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

[SWolf]

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.

Women attend church at a much higher rate than men. Something is clearly amiss.

The decline in marriage has to do with divorce rates, shacking up, and a justice system stacked against men. All the fruits of radical feminism.

 

[casslean]

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.

They were children, not adults, and molestation is about power, not sex and not attraction.

 

[GoldenSeal]

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?

 

[Ridgerunner]

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.

Astonished as I am to find that I agree with Boar2roar about anything, I do agree.

I remember when altar girls were introduced in one of my two parishes. The boys immediately dropped out and never returned, to this day.

I realize this may seem silly as a comparison, but I also remember when my son was in club wrestling. Some parents insisted that their daughters be allowed to wrestle with the boys, and the club allowed it. The girls did pretty well on paper, because almost without exception (and in my mind, to their credit) the boys refused to wrestle with them and defaulted. I realize there are people who tell of girls beating boys at wrestling, but the only time I ever saw a mixed match was when some boy went ahead with it to teach the girls a lesson, and succeeded in teaching it painfully. I don’t favor that kind of thing, and my son wouldn’t, but it did demonstrate how much some of the boys resented it.

Nor do I favor the “unisex” alter server outfits. When the big dropout occurred, I asked one boy why he quit serving. “Because I won’t dress like a girl” he replied.

Yes, I know, some will say that’s awful and patriarchal and sexist and all that. But the truth of the matter is that boys really do want to have some activities, ways, even places, that are their own. Girls indisputably do, and nobody thinks they shouldn’t. So why not boys?

 

[Ridgerunner]

They were children, not adults, and molestation is about power, not sex and not attraction.

No, most of them were teenage young men, past puberty. Check it out. And a lot of the molestation was by seduction, not force.

 

[pianistclare]

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.

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.

Good points. A priest friend of mine said once
“behind every very successful priest (in ministry) is an army of women doing a lot of the heavy lifting.”

So true.
I agree, that child molesters are child molesters. People who should never have been accepted in the seminary to begin with. Maybe that’s the real reason for the shortage? That they don’t take just anyone anymore?

That, and the student debt. We see it here all the time. People that feel called and want to know if there are any seminaries that will accept them with student debt.

We have altar girls. Very few. We also have very few altar boys. Mostly we have adult servers, which simply tells the kids that we don’t need them.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Women attend church at a much higher rate than men. Something is clearly amiss.

The decline in marriage has to do with divorce rates, shacking up, and a justice system stacked against men. All the fruits of radical feminism.

You will probably laugh at me, but I attribute a great deal of this to Hugh Hefner, the 20th Century’s #1 degrader of women. Sure, there were porn purveyors before, but they weren’t as subtle and mind-altering as Hefner. Hefner sold porn, but he also sold a libertine philosophy that reduced women to sexual “playmates”. And his line was that the role was exactly what all but backward women wanted.

It was a terrible lie, but men bought into it. I genuinely think radical feminism was a reaction to the “playboy philosophy”; a mutuality of demeaning the other gender and (amazingly) tacit acceptance of the role drawn for them. It was a game women could only lose, and they did.

Only procreation (certainly not family) is left in the hands of women, who so often see themselves as the adversaries, not the partners, of men. You’re a man and your paramour kills your son or daughter and can do it just because she wants to do it. And you’ll want to spend your life with that person? I don’t think so. You’re a woman and you no longer seem as good a “playmate” as someone else. You get pregnant and your paramour sails off with another, perhaps grudgingly offering child support for a child he’ll never be a father to, and you want to spend your life with that person? No.

Maybe Hugh Hefner will attain salvation at the end. But whether he does or not, the devil ought to erect a statue to him.

 

[RACJ]

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.

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

You are atheist and I am Baptist. But I do attend RC masses with my wife about a dozen times a year. There has dfinitely been a softening, and gender-neutering of Bible passages and messages over the years. The hymnals even butcher lyrics of Christmas carols so the dreaded “man” doesn’t offend anyone. I’ve even heard Jesus referred to as “child” of God. I know two excellent men who would have been great priests except for the tolerance of homosexual harassment in their seminaries, which was tolerated. I take no joy in saying this; it’s very sad actually, but true.
There is something, probably a lot to what Cardinal Burke said, IMO. Rob

 

[JimG]

The article from RNS does have a biased tone to it.
The actual interview can be found at this link (first posted in post #2):
newemangelization.com/uncategorized/cardinal-raymond-leo-burke-on-the-catholic-man-crisis-and-what-to-do-about-it/

 

[AnnArbor]

Well, we certainly don’t want the bride of Christ to be feminized.

I think the answer is for women to stop serving funeral dinners, washing altar linens, teaching CCD, singing in choirs, acting as parish secretaries, teaching in Catholic schools for wages much lower than their public-school counterparts. Why confine ourselves to altar servers?

