My own experience with altar girls has been positive. In my more liberal days in the early 1980's I convinced my pastor that we should have them. So since about 1981 I have experienced girls serving the altar. In every parish that I have been in with girls serving, I have never seen boys dropping out. I've always encouraged altar servers to continue serving well into high school and they do! We have servers who continue into college and ask to serve when they come home from college. I'm glad that this "ministry" is opened to both. I would see no problem using them even for the Extraordinary Form of the Mass. Your thoughts.
READ NEWS REPORT ABOUT ALTAR GIRLS AND THE VATICAN'S PRAISE OF THEM HERE!
20 comments:
Are there circles that fear boys dropping out of altar service if girls are there?
Now wouldn't that be ironic?
Where girls serve at OF Masses then they should serve at EF Masses too.
If I understand this blog site correctly, one form of Mass isn't inheritently superior or have Jesus more fully present than the other.
Is there going to be Latin school Masses one day? Say, once a month or so?
Father,
99% of the time I agree with you, so please do not take offense when I go on the record against you this time.
I am happy for you that you have not experienced boys dropping out because of the presence of altar girls. However, many priests and observant laity have noticed that when altar girls are permitted, the number of male altar boys decreases.
You would be correct to point out that there is no change in doctrine to permit altar girls, but their presence does represent a change in Church discipline. And the longstanding, previous discipline had its good points.
Permitting altar girls sends a mixed message that is far more unfair than offending the feminist ideal of "equality in all things". The issue is NOT equality. Males and females are DIFFERENT. Only men can be ordained priests and altar boys have always proven to be a great "farm league" for future priests. I'm hesitant to permit girls to take positions that can yield future vocations when there is no possibility of them fulfilling a possible call to the priesthood. If we are consistent in supporting the Church's lack of authority to ordain women, I believe it is more charitable and consistent to support the Church's position by not "leading on" young girls by permitting them to serve at the altar.
A few years ago, I read Malachi Martin's novel Windswept House. When I read a passage about beauty contests for "altar girl of the year" I almost started laughing. Now I'm not so sure that the idea is so farfetched. It seems as though every time we open up some area of the Church to possibilities of abuse (like Holy Communion in the hand) the worst possibilities always eventuate.
I must also confess that since I do not have much use for the politically correct "gender-neutral" language that poor translations of the Mass have yielded, it is equally shrill to my ears when I hear someone say, "altar server".
I have four daughters. This is not about being against women. It is about supporting what has always worked for the Church. No bishop can force any priest to accept altar girls and I think there is a reason for that. I believe it would be in the best interests of the Church to discontinue sending the mixed message of altar girls. As long as we permit them, it is indirectly fueling the futile (and misguided) hope of ordaining women.
I agree with Robert Kumpel, female "Altar Boys" is a bad thing and definitely sends the wrong message by blurring the lines between the sexes.
We are created equal in dignity, but man and woman are clearly not the same and there is nothing wrong with certain roles being gender exclusive.
This article goes into much depth on the tradition and history and basis for retaining male only servers.
http://www.rtforum.org/lt/lt88.html
Dear father:
I am in tune with you all the time but I must most respectfully disagree with you on altar girls. PLease, please please don't use them at the latin mass.
Anonymous, fear not, Father is just speaking out loud his thoughts. At the present time the EF is governed by the 1962MR which expressly calls for male altar servers, it is therefore not something Father has the discretion to change.
Kind of like Communion in the hand. Father might think it's the worst idea in the world (not saying he does just giving an example) but at the present time the USCCB has made it a legitimate option and it's not within Father's ability to change it as a personal choice.
Fr. MacDonald,
My initial reaction yesterday to this unfortunate suggestion was regret that it rendered impossible my continued enjoyment of your blog. I wondered whether blog etiquette required an auf wiedersehen rather merely than a silent disappearance. (You know that I've been more than willing to discuss almost anything however disageeable, but I considered this beyond the ambit of constructive debate with you, though I would have been happy to take a Pater Ignotus to task on it.)
So I was glad to see today that my problem had been promptly resolved by none other than Archbishop Raymond Burke of the Apostolic Signatura, to whose judgment I know you will defer:
“The first principle requires that liturgical norms, which were in force in 1962, are to be diligently observed for the celebration of the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, for these norms protect the integrity of the Roman rite as contained in the Missal of Blessed John XXIII. The second principle states that the subsequent liturgical discipline is only to be introduced in the Extraordinary Form, if this discipline affects a right of the faithful, which follows directly from the sacrament of baptism and serves the eternal salvation of their souls.”
