Cardinal Raymond Burke: ‘Feminized’ church and altar girls caused priest shortage

  • Thread starter Thread starter saintjohnxxiii
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
A John Jay report put the number of Homosexual Priests at a minumum15% . That is way higher than the 1-3 percent in the general population.

About Altar girls, as has been said many times, it makes absolutely no sense. Altar servers are supposed to be seen as possible apprentices for the priesthood. Even the document allowing Altar Girls said as much.

He is saying truths many don’t like to hear, and there is a lot to back him up. It’s clear why so many have animosity towards him.
 
Maybe it’s just the quotes the chose for the article but it doesn’t sound like he likes women or their influence all that much.

I’m sure it wasn’t their intent but the final paragraph comes off as making fun of him. Reminded me more of a Huffington Post article:
Burke, a liturgical traditionalist as well as a doctrinal conservative who is renowned for wearing elaborate silk and lace vestments while celebrating Mass, also said that “men need to dress and act like men in a way that is respectful to themselves, to women and to children.”
Click to expand...
 
christofirst said:
newemangelization.com/uncategorized/cardinal-raymond-leo-burke-on-the-catholic-man-crisis-and-what-to-do-about-it/

I like the original interview better than the RNS synopsis. The link is in the the RNS article, but here it is too.
Click to expand...
Young men and men respond to rigor and precision and excellence. When I was trained to be a server, the training lasted for several weeks and you had to memorize the prayers at the foot of the altar. It was a rigorous and a carefully executed service. All of a sudden, in the wake of Vatican II, the celebration of the liturgy became very sloppy in many places. It became less attractive to young men, for it was slipshod.
Click to expand...
My Altar Server training was ten minutes. It comes as no surprise it took me until my adult years to get a sense of the sacred of Mass. What he speaks about Men and Rigor is absolutely true.
 
As I posted on the RNS comment board, the author is simply an inept writer who continuously gets it wrong when it comes to the Church! And yet he continues! Burkes comments are clearly not the most articulate and he does have a certain generational bias and prejudice. But there are also kernels of truth! But Gibsons jab at Burkes penchant for traditional clerical garb is clearly off base and just evidence of his lack of professional ability and credibility! The love him over at National Catholic Distorter. So that alone should tell you he writes to excite his followers, and not to inform or truly educate. I would suggest that Gibson was simply throwing an unprofessional fit in response to what he perceived as personally insulting comments by Burke. So, I guess, basically hes a commentary writer and shouldnt be taken seriously as an actual reporter.
 
Empirical evidence doesn’t support his claim regarding gay clergy. That’s nothing more than making bald, unsupported assertions. Further, molestation is not about sex any more than rape is about sex. It’s about power and exploitation. Those priests didn’t molest children because they were gay (even if they were). They molested children because they were child molesters.

Regarding the oft-debated issue of whether serving with girls will dissuade boys from entering the priesthood, I’m not sure I want a priest that sees any activity as being somehow less worthy of their time simply because women are involved. In case no one has noticed, women are very involvedd in parish life, and not just in ironing the altar linens. If they can’t put their own self-interests aside to serve the Lord as young men, what makes us think they are suited to being priests?
 
I still think that the church made a huge mistake with this whole alter girl business if they are serious about a male priesthood continuing. 50 years form now even older catholics will have images of girls walking around like mini priests ingrained in their minds and then the why not when you have girls in essentialy priest tryouts, it will be really hard to counter. The only problem is though that you can’t take it back without a lot of blow back and mess which is a good reason for why you don’t do it in the first place and let it become the norm.
 
Yeah, that’s it…the feminization of the Catholic Church (what the heck does that even mean?) and girl alter servers are causing the shortage of priests. :rolleyes:

There is a priest shortage, he is absolutely right. But I think that he’s just looking for a convenient scapegoat. It’s easy to blame young girls serving in the church. But wouldn’t it make more sense to look at society as a whole and consider how much religious affiliation and participation has dropped in the last few decades? Or how about considering that even amongst believers, the importance that religion plays in the lives of westerners has also dropped significantly in the same time frame.

And then there are the economic concerns. Student loan debt is OUTRAGEOUS in this country. And debt is a major barrier to the priesthood and religious life. Many people are turned away because of their financial situation. Something tells me that 1/3 of applicants being turned away from the start because of their debt has more to do with the shortage than 12 year old girls serving at the alter.

ncronline.org/news/faith-parish/student-loan-debt-may-prevent-many-us-catholics-entering-religious-orders
 
casslean said:
In case no one has noticed, women are very involvedd in parish life, and not just in ironing the altar linens.
Click to expand...
I think the recent stats show 63% of those in attendance overall are women. Women have been running parishes since the 70’s, if not before. (Many sisterly orders were running things before that, including the schools.) Priests and bishops come and go so it’s all in the hands of the laity now. As far as I’m concerned, altar girls aren’t the problem per se, but they are symptoms of a problem. We’ve already had women readers, etc.
eViLpOpTaRt said:
So he blames the priest shortage on gays and altar girls? Kind of flimsy thinking, in my opinion. I wonder if potential priests who are put off by little altar girls would really have stayed for the long haul…
Click to expand...
It’s not the number of priests as much as the decline of men in attendance that’s the most noticeable. The last Spanish Mass I attended was made up of about 90% women.
 
