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Focus: Acolytes and Lectors – What Next? Installed lectors and acolytes: Are women deacons next? Phyllis Zagano, Senior Research Associate-in-Residence at Hofstra University, Hempstead, New York, and a member of the original Pontifical Commission for the Study of the Diaconate of Women (2016–18) reflects on the change to Canon 230 §1 of the Code of Canon Law allowing women to be formally installed as lectors and acolytes.

PHOTO: DIOCESE OF WESTMINSTER

Despite ’ efforts to encourage lay large, lay women are equal to lay men. Canon 230 participation in the management of the Church as §1 now reads: ‘Lay persons who possess the age well as in the liturgy, women remain on the and qualifications established by decree of the periphery. Quite simply, if one is not a cleric conference of bishops can be admitted on a stable neither he – nor she – can obtain certain offices or basis through the prescribed liturgical rite to the fulfil certain liturgical tasks. ministries of lector and acolyte.’

Even so, Pope Francis’ latest Apostolic Letter, But will women really have access to the ? Spiritus Domini, is quite commendable in that it Can the remnants of misogyny be overcome? Will recognises the equal humanity of men and the Church adapt to the change? Does this change women. By eliminating one word, the Pope has portend women deacons? declared both to the Church and to the world at

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Focus:Leadership Acolytes and and Ministry Lectors – What Next?

Women at the altar The participation of women as lectors varies from place to place, even within dioceses. While women Restrictions against women’s altar service began serve widely as lectors in the developed world, to appear at least 1500 years ago, when the including during papal liturgies in Saint Peter’s Roman-African Pope Gelasius I, who reigned from Basilica, pockets of Church leadership and others 492–6 CE, sought to take control of Eastern decry even that. A woman’s voice, for them, is liturgy. Writing in 494 CE about three provinces in simply not appropriate to give voice to the sacred. southern parts of Italy, Gelasius decried women For support, opponents cite the disputed passage ministering at the altar, ‘performing all the other in Paul’s Letter to the Corinthians: ‘women should (cunctaque) tasks that are assigned only to the keep silent in the churches, for they are not service of men and for which they [women] are allowed to speak, but should be subordinate…’ (1 not appropriate’.1 Cor. 14.34).

To this day, academics question who the women The attitude reflected in 1 Corinthians was were and what they were doing. Perhaps they echoed in a 2008 comment of André Vingt-Trois, were performing the diaconal tasks of mixing the then Archbishop of Paris and president of the water and wine and handing the to the French bishops’ conference. Responding to a celebrant of the . Perhaps they were question about the change to Canon 230 §1 ministering the Precious Blood to the recommended by the 2008 synod of bishops, congregation, a task Vingt-Trois said the properly performed by difficulty was how to the deacon or delegated In some places in the world, women train women: ‘the thing to the acolyte and now, is not to have a skirt, by exception, to an lectors and acolytes are unheard of. but something in the extraordinary minister head’.2 His comments of the Eucharist. In others, their service is routine led to the creation of the Comité de la jupe, But who were they? incorporated in France Conjecture includes at least two interpretations: to promote the equality of women in the Church. they were deacons; or they were priests. Given the time and the place, it seems likely these women Opposition to female altar servers is significantly were deacons, especially given the copious more neuralgic. Even so, the Church’s deep history liturgical, epigraphical and other evidence of the of misogyny provides clues to its reasons for diaconal ordination of women contemporary with keeping women away from the sacred. Gelasius’ complaint. Gelasius had support from the fourth-century The problem, however, is not whether they were Synod of Laodicea (Turkey), which declared deacons or priests, but that they were ministering ‘Women may not go near the altar’.3 Successive at the altar. And for centuries, official Church eccelsiastical legislations repeatedly forbade documents have repeated Gelasius’ words to women’s altar service. In the sixth century, bishops justify keeping women out of the sanctuary. The in Gaul (France) complained about priests ban on women eventually solidified into allowing women to ‘hold the and unquestioned tradition, later embedded in presume to administer to to the liturgical law. people of God’,4 and local laws elsewhere banned women from the sanctuary. For example, Canon Women near the sacred 42 of the Capitula Martini, the systematic collection of Canon Law emanating from Braga In developed nations, the contemporary mind (Portugal), states quite simply: ‘Women are not may not comprehend why altar service by women permitted to enter the sanctuary.’5 The reason was and girls is so problematic. Similarly, the their impurity. contemporary mind wonders why there is resistance to a woman reading Scripture. Smaller diocesan synods copied the prohibitions. For example, a synod in Auxerre (France) forbade

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Focus: Acolytes and Lectors – What Next?

PHOTO: THOMAS VITALI, UNSPLASH By the early twentieth century, the Church rarely allowed direct female participation in the Mass. The included the requirement that women be outside the and only in dire necessity could they voice the responses to the Mass: ‘The server at Mass should not be a woman, unless no man can be had, and provided the woman stays at a distance to answer the prayers and does not in any way approach the altar.’10 And, in 1967, Musicam sacram, a document on sacred music emanating from the , stated that if a choir includes women, ‘it should be placed outside the sanctuary (presbyterium)’. That liturgical law is still on the books.

