We have a bit of an acolyte crisis in our parish at the moment. When we moved here 7 years ago there were 6 acolytes covering two Sunday Masses, now we're down to two with one of them recovering from an operation. Acolytes look like adult altar servers. It's a minor order (one down from subdeacon) that is only open to men (unlike altar server or the role of sacristan that are open to both sexes.)
Our parish shares three priests with three other parishes. Because the priests are not based at the parish they rely on a lay person (usually the acolyte) to unlock the church before Mass, prepare the Sanctuary and lock up afterwards.
As each of our acolytes has retired a few shoulders have been tapped, but so far no one has responded. I suspect that some men in the parish have researched the role on the internet. The more you look into it, the clearer it becomes that it's a vocation and not just stepping in to fill a gap.
One of the roles of the acolyte has been to keep the altar servers in check. All our servers are quite young so we don't even have a senior altar server to co-ordinate the others. We don't have a sacristan either. A sacristan would set up before Mass and clear away afterwards (but not do anything during the Mass.) Our best option if we don't have any new acolytes is perhaps to train up one or two sacristans and make sure the altar servers are trained to serve without an acolyte. Peter (10) served on his own on Sunday and he was pretty good. He even rang the bells in the right place!
The other three parishes are having similar problems. I went to one last week and they had a family of four (Mum, Dad and 2 children) acting as altar servers. This worked well, except they were in ordinary (smart) clothes which I found a bit distracting.
It's important that people step forward and take on roles within the parish, but at the same time, they need to be comfortable doing them. You don't want people doing the flower arranging who have never done it before in their lives, or people reading who are terrified of public speaking!
Your description of the shortage of acolytes just goes to show that proponents of the lay led church concept may be a little too optimistic in their ideals. I don't believe that the Holy Spirit is leading us towards a priestless parish. More likely, a lack of the Holy Spirit is leading us in that direction. I am happy to continue having unmarried priests running parishes. However I'd much prefer to have a married priest running the parish than a lay person. I think it is the responsibility of the bishops to provide priests, and if they can't find enough priests who will accept celibacy, it is their obligation to find married priests. Lay Catholics for the most part are more occupied earning a living to pay their bills, taking care of their family affairs and maintaining outside interests, as well as their faith, to be as involved as the bishops or theologians think we can be or want to be. More people would probably help if they didn't believe that they would need to take on an ever-increasing cycle of responsibility when others sharing tasks drop out. If there are fewer people wanting to become priests due to the secularisation of Western society, it is not surprising that there are fewer people also wanting to become acolytes. Since the ministry of acolyte is effectively a lay ministry and does not involve the sacrament of holy orders, I think it is difficult to justify continuing the acolyte ministry as male only. After all there are many women acting as adult altar servers who could effectively be upgraded, even if there is more responsibility. It's not as if the execution of the ministry involves some sort of mystical powers on behalf of the acolyte. Perhaps you could be an acolyte and join your son on the sanctuary if you actually wanted to and the heirarchy would allow you. I say that as someone most people think is conservative. All we need is a little bit of common sense, which will hopefully become more common than, in my opinion, it currently is. Regards ChrisM.
ReplyDeleteI also feel that it detracts from the mystical nature of the eucharistic ceremony when minsters and servers are not attired in appropriate vestments. I even find eucharistic ministers in everyday attire wandering around the sanctuary during the communion rite unflattering. Some of the body language used by priests and ministers seems a little matter-of-fact at times, when we need assistance in suspending our disbelief at the eucharistic miracle. Call me old-fashioned if you like, but I was fashioned by the oldest craftsman in existence. Regards ChrisM.
ReplyDeleteI think it's the responsibility of the Bishops to discern where the Holy Spirit is leading the Church and if that's towards a married clergy or woman acolytes then so be it, but I don't think married clergy should be introduced as a knee jerk reaction to a shortage of priests. That's how secular organisation solve problems and it could be seen as a lack of trust in the Holy Spirit.
ReplyDeleteWe had a glut of priests in the 50s and 60s and they were able to take on more duties because there were so many of them. Priests became, manager, counsellor, hospital visitor etc etc but times have changed and we've gone from feast to famine. The Holy Spirit is leading the Church somewhere, maybe to consolidation of parishes, maybe to lay parish directors. Hopefully not to lay-led liturgies (where the lay-person looks like a stand-in for the priest) which I must admit I really don't like. We'll have to wait and see!