Altar servers. / Credit: Mazur/catholicnews.org.uk (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Dec 22, 2024 / 08:00 am (CNA).

Sri Lankan Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith has mandated that girls are not permitted to serve as altar servers in parishes within the Archdiocese of Colombo.

“No girls should be invited to serve at the altar, as altar servers, in the archdiocese,” Ranjith wrote in an Oct. 22 letter to parish priests that was made public this week.

According to the letter, the cardinal issued the order because serving as an altar server can be a pathway to the priesthood and should therefore be a position reserved for boys.

“It should always be young boys because this is one of the main sources of vocations to the priesthood in Sri Lanka and it will affect the number of candidates entering the seminaries, which [is a] risk we cannot take” the letter continues. “Since females are not allowed to be ordained priests, we have made that decision.” 

Ranjith noted in the letter that “several parishes” within the archdiocese have been “appointing girls as altar servers” but told the priests that this order “cannot be changed at your discretion.”

“Please carry this out as faithfully as possible and do not think that it is your faculty to [use your own discretion],” the letter adds. “I thank you in anticipation of your usual cooperation and wish you God’s blessings.”

Ranjith said in the letter that he had first told the priests about this order during a presbyteral meeting held on Oct. 21, the day prior to the letter.

Although the role of altar servers has traditionally been reserved for boys, the Congregation for Divine Worship confirmed in March 1994 that bishops are permitted to allow girls to serve in the role.

According to the communications sent to the presidents of episcopal conferences, canon law is “permissive” and does not prohibit altar girls. Yet, the dicastery added that the decision on whether to have altar girls is determined by “each bishop, in his diocese” who can “make a prudential judgment on what to do, with a view to the ordered development of liturgical life in his own diocese.”

The relevant canon, according to the congregation, is Canon 230.2, which states the following: “Laypersons can fulfill the function of lector in liturgical actions by temporary designation. All laypersons can also perform the functions of commentator or cantor, or other functions, according to the norm of law.”

The inclusion of altar girls from some bishops, according to the Vatican in 1994, “can in no way be considered as binding on other bishops.” 

Rather, the Vatican communications emphasized the importance of altar boys as a means to developing priestly vocations.

“The Holy See wishes to recall that it will always be very appropriate to follow the noble tradition of having boys serve at the altar,” the communications states. “As is well known, this has led to a reassuring development of priestly vocations. Thus the obligation to support such groups of altar boys will always continue.”