The surprising history of the Children’s Mass
Children's Masses - including vernacular participatory methods - were wildly popular for years before Vatican II.
The term “Children’s Mass” may evoke a wide range of images and emotions for modern Catholics.
Designed specifically for children, these liturgical celebrations often take place in the context of a parish school or faith formation program. They include practices and concessions tailored for children that differ from the typical Masses at the parish.
Some argue that Children’s Masses foster better participation and understanding of the liturgy among its youngest participants, while others say they facilitate liturgical excesses and separate family members.
It is commonly believed that Children’s Masses are a unique development of the modern liturgical reforms, a direct outgrowth of the Second Vatican Council.
In reality, however, special Masses for children – including what might now appear to be shocking liturgical innovations – stretch back more than a century before the Second Vatican Council.
These Masses began as a 19th century attempt to grapple with dramatic social changes and challenges wrought by the modern world. They gained widespread popularity and even gave rise to the creation of vernacular participatory Mass methods for adults years before Vatican II.
In total, hundreds of editions of these methods for children and adults were published, running to millions of cumulative copies, between 1861 and 1961. They were published with approval, printed for decades, and used with permission around the world.
This is the story of the surprising origins of “Children’s Masses” in the early 1800s, their widespread popularity around the world, their sudden fall from favor immediately before the Second Vatican Council, and their rebirth during the initial years of the revised Roman Missal of Paul VI.
Early History of Children’s Masses
The concept of specific Masses tailored for children would have been a foreign one to the early Church. The celebration of the Eucharistic liturgy in that ancient age was divided into two distinct parts: the Mass of the Catechumens (the opening rites through the homily) and the Mass of the Faithful (the offertory through the conclusion).
After hearing the proclamation of the scriptures and homily, all catechumens–anyone who had not been fully initiated into the sacraments, including most children–were dismissed from the church before the liturgy of the Eucharist. They would gather elsewhere and spend the remainder of the time receiving instruction and catechesis.
In the centuries that followed, the practice of dismissing the catechumens fell out of use. Throughout the Medieval Ages, attendance at the celebration of the Mass was an act of the entire community.
Children of all ages were present at Mass along with their parents and, as historian Nicholas Orme relays, they were sometimes so loud and distracting as to provoke complaints. In the words of one contemporary account: “children there make a noise indecently, so it is hard to hear divine service.”
This situation continued even into the early modern period. There are some scattered references to unique situations within royal families – like separate short Masses for children which were held in palace chapels while much longer, more elaborate liturgies and preaching were conducted for the adults of the court. But those were exceptional circumstances, a far cry from common parish practice, and it is clear that the phenomenon of “Children’s Masses” still had not yet taken root.
The development of Sunday schools
Children’s Masses in their modern form grew out of Masses offered for children in Catholic schools, and particularly in the development of Sunday schools – organized programs of religious formation which occurred on Sunday before or after the time of congregational worship.
Catholic Sunday school programs, as we now think of them, began to take shape in the late 1700s and early 1800s. They developed in part out of the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine and the model of catechetical instruction which had developed in Milan in the 1500s and quickly spread across Europe. They were also influenced by the wider trend of Protestant Sunday schools which were first established in England in the mid-to-late 1700s, to provide poor urban working children with access to basic education and religious instruction.
The institution of the Sunday school became incredibly popular throughout the United Kingdom and America by the early decades of the 1800s, and Catholic churches soon adapted this concept for themselves.
By 1825, a report on the state of education in Ireland demonstrated that Catholic Sunday school programs were in essentially universal use. As those programs grew, the idea developed to offer Masses exclusively for the many children — in some cases thousands at a time — who attended these Sunday school sessions. At the time, those liturgies were nothing more than normal parish Masses, the same as those celebrated for adults, simply offered for a congregation made up almost entirely of children.
When the Great Famine hit Ireland in 1845, hundreds of thousands of Irish Catholics were forced to flee the island. The existing network of Catholic priests, chapels, and schools in Great Britain was quickly overwhelmed by this vast influx of Irish refugees, most of whom were extremely poor and suffering extraordinary hardship.