 

[JimG]

You will probably laugh at me, but I attribute a great deal of this to Hugh Hefner, the 20th Century’s #1 degrader of women. Sure, there were porn purveyors before, but they weren’t as subtle and mind-altering as Hefner. Hefner sold porn, but he also sold a libertine philosophy that reduced women to sexual “playmates”. And his line was that the role was exactly what all but backward women wanted.

It was a terrible lie, but men bought into it. I genuinely think radical feminism was a reaction to the “playboy philosophy”; a mutuality of demeaning the other gender and (amazingly) tacit acceptance of the role drawn for them. It was a game women could only lose, and they did.

Only procreation (certainly not family) is left in the hands of women, who so often see themselves as the adversaries, not the partners, of men. You’re a man and your paramour kills your son or daughter and can do it just because she wants to do it. And you’ll want to spend your life with that person? I don’t think so. You’re a woman and you no longer seem as good a “playmate” as someone else. You get pregnant and your paramour sails off with another, perhaps grudgingly offering child support for a child he’ll never be a father to, and you want to spend your life with that person? No.

Maybe Hugh Hefner will attain salvation at the end. But whether he does or not, the devil ought to erect a statue to him.

Yes, it wasn’t enough to make millions by publishing naked photos of women. He also had to purvey his phony “philosophy” to justify it.

 

[pianistclare]

Well, we certainly don’t want the bride of Christ to be feminized.

I think the answer is for women to stop serving funeral dinners, washing altar linens, teaching CCD, singing in choirs, acting as parish secretaries, teaching in Catholic schools for wages much lower than their public-school counterparts. Why confine ourselves to altar servers?

 

[SWolf]

You will probably laugh at me, but I attribute a great deal of this to Hugh Hefner, the 20th Century’s #1 degrader of women. Sure, there were porn purveyors before, but they weren’t as subtle and mind-altering as Hefner. Hefner sold porn, but he also sold a libertine philosophy that reduced women to sexual “playmates”. And his line was that the role was exactly what all but backward women wanted.

It was a terrible lie, but men bought into it. I genuinely think radical feminism was a reaction to the “playboy philosophy”; a mutuality of demeaning the other gender and (amazingly) tacit acceptance of the role drawn for them. It was a game women could only lose, and they did.

Only procreation (certainly not family) is left in the hands of women, who so often see themselves as the adversaries, not the partners, of men. You’re a man and your paramour kills your son or daughter and can do it just because she wants to do it. And you’ll want to spend your life with that person? I don’t think so. You’re a woman and you no longer seem as good a “playmate” as someone else. You get pregnant and your paramour sails off with another, perhaps grudgingly offering child support for a child he’ll never be a father to, and you want to spend your life with that person? No.

Maybe Hugh Hefner will attain salvation at the end. But whether he does or not, the devil ought to erect a statue to him.

A lot of truth to that. Both wanted to be “liberated”. When I see the misery of both sexes from such “liberation” it’s clear we have been had.

 

[SMGS127]

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.

The John Jay report actually explicitly states that there is no link between homosexuality and priestly abuse. Explicitly. But truth doesn’t win out over sensationalism .

 

[PaulfromIowa]

We must remember that, by identifying himself as orthodox and prolife, Burke is seen as an enemy by liberals, both inside and outside the Church.

 

[SWolf]

The John Jay report actually explicitly states that there is no link between homosexuality and priestly abuse. Explicitly. But truth doesn’t win out over sensationalism .

Please state the part of my post where I said there was.

 

[JimG]

The John Jay report actually explicitly states that there is no link between homosexuality and priestly abuse. Explicitly. But truth doesn’t win out over sensationalism .

Yes, that was a conclusion they made; but the facts set forth in the report showed that something like 80% of those molested were male adolescents, not girls. Rather an imbalance, I would say, and I don’t buy that it was just a matter of access. That also is a conclusion, not a finding.

 

[Good_Tidings]

I think the pedophile problem was around a lot sooner than the 70s. Feminism had nothing to do with that. I’m glad the pope took him out of the limelight.

 

[SMGS127]

Please state the part of my post where I said there was.

You said that the John Jay report stated that there was a “15%” correlation between homosexuality and priestly abuse. As this number does not exist whatsoever in the John Jay report in any fashion you described it as, I assumed you inferred it. Thus, I pointed out that the John Jay report explicitly stated that homosexual priests were no more likely to molest children than heterosexual priests.

 

[SWolf]

You said that the John Jay report stated that there was a “15%” correlation between homosexuality and priestly abuse. As this number does not exist whatsoever in the John Jay report in any fashion you described it as, I assumed you inferred it. Thus, I pointed out that the John Jay report explicitly stated that homosexual priests were no more likely to molest children than heterosexual priests.

Read my post again.

I said the number of homosexual priests was way above the general population. That is a fact. I said nothing about any correlation between sexual abuse and homosexuals.

If you want my opinion. Many sexually immature men were poorly vetted by their spiritual directors during the late 60s and early 70s. The cultural revolution probably had a lot to do with this. It was not an exclusively homosexual problem.