SWolf said:
A John Jay report put the number of Homosexual Priests at a minumum15% . That is way higher than the 1-3 percent in the general population.

About Altar girls, as has been said many times, it makes absolutely no sense. Altar servers are supposed to be seen as possible apprentices for the priesthood. Even the document allowing Altar Girls said as much.

He is saying truths many don’t like to hear, and there is a lot to back him up. It’s clear why so many have animosity towards him.
Click to expand...
I said on a thread that got closed down something along the lines of your second paragraph and people said I wasn’t respecting the Magisterium and the authority of the Church even though no bishop can force a priest to have altar girls in their parish.
 
Is this a parody? If not, could someone kindly explain to him that he is making a fool of himself?

The worst part of the interview for me is blaming the decline of marriage on women demanding rights. You know rights like the ability to get a college education, have a professional career, play high school and college sports, take upper level STEM courses, not be fired from their jobs if they become pregnant, etc. When my aunts went to Catholic high school in the 1970s, boys and girls were still separated and classes like physics and calculus were only offered to the boys. The decline in marriage is mainly economic in nature. Both men and women leave school with significant debt, have limited job prospects, and have problems finding affordable housing. Rather than complaining about ladies attending college and having jobs, perhaps Burke could focus on that. Also giving women more rights like paid maternity leave (or perhaps giving fathers some rights like paid paternity leave) would help.
 
sttcatherinefan said:
Is this a parody? If not, could someone kindly explain to him that he is making a fool of himself?

The worst part of the interview for me is blaming the decline of marriage on women demanding rights. You know rights like the ability to get a college education, have a professional career, play high school and college sports, take upper level STEM courses, not be fired from their jobs if they become pregnant, etc. When my aunts went to Catholic high school in the 1970s, boys and girls were still separated and classes like physics and calculus were only offered to the boys. The decline in marriage is mainly economic in nature. Both men and women leave school with significant debt, have limited job prospects, and have problems finding affordable housing. Rather than complaining about ladies attending college and having jobs, perhaps Burke could focus on that. Also giving women more rights like paid maternity leave (or perhaps giving fathers some rights like paid paternity leave) would help.
Click to expand...
I only looked at the lifesitenews article, but wasn’t he referring to radical feminism? Like the feminists who want to ordain women and other stuff
Are woman demanding those things you said now? Because they already have most if not all of those things.
 
casslean said:
Empirical evidence doesn’t support his claim regarding gay clergy. That’s nothing more than making bald, unsupported assertions. Further, molestation is not about sex any more than rape is about sex. It’s about power and exploitation. Those priests didn’t molest children because they were gay (even if they were). They molested children because they were child molesters.
Click to expand...
Notwithstanding that most of those molested were young men, not children, and not females of any age?

Yes, I know, a new category has been touted for sexual attraction to teenage young men in order to make it seem that it’s not homosexual either. But young men are, well, young men, not young women.
 
BlueEyedLady said:
Yeah, that’s it…the feminization of the Catholic Church (what the heck does that even mean?)
Click to expand...
It seems pretty straightforward: it’s the claim that the Church and its liturgy is (or is being perceived as) ‘feminine’, or geared for women and not for men. 🤷
But wouldn’t it make more sense to look at society as a whole and consider how much religious affiliation and participation has dropped in the last few decades?
Click to expand...
And if the rate of decline in priestly ordination outstrips the rate of decline of affiliation? Or, as the statistics show, that the number of Catholics is growing but the number of ordinations is declining?
Or how about considering that even amongst believers, the importance that religion plays in the lives of westerners has also dropped significantly in the same time frame.
Click to expand...
This is a valid assertion; yet, aren’t his assertions able to be interpreted as a suggestion of one reason why the importance is on the decline (namely, that half the Catholic population feels that practice of the faith isn’t geared toward them)?
And then there are the economic concerns. Student loan debt is OUTRAGEOUS in this country. And debt is a major barrier to the priesthood and religious life. Many people are turned away because of their financial situation.
Click to expand...
This smells like an assertion from personal experience. Here’s the thing, though: it’s a reasonable concern with respect to religious life (religious communities generally will not accept a person with debt into their community, since they’ll be unable to pay it off while a member of the community!)… but that’s not at all the situation in formation for diocesan priesthood, from everything I’ve seen, heard, and read.
Something tells me that 1/3 of applicants being turned away from the start because of their debt
Click to expand...
Please note that your citation has to do only with religious orders, not diocesan priesthood. As I recall, the number of diocesan priests is an order of magnitude greater than the number of religious order priests. Therefore, your assertions really don’t hold up, here. 🤷
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top