Many of these Irish children lived in crippling poverty, were often forced to work from a very young age, and had almost no ability to receive the sacraments or religious instruction. That posed a difficult pastoral problem for the Catholic Church in England.
The first English Children’s Masses
One English priest, Fr. John Furniss, CSSR, was greatly distressed by the plight of these Irish children. He understood that the existing religious schools and Sunday catechetical programs were insufficient in the face of these unprecedented modern challenges.
In 1851, Furniss adapted one of the defining apostolates of his Redemptorist Order – parochial missions – to address this need. He developed a type of mission exclusively for children that was specifically designed to catechize them quickly, teach them about the liturgy, and allow them to make their first confessions and first communions – all during the course of the mission.
As part of these Children’s Missions, Furniss also developed an innovative approach to conducting Mass for children. It involved the extensive use of vernacular hymns, vernacular prayers recited in common, and running narration by a second priest during the celebration of the liturgy.
This vernacular “Children’s Mass” method used a series of English quasi-liturgical hymns and prayers that corresponded to the different liturgical actions of the Mass and were related to the texts of the missal. With Furniss acting as a “leader” or “conductor,” those were said and sung by the congregation in coordination with the priest celebrating the Mass in Latin at the altar.
With that approach, the concept of the modern “Children’s Mass” was born – a new genre of liturgical adaptation, vernacular participation, and catechesis for children which was designed to occur during and as part of the celebration of the Mass itself.
Furniss celebrated vernacular Children’s Masses for a decade with local ecclesiastical approval before publishing his methods and music in 1861. They were extremely popular, were quickly incorporated into a variety of prayer books and hymnals – including several which were commissioned or promoted by bishops around the world – and were copied and emulated by many other publications.
The vernacular Mass methods were so popular that they even began to supplant and take the place of sung Latin High Masses.
One American hymnal published in Boston in 1865 included the Furniss Children’s Mass hymns. The editor of the hymnal was Fr. J. H. Cornell of Boston College – a prominent musical authority described by contemporaries as “peerless in this country as a master and composer of that grand old Catholic and Roman style of sacred music.”
In the preface, Cornell advocated that the Children’s Mass practices be spread to “every parish where it is practicable (and there are but few where it is not).” More than this, he suggested that it would be better for this style of Low Masses with vernacular hymns to replace many of the “imperfectly executed” and “not over-devotional” High Masses which were then common in many churches.
Mass in ‘versicles & responses’
Furniss was the origin of the modern Children’s Mass in English, but he was not the only priest-educator who published versions of Masses for children. There were a variety of different approaches which were developed in the years which followed.
Each of those vernacular Mass methods were broadly similar in concept (using vernacular hymns, unison prayers, and narration to foster catechesis and liturgical participation), but varied in the specifics.
One such method was published in New York in 1878 by Benziger Brothers, the largest and most respected Catholic publishing house in America. The prayer book, titled Prayers for the Children of Catholic Schools, contained a method of “Mass in Versicles and Responses” which was described in the following way:
Every attentive parent or teacher has remarked how few of the many children who attend at the Holy Sacrifice really know how “to hear Mass.” To do this with the proper dispositions they must be taught the meaning of the different parts of the Mass, be impressed with its solemnity, and learn how to use their prayer-books so as to follow the priest at the altar. Their levity must be held in check, and some means adopted to fix their attention on the adorable sacrifice which is being offered. To effect this latter, a MASS IN VERSICLES AND RESPONSES, to be read aloud, alternately by teacher and children, and which calls for constant attention on the part of all, in order to follow correctly, has been adopted. . . . This Mass, which is adapted to young minds, has been taken, as far as practicable, from the Roman Missal, and is calculated to fulfill its end in an agreeable and edifying manner.
The “Mass in Versicles and Responses” was an English adaptation of texts of the Roman Missal, designed to be read aloud in an alternating fashion by the congregation during the celebration of the Mass. This included spoken recitation of English prayers throughout the entire Mass, even during the offertory, the preface, and the canon.