“The application of these two principles to the cases mentioned leads to the conclusion that neither the service at the altar by persons of the female sex nor the exercise of the lay ministries of lecturer or extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion belong to the basic rights of the baptized. Therefore, these recent developments, out of respect for the integrity of the liturgical discipline as contained in the Missale Romanum of 1962, are not to be introduced into the Extraordinary Form of the Roman rite. The commentary presents here in an impressive manner that the mutual enrichment of both forms of the Roman rite is only possible if discipline peculiar to each of the two forms is accordingly carefully observed.”
http://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2010/08/preface-of-msgr-burke-to-canonical.html
So now I can again look forward to checking in with you first thing each morning after returning home from daily Mass.
It kill me that many followers of this blog come across as so self righteous and unwilling to thoughtfully consider things. Their minds are already made up.
This smells like fundamentalism and is a real turn off.
I am female and was distrubed by gender neutralizing I heard at morning Mass today.
Perhaps if I was allowed to be an alter girl I would have cultivated more faith and reverence and not drifted away from the church for 25 years.
I sure hope my daughter becomes an alter girl!
Maybe it would foster a vocation for her as a Nun or Sister.
BTW: I have been labeled a zealot conservative by a Sister. and for the most part I am on the smae page as you all. I think Ill follow the Vatican's direction.
anon at 7:44
Why don't we see more alter men and women?
Is there an age limit?
To Anon @ 7:44
My sincere apologies if I have offended in any way. I assure you that I am not close minded. On the subject of Altar Servers in particular I have spent considerable amount of time and thought on the matter, long before Father broached the subject here. For me my feelings on the matter are consistent with my other feelings that not only should women in general not be in the Sanctuary, but even Lay males should not be there unless they are Altar Boys. In short I am against Lay Lectors, Lay Communion Ministers of any sex.
Now, I do not take the position against laity in the Sanctuary, or Altar girls in this case, because I am self righteous, but because I find attempts by the Church to bring the Laity into Clerical Roles to be insulting to me. It's like they're implying my role as Laity isn't quite good enough for me to reach salvation unless I can work my way into the Sanctuary. I happen to think otherwise. I think the Laity are called to a certain vocation and it by itself, if lived fully, is sufficient for my salvation. I should not have to adopt clerical functions because it is not my role in the Church. Women likewise have the most glorious of gifts in their role among the Laity. It is wrong of the Church to imply they need to assume the roles of boys. Girls and woman laity have duties enough and more to merit salvation.
I hope you will see this as a little less self righteous than you may have presumed me to be.
My only caution in terms of disagreeing with official Church discipline is that it can be seen as a sort of "pick and choose" Catholicism or what is usually referred to as cafeteria Catholicism. Usually we associate this with liberal or uninformed Catholics rather than conservatives or traditionalists. But in terms of Altar Girls, lay lectors and Extraordinary Minsters of Holy Communion, these are allowed by the Church and approved by the Vatican and I have seen Masses in Rome (not at St. Peters, but parish churches) that the pope visits where girls do assist at the altar in the presence of the pope. So let us not be more Catholic than the Holy Father or the Magisterium in this regard. As a traditional Catholic myself, I pride myself in being faith to the Holy Father and the bishops in union with him in the areas of faith, morals and Church discipline. If the pope came out tomorrow and made an "ex cathedra" statement allowing for female ordination, I would accept his authority and support him in his leadership. Are we Catholic or not? Of course to date, the opposite has been declared to be an infallible part of the Ordinary Magisterium of the Church, although this declaration was not in a papal document but from the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, written by then Cardinal Ratzinger but approved by Pope Benedict XVI. Again, I ask are we more Catholic than the pope if things had gone another way?
"Again, I ask are we more Catholic than the pope if things had gone another way?"
With all due respect Fr., do you need to even ask the question on this subject? It will not happen, because it can't happen (female ordination).
I agree 100% with you Jody, I just ask the question in the hypothetical and ask if the pope approved women's ordination in an infallible decree, which only he could do, would we accept the pope's decision? I would hope so. Then how much more should we also respect the pope's decision in lesser things, like allowing women to lector, girls to be servers and even his gift to us of Summorum Pontificum. There are those who reject the wider use of the 1962 missal granted us by the Pope. Are they more Catholic than the pope? There are those who reject the use of altar girls during the OF Mass, which Pope Benedict and Pope John Paul II before him have had at their Masses outside of the Vatican. Are we more Catholic than the pope in the outright rejection of altar girls for the OF Mass?