In 2008, the Twelfth Synod of Bishops recommended that women be formally installed as lectors; 11 in 2019, the Amazon Synod requested women be formally installed as both lectors and acolytes.12 Fourteen months later, Pope Francis responded.

Implementing the change

Because some dioceses have included women and girls as lectors and altar servers for many years, women from being near the altar and even from the import of the recent change to Canon Law touching altar linens: ‘Women are not to receive may not be immediately recognisable. Nor may the Eucharist in an uncovered hand’ and ‘Women the change be immediately implemented. are not to touch the Lord’s pall’.6 The latter proscription led to a custom requiring a man – not Despite its emphasis on the role of the laity, post- necessarily a priest – to rinse used altar linens Vatican II instructions kept women away from before handing them over (outside the sanctuary) direct participation in the Mass. In 1965, the to a woman for laundering. By the ninth century, Congregation for Divine Worship ruled that the Council of Paris (829 CE) was complaining women could not read the Scriptures, even in a about ‘illegal feminine access’ to the altar, house of Religious women.13 In 1970, the same including among forbidden ‘indecent actions’ Congregation issued Liturgicae instaurationes, their touching sacred vessels or linens.7 solidifying the diocesan bishops’ right to allow changes emanating from the Second Vatican As political discussion in Europe supported the Council, although bishops could not allow female subjugation of women in Church and state, more altar servers. If female lectors were to be modern liturgical law and commentary simply employed, they were required to read from assumed and assimilated prior restrictions against outside the sanctuary.14 By 1980, the Congregation women. John Knox wrote The First Blast of the once again ruled against women altar servers: Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of ‘There are, of course, various roles that women Women, albeit anonymously, because for him can perform in the liturgical assembly: these feminine rule contravened biblical teachings.8 By include reading the Word of God and proclaiming the 1700s, the question of whether women were the intentions of the Prayer of the Faithful. the same species as men – the querelle des femmes Women are not, however, permitted to act as altar – still found footing in Europe, affirming that servers.’15 women were less intelligent than men and were essentially ‘misbegotten males’.9 The , promulgated by

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Focus: Acolytes and Lectors – What Next?

Pope John Paul II, seemed to lift these restrictions Women deacons? by giving diocesan bishops the right to temporarily allow lay persons to fulfil the roles of Importantly, this change signals a doctrinal lector and acolyte in cases of true necessity, still development and the reversion to an older restricting formal installation as lector and acolyte tradition. Allowing women to be permanently to lay men (viri laici). While Canon 230 §2 decreed installed for altar service is a recognition of the that any lay person could be temporarily assigned baptismal equality of all people. Spiritus Domini to perform the duties of lector or acolyte, it was underscores the ‘common condition of being not until 1992 that Pope John Paul approved the baptized and the royal priesthood received in the determination of the Pontifical Council for the Sacrament of Baptism’, and Pope Francis’ Interpretation of Legislative Text that women accompanying letter to Cardinal Luis Ladaria were included in laici and could temporarily serve Ferrer SJ, Prefect of the Congregation for the in these ministries. It took another two years for Doctrine of the Faith, further explains the the Congregation for Divine Worship to necessity of the involvement of all the lay faithful communicate that fact to the world’s bishops, in all of the Church’s lay ministries. simultaneously reminding them that they were not required to do so.16 In addition, Spiritus Domini, Francis’ accompanying letter to Cardinal Ladaria, and the In short, while Pope John Paul II agreed that simultaneous official commentary of the Holy See women were included among the laity, the world’s Press Office clearly distinguish not only lay and bishops did not have to let them inside their ordained ministry but the diaconate and the sanctuaries. The bishop’s right to exclude women priesthood. Installed lay ministries may imply was reinforced in 2001, and even if a diocesan future ordained ministry, but such need not be bishop allows female lectors and altar servers, the case. While the diaconate is an ordained individual priests need not employ them.17 ministry – a major order – it is not the priesthood. That is a crucial recognition, most recently Given that history, Francis’ modification of Canon elucidated and codified by Benedict XVI in Law could have major implications. Or not. The Omnium in mentem (26 October 2009): ‘Those who change to Canon 230 §1 may not overcome the are constituted in the order of the episcopate or deep misogynistic beliefs that remain in small and the presbyterate receive the mission and capacity large dioceses, resting in the bishop or individual to act in the person of Christ the Head, whereas pastors. In some places in the world, women deacons are empowered to serve the People of lectors and acolytes are unheard of. In others, God in the ministries of the liturgy, the word and their service is routine. In formal papal liturgies, charity’ (Canon 1009 § 2). women do serve as lectors and rarely as acolytes, but they are not part of the choir of Saint Peter’s It is important to remember that installed lectors Basilica. may not proclaim the , nor preach, nor perform other diaconal tasks within or without Will the change to Canon 230 §1 bring more the liturgy (such as serve as a sole judge in a women inside the altar rail? National and regional canonical proceeding). Does Pope Francis’ decree bishops’ conferences, charged with determining that women may more formally and permanently means to implement the change, may do serve in ministries of the liturgy and the word absolutely nothing. An informal poll of US portend a restoration of the tradition of ordaining bishops found what may be the typical response: women as deacons? Such was the reported some had no comment, some said they would wait request of nine of the twelve language groups at to see what the US Conference of Bishops the Pan-Amazon Synod, which asked for the determined, and some did not reply. Because for question of women deacons be re-examined. the past 800 years in the West only men have While Querida Amazonia, his response to the been ordained as deacons, many bishops’ Synod’s Final Document, stressed the conferences may see no need to install women as professionalisation of the women (and men) who lectors or acolytes, although it may now be more already managed the majority of parishes and difficult for them to deny them these roles. parish groupings in the Amazon region was to recommend the implementation of Canon 517 § 2