The “Versicles and Responses” concept quickly spread nationwide and would be copied by many other titles and editions. One shorter version of the method, adapted by Fr. Bonaventure Hammer and first published in Wisconsin, was included in several prayer books which sold more than 1,629,000 total copies between 1892 and 1927 alone.
Rising popularity
At the dawn of the 20th century, interest in Children’s Masses continued to grow. The core idea of Children’s Masses – dedicated Mass times for children, especially on Sunday – was by now a basic fixture in most dioceses and even most parishes.
However, there was significant variety in what was meant by “Children’s Mass” at this point. Not all parishes used special vernacular methods of liturgical participation, like the Furniss or Versicle & Response approaches. Some employed standard ‘adult-style’ Low Masses, sung High Masses with children’s choirs singing in Latin, or Masses interspersed with a few generic vernacular hymns.
An examination of newspapers from this time demonstrates that many Catholic parishes advertised a dedicated Children’s Mass of some sort on their regular Sunday Mass schedule: 100% of the Catholic churches in the city of Eau Claire, Wisconsin did so in 1901; 89% in Paterson, New Jersey in 1907; 46% in Erie, Pennsylvania in 1910; and 57% in Green Bay, Wisconsin in 1915.
As a more robust parochial education system developed, the number and frequency of dedicated weekday Masses for school students also increased.
And with Children’s Masses as a fixture of Catholic life in the United States, new forms continued to arise as well. As the 20th century moved forward, these new methods increasingly utilized verbatim texts of the Mass in English translation. This reflected a broader trend during these years of advocacy for the laity to have greater engagement with the liturgical texts, increased congregational participation, and vernacular vocal prayer during the Mass.
One noteworthy Children’s Mass method from these years was The Garland of Praise, first published by Fr. John Rothensteiner of the Archdiocese of St. Louis in 1921. The work was primarily a hymnal, but also featured two different vernacular Mass methods which involved the corporate vocal recitation of many missal texts by the congregation in coordination with a narrator – including the prayers of the priest at the Offertory and Preface and more.
Rothensteiner’s method was successful and remained in print for decades through multiple editions. But his was merely one of many published during these years. In total, between the earlier Furniss-style methods and the more advanced Versicle & Response or Rothensteiner-style methods, more than 220 editions of books containing these kinds of Children’s Mass methods were published between 1861 and 1950.
Children’s Masses of all kinds were also popular with parents and other adult members of the congregation. There is consistent mention made in Catholic newspapers and periodicals of adults attending Children’s Masses, in some cases doing so in such numbers as to earn rebukes from the priests:
1885, Sydney, Australia: “Father Carroll is endeavouring to put a stop to the practice of adults crowding to the children’s special mass on Sundays at the Sacred Heart Church.”
1904, Ottawa, Canada: “... Father Jacques made some strong remarks concerning the practice of adults attending [the children’s] mass. He wishes it clearly understood that the church is reserved for the children at this hour, and none but the children should attend.”
1905, Boston, Massachusetts: “At the children’s Mass, at least 600 children are present, and it is most edifying. We ‘grown-ups’ often have a great desire to attend it [but] it is the pastor’s wish that we shall not attend.”
1954, Washington, D.C.: “9 o’clock is the children's Mass and so crowded that adults have to stand, all bunched together in the back and if you wear high heels you’re sorry for it afterwards.”
Children’s Masses were so popular that on occasion they captured the interest of non-Catholics and even non-Christians.
In 1908, the Archdiocese of New York celebrated the centenary of its founding with a week-long program of festivals and activities. On April 29, more than 6,000 children – made up of representatives taken from each diocesan school – filled St. Patrick’s Cathedral for a special Children’s Mass as part of the celebration.
No adults were admitted to the congregation, save one: Mark Twain, the famed author who was well known for his sometimes strident criticisms of Catholicism and Christianity more generally.
The full explanation as to why Twain wished to attend this Children's Mass remains unclear. Twain clearly had a strong personal desire to do so - he “pleaded his love for the little ones” - and with approval granted for him to attend, “a special seat was arranged for him near the altar.” Newspaper reports stated that the experience made Twain “extremely happy.”
