Sometime in the 1970’s the long-standing male-only policy for altar servers changed. Here I am in 1976 in a picture with my sister, Leah, after Mass with Fr. Nadine, a pastor who welcomed both girl altar servers and colorful Hawaiian vestments.continue at Catholic Vote
Thirty-five years later, many pastors and dioceses are having second thoughts about the presence of girls on the altar. Some cite tradition; others the Church’s teaching on the differentiation and complementarity of the sexes. But many more are pointing to vocations.
According to the Communications Office of the Diocese of Phoenix, there is growing evidence to support the claim that where altar service is limited to boys, priestly vocations increase. The best example is the Diocese of Lincoln Nebraska, the envy of all dioceses when it comes to vocations.
Why? Because serving at the altar was always considered an apprenticeship for the priesthood. Prior to the modern seminary, it was the primary means by which boys discerned their interest and calling to become priests.
Quite interesting considering their diocese is generally considered the worst of the five in Wisconsin when it comes to liturgy.
UPDATE: The Duffy's live in the Wausau area, not Ashland. Thank you dear readers for keeping me in line.
I think they are in Ashland, which it doesn't look like supports an all-male server policy. Hold the phone! Check out this photo of the interior of the church in Ashland!
Does anyone know to what extent it has been gutted?
Thanks to Brianne for finding this:
7 comments:
We can go even beyond the Diocese of Lincoln. The country of Poland does not have 'female altar boys' and in year 2007 (and I suspect the stats would be similar for most years) 29% of the Priests ordained on the continent of Europe were ordained in Poland and when you round in for Polish priests who may have been ordained outside of Poland (such as those attending seminary in Rome, another Archdiocese which does not permit female alter servers)you are basically getting 1/3 of the priests for the continent coming from one country so you really get a sense of what works for vocations and what doesn't. It is also worth mentioning that as far as I have seen the Catholic Church does not use altar girls when operating in predominantly Orthodox countries (Ukraine, Belarus, Russia) and obviously the Orthodox church has never and will never allow female altar servers (and honestly the fact that most of the west does probably in some way hurts ecumenical relations.)
In Orthodoxy there is no vocation crisis, and in Catholicism, the small segment of the Catholic population coming from non-altar girl promoting venues (a few of the old Eastern bloc countries and some of the more traditional groups like the Fraternity of Saint Peter) are really picking up all the slack.
I know it will look terrible in the media, I know that it will piss some people off, but the church really needs to look at what is being done in Lincoln NB, in Poland, in Orthodoxy, in the traditional societies etc. and start implementing that in a broad way. In the long run what model serves us better? Big mega-church style congregations (formed by merging and shutting down a half dozen pretty 19th century churches and putting everyone into a post-modern looking spaceship church) of graying baby-boomers served by one priest who must drive exhaust himself or rather, bite the bullet and count on having maybe smaller parish communities but an abundance of priests who can really focus on evangelism and teaching and the sacraments. I would suspect that if we went back to altar boys only (and backed this up with solid teaching and reform of the reform liturgy) within 20 years the vocation 'crisis' would be a thing of the past, till then maybe some Polish or African Archbishops would be nice enough to send a few priests to hold down the form.
*fort
Thanks for the info Anon!
If that church in Ashland is still in tact, then there' still hope for the Diocese of Superior. Please, someone, send in a photo of that same church's interior as it is today.
http://www.northland.edu/news-current-news.htm.htm?id=35
Click on the small picture of the altar on the left in the link above. Should be the same Church which is Our Lady of the Lake.
Let's be clear about the Diocese of Lincoln.
Yes, it does have the largest number of seminarians per-capita. Two things to keep in mind, Lincoln is a small diocese of only 95,445 Catholics. Secondly, seminarians do not equal ordained priests. The seminarian drop-out rate for Lincoln is somewhere around 95% and there have only been about two priests ordained recently each year - barely keeping up with attrition.
The claim that utilizing male-only altar servers produces vocations is bogus, at least in Lincoln's case. Most of their seminarians are not native to the diocese and are attracted to the persona of Fabian W. Bruskewitz.
Anonymous, you are right, it is a small diocese. They ordained three priests this year. That is more priests than most diocese five times their size. San Diego has five seminarians (not ordinations) for 950,000 catholics. Yes, we need to do more, but Lincoln is obviously doing vastly better than the Altar Girl dioceses.
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