[Question:]{.underline} Must another person be present when a priest celebrates Mass?
[Answer:]{.underline} The Church’s law on this question is quite categorical, and is contained in Canon 813 of the 1917 Code of Canon Law: “The priest should not celebrate Mass unless he has a server who serves and answers him. The server at Mass should not be a woman, unless no male server can be had, and for a just reason, and under the condition that the woman answer the prayers from a distance, and does not in any way approach the altar.”
The 1917 Code did not innovate, nor was this law a new one at the time. In fact, the law requiring that a server be present for Mass goes back to the Decretals of Pope Gregory IX in the 13^th^ century. It means two things: firstly, that there is an obligation of having an altar boy for a priest to celebrate Mass; and secondly, that for a just reason (note that a grave reason is not required), he can be substituted by a woman or by the people answering the prayers together outside the sanctuary or away from the altar. In such a case, the woman is permitted to ring the bell, since this can be done from a distance, but not to present the cruets, transfer the book, or help in any way at the altar.
The question that arises, then, is the gravity of the obligation. Does a priest who cannot have an altar boy, and who celebrates Mass in any case, commit a grievous sin? This is the answer given by Woywood, A Practical Commentary on the Code of Canon Law, 1957, vol. I, p. 436: “All moralists and canonists are agreed that the obligation is grave in itself. When a boy or man cannot be had, it is permissible for a reasonable, but not necessarily grave, cause to say Mass with a woman answering the priest.” The piety of the priest or of the faithful would be a sufficient reason for this, so that a priest who celebrates Mass with a woman answering, but without an altar boy, out of his or their devotion, commits no sin. However, without having an Apostolic Indult or outside a very special necessity, such as the need to offer Mass to consecrate Holy Viaticum, or as the only way to satisfy the priest’s Sunday obligation (ibid.), it was always considered gravely sinful for a priest to celebrate without anybody at all present.
This sounds very strange to traditional Catholics, who are perfectly familiar with the teaching of the Council of Trent, according to which the priest alone suffices for the validity of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and for which the presence and participation of the faithful is not strictly required. It is, in fact, a Lutheran and Modernist error that there can be no Mass without the people. The answer is given in the first General Rubric of the Roman Missal (1960 edition): “The Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass … is an act of public worship, offered to God in the name of Christ and the Church. Hence the term ‘private Masses’ is to be avoided” (§ 269). The presence of the altar boy or of some faithful who respond is consequently a symbolic representation of the fact that every Mass is public, and this by its very nature, and that it is an act of Christ and the Church, and not of an individual priest. It is a reminder to the priest that he is not in some way the owner or possessor of the Mass.
Pope Pius XII in his 1947 encyclical on the Liturgy (Mediator Dei) both reiterates this teaching on the necessity of some assistant, and refutes the Modernist error that Masses ought not to be offered without a congregation, showing that there is no contradiction at all: “They are mistaken in appealing in this matter to the social character of the Eucharistic Sacrifice, for as often as a priest repeats what the Divine Redeemer did at the Last Supper, the Sacrifice is really completed. Moreover, this Sacrifice, necessarily and of its very nature, has always and everywhere the character of a public and social act… This is undoubtedly so, whether the faithful are present or are not present… Still, though it is clear from what We have said that the Mass is … not robbed of its social effects though it be celebrated by a priest without a server, nonetheless, on account of the dignity of such an august mystery, it is our earnest desire---as Mother Church has always commanded---that no priest should say Mass unless a server is at hand to answer the prayers, as Canon 813 prescribes” (§ 96 & 97).
However, it is only a positive law of the Church, and not a divine law, and Apostolic Indults were frequently granted in the past. Consequently, priests who can be from time to time in the absolute impossibility of having any Catholic to assist at Mass, not infrequently use such principles as “Nobody is bound to do the impossible,” or “Positive law does not bind in a situation of grave inconvenience” to celebrate Mass without anybody present, rather than not celebrate Mass at all. Nor can anybody blame them, given the divine efficacy and grace of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. This flexibility is reflected in the 1983 Code of Canon Law, which no longer makes the presence of another Catholic an obligation under pain of sin: “Let the priest not celebrate the Eucharistic Sacrifice without the participation of at least one of the faithful, unless it be for a just and reasonable cause” (Can. 906). Nevertheless, it is not the mind of the Church for the priest to celebrate without somebody else present, nor should he leave any stone unturned to ensure that such a person is in fact present.
Answered by Father Peter Scott, SSPX.