Oh heavens Brendan, are we at this againNo, but Spellinggirl seems to think so.
She seems to think that it is ‘sexist’ for a priest or bishop to use a Canonical right that Pope John Paul II gave them to refuse the use of females at the altar.
did you ever write to the Vatican and find out about those cassocks? 
I support both girls and boys serving at the table of our Lord.There would be no double standard in only having male servers either though. It wasn’t one of the women that helped Our Lord carry the cross for example. But the women did do other things e.g. the mothers of Jerusalem, Mary etc. The virtue of Altar Serving is to serve the Church and help the Priest during the Mass which can not be fully accomplished by everyone doing the same thing. You also need readers, people to clean and prepare the Church etc.
Okay, a religious sister in our diocese explained her views beautifully on this. It is natural for an altar boy to have a desire to become a priest. Allow altar girls would be like dangling a Hershey bar in their face and say look what I’ve got. You want it… well you can’t haive it. The point is that it helps foster vocations to the priesthood.
This has yet to be proven nor has it been proven that girls discourage vocations if they serve at the altar. That is opinion only. We have debated this issue to death on here many times.
IMHO you are not part of the solution.Oh heavens Brendan, are we at this again
My daughter serves!
At one time, serving at the altar was an order of the Clergy, so it was restricted to males, as only males can be clergy.
I am glad you stopped there…and did not imply that she was selected to serve at the Last SupperAt one time, serving at the altar was an order of the Clergy, so it was restricted to males, as only males can be clergy.
At Vatican II, they removed all of the levels of clergy except for Deacon, Priest, and Bishop. The remainder were redefined as lay roles.
Lay roles are open to both males and females. They always have been. It’s not an “innovation” to allow girls to do things that lay people (boys and girls) are allowed to do. In fact, the definitive lay person is Mother Mary - a 14 year old girl.
:yup: :clapping: thanks jmcrae!At one time, serving at the altar was an order of the Clergy, so it was restricted to males, as only males can be clergy.
At Vatican II, they removed all of the levels of clergy except for Deacon, Priest, and Bishop. The remainder were redefined as lay roles.
Lay roles are open to both males and females. They always have been. It’s not an “innovation” to allow girls to do things that lay people (boys and girls) are allowed to do. In fact, the definitive lay person is Mother Mary - a 14 year old girl.
They were called Acolytes, and they were instituted to the position. Actually Vatican II reduced the number of minor orders but people are still instituted to them so they were never removed. Now it is normally only seminarians who become instituted Acolytes though.At one time, serving at the altar was an order of the Clergy, so it was restricted to males, as only males can be clergy.
At Vatican II, they removed all of the levels of clergy except for Deacon, Priest, and Bishop. The remainder were redefined as lay roles.
Lay roles are open to both males and females. They always have been. It’s not an “innovation” to allow girls to do things that lay people (boys and girls) are allowed to do. In fact, the definitive lay person is Mother Mary - a 14 year old girl.
Do you have a reliable source for this statistic? I have never actually met any priest who served at the Altar as a child; they were too busy with their studies and books.
Girls don’t take boys’ places - there is always room for as many boys as want to serve. Nobody is denying anything to the boys; they lose nothing by having girls there.
To start with: here, here. To quote from the second “In addition, surveys on the social background of priests (Brooks, 1965) have indicated that as many as 90 percent of those sampled had been altar boys.” I could look up more but I’m sure you can do a Google search.
As many as show up to serve, in practice. Typically we have six-eight kids serving at any given Mass at our parish, with a pretty much even mix of boys and girls. Nobody is ever turned away.
I have never seen a boy turned away in favour of a girl - ever.
Actually, no - the point of Altar serving is to be of service to your parish priest. A priestly vocation is a potential side-effect, but it is not the purpose of the activity.
You might not have however you can’t speak for the thousands of other Parishes can you? The fact is you can and do have Altar boys sitting in the congregation serving while girls/other boys are serving. There are numerous cases where I’ve heard of boys being turned away because there were enough servers etc. Just look at the comment from servers’s mom here . That’s from one blog with a circulation that isn’t huge and its a boy being turned away from one of the most important Liturgies in the Church Calendar.
I have seen cases where kids were turned down for service because they haven’t completed their training, or needed review, or misbehaved on the Altar - one kid at our parish was seen to turn the corporal upside down, and he hasn’t been asked back, of course. He hasn’t been “replaced by a girl,” though - he just will not serve on the Altar any more, because he doesn’t follow instructions correctly.
Maybe so; I still haven’t met any.
Did you actually read the comment? The kid was turned down because they already had ‘enough’ servers, all of whom were Altar girls. I would suggest that even one case of a faithful boy, who may one day be a Priest, if he has that calling and receives the proper encouragement, is one too many. The fact remains that your initial contention that “Nobody is denying anything to the boys” while it may be true in your case in your Parish is in fact wrong.
