The Story of a Gay Altarboy

'Altar Boy', by Herbert James Draper

This on Joseph Sciambra's website at first seems almost absurdly clichéd. His story is one of an introverted weedy little boy who didn't really have any friends until he became an altarboy.

It's sad in places.

Then the other boys sometimes talked to me, albeit with hushed tones, in the sacristy, about schoolwork or what they were doing after Mass. I suddenly felt less alone; and, the other boys, seemed less strange. As I got to know them they became far less attractive and more human. I idolized them less and the teasing, on their part, ceased. Then, one of the boy’s fathers invited the entire troop of altar boys on an end of the school year picnic. When I was invited to go along, I almost died.

Unfortunately, the following year a new pastor arrived at the church: a bigger guy, more convivial, and decidedly less scary. During Mass, things immediately changed. At a Sunday service primarily reserved for families, the new priest invited the children of the congregation into the sanctuary. Under the priest’s direction, the gaggle of squirmy kids linked hands around the altar during the Our Father. I found myself holding the sweaty palm of another altar boy and the hand of a little girl.

Back in the sacristy, before and after Mass, the altar boys were often crowed out by a throng of middle-aged female Eucharistic ministers. The priest was missing, usually bursting in at the last minute to throw on his chasuble, while the women, like an annoying and picking mother, endlessly directed our actions and took over what before was our sole responsibility, e.g. preparing the cruets and taking out the altar linens.

Rather quickly, with no priest requiring our involvement and after the invasion of the women, the altar boys began to drop out. Soon, I was the only one left. The male world I longed to be part of, and was for a memorable year, vanished forever.

But then it does have a happy sort-of ending. Having quit going to Mass on Sundays and become a gay, and having returned to the Church only to be told by the priest that it's OK to be a gay (and bizarrely that is the modern Church's "official line") and to carry on with it, the author finds salvation in a quite unexpected form.

Out of nowhere, however, someone told me about a “Latin Mass” in a nearby city. I had no idea what they were talking about, but they knew of my experiences at the local parish and that I was about to give-up on the Church.

The following Sunday, having nothing else to lose, I showed up at a rather shabby and dilapidated church in a semi-sketchy part of town. When the Mass started, I was almost immediately struck by the presence of altar boys. I couldn’t believe it. There they were: the same cassock and surplice I had worn that year so long ago.

Yet, there was much that I didn’t recognize and much that confused me: the priest was facing away from us, and so were the altar boys. Some were older than I remembered and some were younger. And they were all curiously kneeling in front of the altar and responding, in Latin, to what the priest was reciting. I didn’t understand.

Later, I read and I studied: I found a handy pocket-sized translation of the Latin “Tridentine” Mass and endlessly poured over every word. My favorite part: a short set of statements and responses by the priest and the altar boy that almost immediately follows the Confiteor:

P. Show us, O Lord, Thy mercy.
R. And grant us Thy salvation.
P. O Lord hear my prayer.
R. And let my cry come unto Thee.

That was what I wanted to do: to cry out to the Lord. After reading this, I immediately built up enough courage to speak with the priest after Mass. I was somewhat trepidatious because, like the former pastor who drafted me as an altar boy, he was a short and powerful looking man, and his sermons, though never condemnatory, were filled with admonitions about how severely humanity had gone off course.

To my surprise, he was a remarkably kind and soft-spoken man. I went to Confession, and he became my father, and me his prodigal son. Then for about a year I huddled around him a lot. And, he tolerated my presence and incessant questions. It was a special time for me because I was reconnecting with God, the Church, with myself, and with men – now, in a very healthy way.
A Man of God

In a strange sort of twist, eventually I came full circle: I was asked to be an altar boy again, though this time as a server at the Latin Mass. For several weeks, I read and memorized the Latin “Ordinary of the Mass,” paying special attention to the pronunciation of the responses. Then, a kindly visiting seminarian from the same priests’ congregation coached me on proper stance (even my genuflections needed work) and the rubrics of the Mass.

When I finally served at my first Mass, I suddenly returned to that initial failed and seemingly insignificant moment of genuine masculinity from my boyhood. Whatever effeminacy of voice that still lingered disappeared when I spoke the Latin, and any lilt in my walk or effervescent gestures vanished as I concentrated on serving God at His Altar.

In a sense, I finally became the man God created me to be.