrificed their time and worked hard to be altar servers and they should be honored for their devotion.

Nor  is it a question of the Church not having the “right” to make the changes that were instituted after Vatican II. 

However, girls and women were traditionally barred from the altar for an important reason, and that was not only to ensure masculine participation and leadership in the Church but to recognize and honor the masculine dimension of God. God the Father possesses the detachment, the judgment, the authority and the love of a father. Jesus Christ was a man and he called men only to be his apostles. These facts do not represent any exclusion of women. To the contrary, women participate in the masculinity of the Father and Son and derive strength from it. Feminine love and empathy ensure that women are not excluded from the inner life of God because we conceive of him as masculine.

As Leon J. Podles writes in his book The Church Impotent: The Feminization of Christianity, “[T]he Scriptures constantly characterize the intra-trinitarian relationship of God as masculine. The generation of the Son by the Father has the created analogue of parenthood. Although the mother is more obviously a parent than the father, the First Person nonetheless is called Father by the only one who truly knows him, Jesus. The First Person is Father, indeed Father specifies what he is, because he eternally begets the Son. Paul rejects the idea that the Father is a religious projection of patriarchal social structures. The reverse is true. The Father is, in terms reminiscent of Platonic archetypes, the model, and created fatherhood is the image: “Blessed be the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom all fatherhood on earth takes its name.” (p. 75)  

This masculinity of God must take symbolic form in the liturgy. Not only does this symbolism help us understand God and love him more deeply, but it lays the foundation for the human institution of fatherhood.

Another reason why the changes to allow women on the altar have been a disaster is that they have driven men away, for the reasons mentioned above. Women do not need to be on the altar to maintain their faith and their commitment to the Church. There are many other ways in which they have traditionally served. For centuries, they were happy in their devotions before God-hating ideologues came along and poisoned the well. Women don’t need to be on the altar to serve God, but men do need a clearly differentiated role. They need a role that, as Mr. McLaughlin said, appeals to their masculine nature, their innate inclination toward hierarchy and their right to lead. The Church needs the leadership of men to remain doctrinally sound. In the years since women have served on the altar in variosu capacities, the Church’s moral authority has declined and has given way to much of the same feel-good non-judgmentalism that has overtaken Protestant denominations. The liturgy has become soaked with sentimentality and narcissism. And women greatly outnumber men and are more involved in church affairs.

A man feels, given the feminine sensibility of modern day Christianity, that he must give up his manhood in order to be holy. Through his initiation into service at the altar, particularly in the way Mr. McLaughlin described, the boy once learned that manliness and faith are not contradictory. 

By the way, I never said there are no good reasons to leave a church in tears. Jennifer Zickel’s tears were frivolous and narcissistic. She dresses her daughters in hyper-feminine pink. It might occur to her that masculinity needs to be respected in outer form too. She should be embarrassed to reduce ancient traditions to the trivial matter of whether her daughters will serve or not.

The worst thing for her little girls would be to grow up in a church drained of manliness.

Karen I. writes:

The photo of Jennifer Zickel and her daughters is odd. The strangest part is that the girl on the right is four years old and sucking her thumb with her eyes closed like an infant. The other girl is strangely posed as well, with her arms around her mother’s neck and an unflattering look on her face. The shades of pink contrast sharply with Zickel’s masculine look. 

Not surprisingly, there is no father in the picture.

Emily Hall writes:

Can I just say that, even before reading the article about that woman’s outrage, the staged maternal endearment in the photo makes me sick? It’s all the pink, the loving, cuddling daughters, and the look that is probably meant to reflect seriousness but just reveals the robotic de-humanized andriod of a caretaker underneath.

It makes me incredibly sad that the general public and the media-at-large believes that a short hair cut, some pink clothes and cuddling do a mother make.

Laura writes:

Kathleen Willet Redle writes at Tradition in Action:

Unfortunately, too many modern precedents have been set, for John Paul II allowed altar girls after pressure, that is to say, outright disobedience by his Bishops. But Pope Benedict XIV stated:

“Pope Gelasius in his 9th Letter (chap. 26) to the Bishops of Lucania condemned the evil practice which had been introduced of women serving the priest at the celebration of Mass. Since this abuse had spread to the Greeks, Innocent IV strictly forbade it in his letter to the bishop of Tusculum: ‘Women should not dare to serve at the altar; they should be altogether refused this ministry.’ We too have forbidden this practice in the same words ….” (Pope Benedict XIV, Encyclical Al latae Sunt, July 26, 1755, sec. 29).

He called it an evil practice because it leads people to think that women can be priests or that women can be in the sanctuary during Mass, which they should not be. In the Orthodox churches they never let women set foot in the sanctuary during their liturgy. Pagans had women priests, but at no time in the Old Testament or in Christendom were there ever priestesses. Never until the 20th century were female altar servers permitted and sanctioned in the Latin Rite. Women had to cover their heads until the mid 1960’s upon entering a Catholic Church, and it would have been a great scandal for a woman to do anything like read or give out Communion.

Kimberly writes:

The photo of that woman and her girls is as obnoxious as they get. The only reasons a four-year-old would still be thumb-sucking are that she was either weaned much too early or not nursed frequently enough. Poor kid. Mom is so busy looking for ways to put them up on stage! She probably actually believes her own nonsense, or she would have at least popped the thumb out for the photo. She is as confused as can be. 

I have three little boys. I want them to be altar-boys, because I would love to have a priest for a son one day.  

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