Catholic Church The decision on to whether to allow altar girls is dependent on the local Bishop of the Diocese in the Catholic Church.
Former practice Formerly, it was forbidden to have women serving near the altar or anywhere in the
chancel (
infra cancellos), that is, they were prohibited from entering the altar area behind the altar rails during the liturgy. Although in some convents, the (female) nuns did in fact serve within the chancel. The first Pope to denounce the practice of altar girls was
Pope Gelasius, in the late 5th century he wrote to the Bishops of Lucania ordering them to stop the practice. More than 800 years later,
Pope Innocent IV would likewise forbid the practice.
Pope Benedict XIV wrote in the encyclical
Allatae sunt, 26 July 1775, "Women should not dare to serve at the altar; they should be altogether refused this ministry", and stating it was an “evil practice”, a reaffirmation of the earlier teaching of Gelasius and Innocent. With the practice of private Masses (
Mass by a priest and one other person, usually offered for a deceased person), scandal was often seen as a reason not to have a woman or girl alone with a priest. However, it has been customary in convents of women for nuns to perform the ministry of acolyte without being formally ordained to that minor order. This practice was used when the
Council of Trent developed the seminary system where men would go to seminary for training to be a priest rather than study under a parish priest. During the
Second Vatican Council. The Church discussed whether lay women could be servers at mass, although the matter would ultimately remain unchanged. Later in 1980 the Catholic Church would reaffirm the
1917 Code of Canon Law which stated: "A woman is not to be the server at Mass except when a man is unavailable and for a just reason and provided that she give the responses from a distance and in no way approach the altar." In 1994,
Pope John Paul II changed canon law, removing the church wide ban on allowing women and girls to serve as altar servers. The decision was devolved to Bishops, who could choose whether to allow or disallow girls to serve as altar servers, but overall removed the Church wide ban.
Changes since Vatican II The
1983 Code of Canon Law, without distinguishing between male and female, said that "Lay persons can fulfill the function of
lector in liturgical actions by temporary designation. All lay persons can also perform the functions of commentator or
cantor, or other functions, according to the norm of law." Although that language did not explicitly authorize women to act as altar servers, many dioceses allowed females to act as altar servers. The Holy See provided two clarifications in the 1990s. On 30 June 1992, the
Pontifical Council for the Interpretation of Legislative Texts issued an authentic interpretation of that canon declaring that service at the altar is one of the "other functions" open to lay persons in general. On 15 March 1994, the
Congregation for Divine Worship affirmed that both men and women may serve at the altar, that each bishop has the discretion to determine who may serve, and that "it will always be very appropriate to follow the noble tradition of having boys serve at the altar". In the year 2021,
Pope Francis, modified the Canon Law to state that all
baptized persons, male and female, of the Catholic Church were allowed to
lector and
acolyte. Where women and girls already had the ability to exercise these functions "by temporary designation", he indicated their eligibility for these roles "on a stable basis".
Vatican and papal practice Pope Benedict XVI had both male and female altar servers in Papal masses in London (2010), Berlin, and Freiburg (2011).
United States In the United States the
Diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska was the only diocese that did not allow female altar servers, after the only other diocese that did not, the
Diocese of Arlington, ended its prohibition on female altar servers in 2006. However, the cathedral of the
Diocese of Phoenix announced in August 2011 that females would not be allowed to serve at the altar. In 2015, Cardinal
Raymond Leo Burke, an American official of the
Roman Curia, criticized the introduction of female altar servers as part of what he calls "radical feminism" and an unwelcome sign of the "feminization" of the Church. Burke says that it requires a "certain manly discipline to serve as an altar boy in service at the side of a priest, and most priests have their first deep experiences of the liturgy as altar boys. If we are not training young men as altar boys, giving them an experience of serving God in the liturgy, we should not be surprised that vocations have fallen dramatically."
Lutheran Churches At present, the normative practice within the
Lutheran Churches permits both males and females to serve as altar servers (acolytes). The
Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod (LCMS) in 2004 affirmed that women can hold any congregational office that does not involve pastoral functions, officially permitting the presence of female altar servers.
Anglican Churches Within the Anglican tradition, the presence of male acolytes and female acolytes is typically the norm. == Gallery ==