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Focus: Acolytes, Lectors and the Future of Lay Ministry

Parish Life Directors, he did not rule out women 6 Duchesne, L., Christian Worship: Its Origins and Evolution (New deacons. York: E. & J. B. Young, 1903), pp. 224–5; Auxerre C. 36: ‘Non licet mulieri nuda manu eucharistism accipere.’ Also, Johnson, Worship Neither has any pope. The Church cannot say no. in the Early Church, 4:159–61. It still needs encouragement to say yes. 7 Cap. 45, Concilium Parrisiense A. 829, ed. Albert Werminhoff, Concilia aevi Karolini (742–42), Teil 2 (Hannover: Hahn, 1908), p. ______639. 8 ‘I am assured that God has revealed to some in this our age, 1 Madigan, K., and Osiek, L., Ordained Women in the Early Church, that it is more than a monster in nature that a woman shall Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005, p. reign and have empire above man.’ John Knox, The First Blast of 186. the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women, 1558. 2 On Radio Chrétienne Francophone (RCF), Vingt-Trois said, ‘Le 9 Aristotle affirms ‘the female is a misbegotten male’ (De Gener. plus difficile c’est d’avoir des femmes formées. Il ne suffit pas ii, 3). Aquinas says women are deficiens et occasionatus – d’avoir une jupe, encore fait-il avoir quelque chose dans la tête’. defective and misbegotten (ST Ia q.92, a.1, Obj. 1). 3 Laodicea was in Phrygia Pacatiana, or central Anatolia, what is 10 Canon 813 §1, 1917 Pio-Benedictine Code of Canon Law. now Asian Turkey. Montanism arose there, a heresy that 11 ‘The XII General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops included women priests, which may explain the genesis of the on The Word of God in the Life and Mission of the Church (5–26 canon forbidding women access to the altar. October 2008) the Synod Fathers hoped “that the ministry of the 4 ‘Letter of Three Gallic Bishops’ in Madigan and Osiek, Women Lector would also be open to women” (cf. Proposizione n. 17); in the Early Church, pp. 188–90. and in the Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Verbum Domini 5 Johnson, L. J. (ed.), Worship in the Early Church: An Anthology of (30 September 2010), Benedict XVI explained that the exercise of Early Sources vol. 4 (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2010), pp. the munus of reader in liturgical celebrations, and particularly 168–9, citing Opera Omnia, ed. Barlow, C. W., Papers and the ministry of Lector as such, is a lay ministry in the Latin Rite Monographs of the American Academy in Rome vol. 12 (New (cf. n. 58).’ Letter of the Holy Father Francis to the Prefect of the Haven: Yale University Press, 1950), pp. 124ff. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on access of women to the ministries of Lector and Acolyte (11 January 2021). 12 ‘We ask that the Motu Propio of St. Paul VI, Ministeria quaedam (1972) be revised, so that women who have been GO LIVE! properly trained and prepared can receive the ministries of Lector and Acolyte…’ Final Document of the Synod on the Amazon (26 October 2019) No. 102. 13 Congregation for Divine Worship, Notitiae 1 (1965), p. 139, n. THE CHURCH 15. 14 A 1973 finding that women who served as eucharistic minsters AUDIO/VISUAL were not to function as altar servers by the Diocese of Mont- INSTALLATION Laurier (Canada) was approvingly repeated by the Congregation for Divine Worship, Notitiae 9 (1973), p. 164. COMPANY 15 Inaestimabile donum, Instruction Concerning Worship of the Eucharistic Mystery, Sacred Congregation for the Sacraments and Divine Worship, confirmed by Pope John Paul II (April 17, 1980) Para. 18. 16 https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/vatican- communication-on-female-altar-servers-2162. 17 Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments, 27 July 2001. Notitiae 37 (2001), pp. 397–9. ‘…it would remain important to explain clearly to the faithful the nature of this innovation, lest confusion might be introduced, thereby hampering the development of priestly vocations’.

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