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Some parish priests in France call girls who help at Mass "servers of the assembly" rather than "altar servers", as a way of keeping them out of the sanctuary
By Isabelle de Gaulmyn | France
Alright, it was just "one" Mass among many. And so, it's not that bad...
A Mass that was broadcast last Sunday on a public service channel in France showed how children assisting at the liturgy were divided by gender.
The little boys were indicated as altar servers. But the little girls, dressed in specific garb with flowers, were called "servers of the assembly", a term that has appeared in Catholic circles here to avoid having girl altar servers...
It's not so bad, as a priest friend of mine said with a shrug. It's not that serious, even if it is a question that concerns the Eucharist, the centerpiece of the Mass.
And this has absolutely no theological basis. A text from Rome some years ago invited us not to confuse the ordained ministry (priest or deacon) with altar servers, who are not "priests in the making".
Girls should not be allowed near the altar, some say, because they should not "imagine" that they could one day become priests.
I don't know if the little boys imagine that. But I hope that they get the joy of knowing Christ better. It's a pity that little girls are deprived of this.
It's not so bad, then… Simply, a way like any other to mark the difference. Except that, as is often the case, gender assignment is synonymous with inferiority. The ones who remain at the bottom of the altar are the girls.
Banning women from airplanes, as in Afghanistan, or from soccer stadiums, as in Iran… It is well known that the condition of women is a decisive part of the symbolic order that organizes each society. And the Church is indeed a society...
How is it inferior not to be near the altar, one might ask? Just try doing the opposite – make the girls altar servers and the boys servers of the assembly.
Moreover, the function of "servers of the assembly" is nonsense.
The same Roman text points out that "the function of 'congregational service' is not based on primarily aesthetic criteria ('the properly feminine grace', sic!)", but on baptism, "by virtue of which the faithful are brought to full participation".
In all theological rigor, one cannot reserve service of the congregation to only one sex, including the female sex.
It's not so bad, then… except that here we are touching on sexual difference as an issue of sacredness.
What's the motivation for prohibiting some access to the "sanctuary", considering it more sacred than the rest of the church, and the re-emergence of the issue of purity and impurity that lies beneath it?
Certainly, women cannot be priests in the Catholic Church. Pope Francis reminds us of this in his exhortation Evangelii gaudium.
Except that he continues: "This presents a great challenge for pastors and theologians, who are in a position to recognize more fully what this entails with regard to the possible role of women."
If the only way to respond to this "great challenge" is to ask girls to hand out song sheets, that falls a bit short!
The Church has a lot of work to do to make sure the women have a real place of reciprocity, since "all, men and women, are one in Christ", as Paul says.
So yes, my dear priest friend, this story about servers of the assembly is not so bad, in the face of all the current emergencies. I'll grant you that it's not a question that is essential for the faith.
It is simply that, for twenty centuries now, we have been told that "it's not so bad"...
Isabelle de Gaulmyn is a senior editor at La Croix and a former Vatican correspondent.
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