All of this brings up another question: Just how much authority does a pope have? I do not have time to research the exact quote, but some time ago, Pope Benedict himself said that as pope he could not simply govern as he wished, but was constrained by the magisterium, teachings and traditions of the Church. This opens up a huge can of worms, because it begs the question of whether or not previous popes have exceeded their own authority by forcing certain things on the Church, like, perhaps (just perhaps) the Mass of Paul VI. I'm not questioning the validity of that Mass, only whether Pope Paul himself had to authority to do so. I have no definitive answer either.
It strikes me that the generosity of the Vatican in permitting altar girls contrasted with the stark reality that no bishop has any authority to force any priest to accept them indicates that this is an unresolved issue at best and I fear that some people may mistake this generosity as some sort of "dogma" that we are never to question. For example, Holy Communion in the hand is NOT the norm of the worldwide Church and no one can licitly be forced to receive Holy Communion that way. Are we supposed to blindly accept altar girls as something that has been definitively accepted by the Church? There is a huge difference between a positive editorial in L'Osservatore Romano (a paper that has suffered with credibility issues of late) and a definitive teaching by the Holy Father.
Again, I have no answer, but it is obvious that this is creating divisions.
I am clearly not more Catholic than the Pope. I can disagree with him unless he teaches ex cathedra, and I do on the subject of laity in the sanctuary (among other things). If I fled the Church based on those disagreements shame on me. But I stay, and I pray, that in God's good time, and according to the will of the Holy Spirit, the Liturgy will become what it is meant to be.
But I do have to ask, while Traditional Catholics accept, or at least tolerate, things like Altar Girls, why aren't the Modernists expected to accept, or at least tolerate the OF Mass said as it was meant to be said? Why are their complaints about a using Pax Vobiscum in place of Peace Be With You more generally acceptable than complaints by Traditionalists about Altar Girls? Not by you Father of course, you have always been open minded and fair in conversation, but in general?
Traditionalists I find are at least passionate enough about their faith to have basic level of knowledge about their faith to have reasons for their feelings. Modernists are inclined to go on feelings and what their gut tells them, and therefore don't even know why they think Altar Girls are good or bad things.
Father Allan,
Sorry to disagree with you regarding some of the points you say on the Holy Father's authority.
The Pope's role as Vicar of Christ is not to be above the Church or the Sacred Deposit of Faith. In fact, Pope Benedict himself has stated in one of his speeches to the CDF that the infallibility of the Pope is the guarantee of faithfulness to Sacred Tradition and not for circumventing it. The Pope's word and will is not law.
Yes we ought to follow all the directives of the Holy Father. But there is a dangerous attitude in following everything from the Pope if something is against the received Truth. I understand that you are against "cafeteria" and "pick-and-choose" Catholicism. I also am on the same side with you in that. But I do not agree with you if you say that you'd theoretically follow the Pope if he defines women ordination tomorrow, as if he can come up with anything tomorrow without any qualifications...
No, the Pope is not master of the revealed Truth: he is servant and protector of the Word that has been handed on to us through Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition. One of the unfortunate things that ultramontanism hasn't clarified for us is that it makes the Pope unlimited in his power; as if the dogma of infallibility can be exercised by the Holy Father at whim and without any due regard for what the Church before him has received from her Divine Founder. What if tomorrow the Holy Father were to define that there are four Persons in the Divine Trinity instead of three? What if some years from now, some Pope would declare that the Most Blessed Virgin was virgin only at the birth of her Son and not as the Church has constantly believed a virgin conceived, a virgin brought forth, a virgin remained? What if some crazy thing gets into the head of the Pope and he suddenly would do away with the whole episcopate in the entire Church? It is this ultramontane claims for the power of the Pope that has done much to bring havoc into the Church these past forty years... Yes, all the liturgical chaos and confusion though largely carried out by Modernists can also partly be blamed on what we attribute to the unlimited exercise of the Pope's authority. The Novus Ordo (and its rupturist Order of Mass) with Bugnini's machinations was insensitively imposed upon the Church by the help of the Pope's authority.
Father Allan,
Sorry to disagree with you regarding some of the points you say on the Holy Father's authority.