Influence on adult Masses
Because of their persistent popularity with adults, Children’s Mass methods were considered to be ideal starting points for priests who wished to encourage more liturgical participation and understanding by the entire congregation - adults included.
For example, when the pastor of a small rural parish asked the American Ecclesiastical Review clerical journal in 1904 for suggestions to introduce congregational singing “in a parish of a few hundred souls, mostly farmers,” the editors replied:
The only way of managing congregational singing under the circumstances described (which we think are common to many parishes) is to begin with the children. . . . This may be at first a Low Mass. There are beautiful hymns embodying the acts of Faith, Hope and Charity, to serve as an Introduction (Introibo) of the Low Mass. Then one of the children might read aloud (but by all means intelligently and devoutly in manner) the Offertory and other prayers from the English Missal.
One priest from Sparta, Wisconsin followed this general approach to great effect:
About fifteen years ago [1912] I began with the children to say the whole Ordinary of the Mass in English. I bought a supply of cheap prayer books, and marked as many of the prayers as could conveniently be said aloud while keeping with the priest at the altar—omitting the words of Consecration from the Hanc igitur, etc.
A few boys with good voices were trained to watch the priest at the altar and announce the various parts and prayers and start them. These boys would also read the Epistle and Gospel of the day from the English missal . . . when the children were quite well practiced, I had them say the Mass in this manner for the congregation at early Mass on a Sunday. The people were very attentive and by this visual and practical illustration learned more about the Mass and how to ‘pray the Mass’ than by many theoretical instructions.
The popularity of Children’s Masses with adults, in particular those methods with expansive vernacular participation, began to have an influence on the development of vernacular “Dialogue” Mass methods for adults which began to emerge at this same time, such as Pray the Mass, first published in 1927.
In these dialogue Mass methods, the priest was offering the Mass in Latin, while the people in the pews were participating in a real vernacular and corporate mode of liturgical worship. In some cases these methods even permitted some of the priest’s own prayers to be recited concurrently, aloud and in the vernacular, by a narrator or the congregation itself.
These vernacular celebrations of the Mass may seem shocking in comparison to the traditional pre-conciliar rubrics in place at the time. But during these years it was the prevailing canonical and pastoral opinion that such methods were licit and permissible. They were judged to be simply one of many legitimate, optional methods of Mass attendance which had developed organically over decades.
All of these published methods were granted imprimatur by the local bishop and continued to be approved by diocesan censors through multiple editions over decades. They were touted by eminently respected theologians and catechists and openly discussed and approved of by clerical, education, and choral journals. They were also endorsed, supported, and celebrated by—or in the presence of—archbishops, primates, cardinals, and even papal legates throughout the world.
They were, in short, an accepted and universal fixture (in many various permutations) around the globe.
Criticisms and concerns
While Children’s Masses were both widespread and popular, they were not immune to criticism from priests or laity during these years.
The primary controversy was not generated by the technicalities of how Children’s Masses were performed. The details of particular methods or the amount of vernacular employed were hardly ever at issue. Rather, critics questioned whether or not Children’s Masses actually produced meaningful results, and if it was theologically or liturgically proper for them to exist at all.
The first major point of critique focused on the outcomes of Children’s Masses in the lives of the faithful. These dedicated children-only Masses - no matter the method - did not seem to produce better results than any other normal means of attending Mass, critics said.
Children who attended Children’s Masses for years, even using innovative vernacular participatory methods, did not seem to remain faithful or retain a deeper transformative understanding of the liturgy at noticeably greater rates than those who did not, they argued.
Another major criticism focused on the foundational premise of Children’s Masses and the wider Catholic education system in general. There was a vocal, albeit minority, opinion at the time that the vast and efficient network of Catholic schools and catechetical programs were problematic because they usurped the rights and obligations of parents to be the primary teachers and formators for their children.
As one priest wrote in The Catholic School Journal in 1920:
There is another aspect of this question, the most disastrous of all. Perhaps we never suspect that in our solicitude for children in our charge we undermine traditions held sacred for generations . . . from time immemorial [parents have been responsible for the] religious instruction and training of the children. By our action and methods we give these parents to understand that they are henceforth relieved of this duty.
This priest was Fr. Michael Vincent Kelly, CSB, a Basilian priest with a unique career and extensive exposure to parishes throughout Canada and the United States.
Kelly regularly and stridently criticized the way that Catholic parishes took on essentially all Mass attendance, catechism, education, and liturgical formation efforts without expecting or attempting any involvement by the parents.
He was also a particularly prolific critic of Children’s Masses. Writing in 1916 in The American Ecclesiastical Review, Kelly declared:
No exertion on our part should be spared in having parents accompany children to Mass on Sunday . . . It is they who should be responsible for their conduct and assist them in devoutly following the Holy Sacrifice. This would do away with the children's Mass. It is an institution apparently sanctioned by a usage almost universal. There is much to be said against it, and it is certainly tenable that it owes its existence not because it is looked upon as the best, but the best possible under certain circumstances.
Based on decades of direct personal experience, Kelly did not believe that parish schooling, religious formation, or any number of Children’s Masses could ultimately make much of a lasting difference in the lives of children unless faith and formation came primarily from the home.
Parishes and schools needed to assist and support the home, and were able to supplement the work of the parents, but – according to Kelly and others – could not and should not take these responsibilities as their own.
The (apparent) death of Children’s Masses
Such criticism grew more widespread in the decades immediately preceding the Second Vatican Council. The flagship English-language journal of the Liturgical Movement Orate Fratres featured somewhat regular editorial comments and correspondence which pleaded for an end to Children’s Masses of every kind.
For example, in 1940 one reader asked:
Could you start some discussion on the value of “Children’s Mass” and the “Communion Sundays” for parish organizations? It seems to be that a better religious spirit would be fostered by advocating family attendance at Mass and family reception of holy Communion.
Some liturgically-minded bishops during these years took measures to request that, at least occasionally, parishes skip the normal Children’s Masses and encourage family attendance. As recorded by Orate Fratres that same year:
Responding to the invitation of their bishop, the Most Rev. James E. Kearney, parents accompanied their children to Mass in every parish of Rochester diocese and received holy Communion in a body. Pastors set aside the customary children’s Mass for family groups on this Sunday, so that fathers, mothers, sons and daughters might at least on this occasion offer and receive of the Sacrifice together.
This report prompted one cleric to write in and ask, “Wouldn’t it be more in keeping with true Christian education to drop the ‘Children’s Mass’ altogether?”
These criticisms only intensified, at least in some quarters, as the Liturgical Movement entered the mainstream and made substantial advances on the very eve of the Second Vatican Council. Speaking in 1961, then-Archbishop of Liverpool John Heenan offered a withering assessment of Children’s Masses in general:
We do a great deal innocently to destroy family life. Even in our spiritual life in the Church we do a great deal to harm family relations . . . We have children’s Masses. I am thinking of Sunday when children are separated from their mothers and fathers . . . Parents ought to be there.
In 1964, Bishop of Pittsburgh John Wright abolished the traditional (and in some cases, compulsory) practice of Children’s Masses in his diocese to triumphant national news coverage.
In a pastoral letter published on November 19 about the upcoming liturgical changes, the first of those inspired by the council’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Bishop Wright wrote that the new liturgical philosophy of the council would “see a welcome development toward increased family participation in the liturgical life of the Church, above all in the parish Mass” and that therefore it was “no longer possible to permit the tradition of compulsory children’s Masses on Sundays and Holy Days.”
In a subsequent address to a Catholic’s women society, Bishop Wright reiterated that “[t]he new liturgical emphasis in the Church is on family worship” and that it was “absurd” to separate children from their parents at Sunday Mass.
By 1965 therefore, amidst the initial stirrings of post-conciliar liturgical reform, it seemed that the Liturgical Movement had achieved yet another long-hoped for victory. The concept of Children’s Masses in any form appeared to be rapidly falling out of favor and would soon be rendered a relic of a former age.