The Pope's role as Vicar of Christ is not to be above the Church or the Sacred Deposit of Faith. In fact, Pope Benedict himself has stated in one of his speeches to the CDF that the infallibility of the Pope is the guarantee of faithfulness to Sacred Tradition and not for circumventing it. The Pope's word and will is not law.
Yes we ought to follow all the directives of the Holy Father. But there is a dangerous attitude in following everything from the Pope if something is against the received Truth. I understand that you are against "cafeteria" and "pick-and-choose" Catholicism. I also am on the same side with you in that. But I do not agree with you if you say that you'd theoretically follow the Pope if he defines women ordination tomorrow, as if he can come up with anything tomorrow without any qualifications...
No, the Pope is not master of the revealed Truth: he is servant and protector of the Word that has been handed on to us through Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition. One of the unfortunate things that ultramontanism hasn't clarified for us is that it makes the Pope unlimited in his power; as if the dogma of infallibility can be exercised by the Holy Father at whim and without any due regard for what the Church before him has received from her Divine Founder. What if tomorrow the Holy Father were to define that there are four Persons in the Divine Trinity instead of three? What if some years from now, some Pope would declare that the Most Blessed Virgin was virgin only at the birth of her Son and not as the Church has constantly believed a virgin conceived, a virgin brought forth, a virgin remained? What if some crazy thing gets into the head of the Pope and he suddenly would do away with the whole episcopate in the entire Church? It is this ultramontane claims for the power of the Pope that has done much to bring havoc into the Church these past forty years... Yes, all the liturgical chaos and confusion though largely carried out by Modernists can also partly be blamed on what we attribute to the unlimited exercise of the Pope's authority. The Novus Ordo (and its rupturist Order of Mass) with Bugnini's machinations was insensitively imposed upon the Church by the help of the Pope's authority.
Don't get me wrong though, I count myself as a humble son of our great Father in Rome and I do not in any way condone any dissent from his Magisterium nor do I teach others to do so. But I disagree with altar girls and I think it was a mistaken innovation, along with Communion in the hand, and lay ministers of communion. Especially with altar girls, there is no precedent for it anywhere in the Church, east or west. I grant that there have been deaconesses in the early Church (though their liturgical role is disputed) and the Byzantines in their practice have in some way exaggerated their role. But never had the use of altar girls been sanctioned in the whole history of the Church until 1990s. And where often they have been utilized at the sanctuary, it is because of the understanding that such is an equality issue stemming from the poison of secular feminism and not from a serious vantage point of sacramental theology and baptismal dignity and roles in the Church...
I grant that we ought to tolerate them wherever they are found, since they have been "permitted" by the Holy See. But I will not promote them (and we might do well even to slowly correct them, i.e. communion in the hand, altar girls, etc.). The whole altar girl issue just reinforces the wrong idea that such is about equality when in fact it is not. If we pay attention to the original decree allowing altar girls, we can notice that the Holy See is at pains to discourage its use. It was, like the permission of communion on the hand, a vacillation on the part of the Holy See so as not to "shame" those who have been utilizing it. A spirit of aggiornamento perhaps, which in the words of Bl. John XXIII in his opening speech at Vatican II, refuses to present the truth by means of condemnations but rather by means of the medicine of mercy. Again, it remains to be seen whether such has really been effective for the last forty years.
Let's imagine for a moment that our goal is a greater role for women during the celebration of the Mass, up to and including women priests. Let's also say that we are faced with stiff and obstinate resistance from the Catholic hierarchy and many of the faithful. Clearly, accomplishing the ordination of women in a single leap is out of the question. People just aren't ready for it.
In the face of this, what should be our initial goal, therefore? It should be something achievable and something which will assist in accomplishing our aim.
My initial goal if I was in this position would be to get people used to the idea of seeing women actually in the sanctuary during Mass, assisting at the Sacred Mysteries and robed in some of the same vestments used by the male acolytes and servers.
Altar girls!!
Incrementalism is the devil's friend.
Start out slowly so as to arouse no suspicion. Have the girls carry the crucifix, candles, altar gifts etc, etc. Make them helpers. A little later when they've become an accepted part of the scenery and taken for granted, take the next step.
Acolyte..........
terrible, being a young male adult, the TLM brought me closer to Christ and seriously considering the priesthood. how can you encourage men to join the priesthood when girl servers trump them! this is such a bad thing. bad.
Post a Comment