A modern rebirth
Despite all that, the Second Vatican Council and the ensuing liturgical reforms were not the final nail in the coffin of the practice of Children’s Masses. Almost immediately after the close of the council, calls began to emerge from various priests and bishops that Children’s Masses were still needed after all – or, rather, that new types of Children’s Masses were needed.
The customs and former methods of performing Children’s Masses from the previous century were swept away in the rushing tide of changes which followed the council.
It was no longer considered sufficient to merely provide vernacular translations of the Mass texts and foster corporate active participation in the celebration of the Children’s Mass. Instead, it seemed urgent to go further – to substantially edit the rite of the liturgy itself, simplifying it, adapting it, and allowing for creative flexibility.
In May 1966, the Bishops of England and Wales introduced shorter “alternative” lectionaries for Children’s Masses. This was followed by calls to create a similarly shorter, simplified version of the entire liturgy.
Fr. Anthony Bullen, director of the Catholic Catechetical Center of the Archdiocese of Liverpool, put it this way in November of that same year: “Liturgy is not made for children. It’s a strange language to them, and until the day when the Congregation of Rites, or whoever is responsible, produces a special Mass for children we are going to have a lot of hard work to do, all of us.”
In March 1967, responding to similar sentiments in America, Bishop of Kansas City Charles Helmsing approved the first proposals to adapt the liturgy into new distinct – and substantially reduced – children’s rites.
Ultimately, the renewed desire for new types of Children’s Masses would culminate in the Vatican’s 1973 “Directory of Masses with Children,” to supplement the instructions and regulations for Mass contained in the General Instruction of the Roman Missal.
It states that “[a]lthough the vernacular may now be used at Mass, still the words and signs have not been sufficiently adapted to the capacity of children . . . we may fear spiritual harm if over the years children repeatedly experience in the Church things that are barely comprehensible.”
The DMC offers many expansive possibilities for liturgical creativity, alteration, and innovation. Because of this, it was described as a “bold and far-reaching document” by Fr. Frederick McManus, director of the U.S. Bishops’ liturgy office and one of the most influential American canonists and liturgists of the mid-century period.
The initial directory was followed by the 1974 Eucharistic Prayer for Masses with Children, and finally by the 1991 Lectionary for Masses with Children.
Thus the idea of “Children’s Mass” was reborn and re-imagined into new and strikingly different forms, built upon notably different theological underpinnings - a far cry from the early efforts priest educators and catechetical trailblazers to help children understand and participate in the liturgy for so many preceding decades.
Today, Children’s Masses continue, as do the debates surrounding them.
Should the Church have dedicated Children’s Masses at all?
Do they produce better and lasting liturgical understanding and participation for children?
How do those things relate to the serious obligation of parents to be the primary educators and formators of their children?
As the Church approaches the 60th anniversary of the closing of the Second Vatican Council, and nearly 150 years after the earliest Children’s Masses took place in England, these questions remain.
Fantastic article! Thank you very much!
My grandmother told me about these masses in the early 20th century in Providence. She went to the big Irish Catholic parish in town, and they had an 8AM children's mass on Sunday (why are they always 8AM?).
She went to public school, and they let them out during the week for "Instructions." The children's mass was (I took it) the same as any other Irish low mass, but the homily was tailored for the kids.
The kids all walked down the hill to mass, and never missed mass on Sunday (or Confession on Saturday morning before taking the streetcar to the movies for the rest of the afternoon). But God help them if they didn't go to "their mass." One of the priests would find them sneaking out of a later mass, twist them by the ear, and tell them they had better go to "their mass" next week, or it would be trouble for them.
Mind you, this was a kid on his or her own being responsible and getting to mass, no parental oversight needed. And it was still nitpicked. A different standard for Catholics back then.
BTW, the last mass was at 11AM. Because there had to be one Missa Cantata or Solemn High mass per Sunday (I later learned by order of one of the Baltimore Councils), this is where they put it since it didn't matter if it ended after Noon. My grandmother said it was common knowledge that this was the mass all the drunks went to. They also went to mass every week, but they needed to sleep off their alcohol. The sober considered the extra length and noise of this mass compared to the string of hurried low masses preceding it to be just punishment for the drunks.