Eucharistic ministers/Lay Readers

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I didn’t say you were complaining about the form of the Mass. I was saying that no matter what the form of the Mass is, you seem to do a lot of complaining. And a lot of the problems you identify are either not real problems, nor battles that any pastor wants or needs to fight necessarily.

So again, I think the problem might be where your attention is at Mass.
 
While I’m not a big fan of EMHC I was primarily making a joke. I love the OF. Not trying to start an argument, just distancing myself from your statement.
 
edward_george1 said:
you seem to do a lot of complaining
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Yes, I tend to. But only when there are real problems that are readily solvable by pastors with the resources to solve them. A basic dress code for lay liturgical ministers would take my pastor maybe an hour to craft and implement. Instead he ignores the problem.
edward_george1 said:
And a lot of the problems you identify are either not real problems
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Nope, you’re mistaken there.
edward_george1 said:
nor battles that any pastor wants or needs to fight necessarily.
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Yet another excuse? No matter how you want to spin it, my pastor should ensure that people who serve in liturgical ministries are clothed in a modest manner. There’s really no way to explain himself out of that responsibility.
edward_george1 said:
So again, I think the problem might be where your attention is at Mass.
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No, I don’t think so. When my focus is on the altar, and the altar is then surrounded by people with their backs to me and one or more are wearing skintight yoga pants or Spandex leggings, I shouldn’t have to avert my view because others dress so inappropriately for Mass and my pastor fails to take action.
 
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Pastors prioritize like everyone else. In our area sacramental duties visiting the sick and counseling come before handling complaints. Some priests around here have the responsibility for 3 parishes.
 
Most men I have talked to don’t spend alot of time thinking about what type of pants women wear.
Yoga pants, leggings, knit pants, whatever you want to call them, are comfortable, easy to wash, don’t require ironing and can be dressed up or down. They are a modern day staple to just about every woman’s wardrobe, so you are just going to have to learn to deal.
 
Mi_Rose said:
Pastors prioritize like everyone else. In our area sacramental duties visiting the sick and counseling come before handling complaints. Some priests around here have the responsibility for 3 parishes.
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I’m very sorry to hear that your diocese is so short-handed in terms of clerics. Mine is not. Not in the least. There is also the matter of how much effort/time it would actually consume from a pastor to deal with real problems.

In my parish the issue of altar servers/readers/extraordinary ministers of holy communion/cantors often dressing immodestly would consume perhaps 30 minutes of a pastor’s time to address. 15 minutes to craft a bulletin and another 15 minutes to disseminate it within the sacristy crowd. I simply can’t believe that the great majority of Catholic pastors couldn’t find 30 minutes at some point (even if it’s later rather than sooner) to address a matter that can bring scandal to a parish.
 
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Except you don’t seem to know or care what else is involved. While it might only take a very small amount of time for a pastor to get up and make such a statement, the question is one of whether it is worth doing that in the face of the many hours of backlash and nastiness that will follow in the days and weeks after such an announcement. People can be demanding and unreasonable. And very often, when priests inherit parishes from previous generations that laid the groundwork for the actual problems that exist, it’s slow going trying to walk back those issues. It can’t all happen at once. Revolutionary change would just beget further revolution. These things have to be done slowly and subtly, particularly in this day and age, where people are very highly informed, though have little accounting for how to process and prioritize what it is they’ve learned from the internet, and furthermore where the internet has begotten a highly polarized culture of rage that leads to everyone being offended at only the slightest thing.

Walk a mile in my shoes. Then you can complain about whatever you’d like.
 
edward_george1 said:
Except you don’t seem to know or care what else is involved. While it might only take a very small amount of time for a pastor to get up and make such a statement, the question is one of whether it is worth doing that in the face of the many hours of backlash and nastiness that will follow in the days and weeks after such an announcement.
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Sure I do. Let me give an example. For years, the legion of (poorly trained and catechized) sacristans at my parish would unlock, open, leave the key in and leave the tabernacle unattended, sometimes in an unlocked and empty church. Over the years people told me they approached different pastors and asked about it and were ignored. One group of three even approached a former bishop and were told to mind their own business.

It would fascinating to know how many hours were spent both by the laity and clergy discussing this issue, rather than the clergy simply solving the problem?

I did some research on my own and found that treating the tabernacle in the manner noted above is a violation of Canon Law (Canon 938 §3 and §5.) I sent a brief email to my pastor.

This issue was immediately fixed. Done deal. There are a number of problems like this in many parishes that could be solved once and for all, and aren’t for some reason.
 
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Our pastor has no extra hours. He does mass. He takes a nap. Monday he recovers. He does a funeral. It takes another day to recover.
He says all of mass sitting down by the way. He sees a doctor. Then it takes more time to recover. That is the life of someone in their 80s who has had cancer and heart fsilure. He has not retired because the bishop asked him not to. He also has administrative duties.
 
If there was a serious issue to deal with, and he so desired to deal with it, I am sure at some point he would find 30-60 minutes to deal with it.
 
It doesn’t help that people ignore what we say about the tactful ways we must deal with problems and instead insist upon lecturing us on how the problems people cause are the fault of poor people skills and the supposed failings of priests.
 
I wasn’t talking about a pastor ignoring problems. I was talking about how my correction of you is sort of selectively responded to and then I am subjected to a lecture on people skills.

I think you’re missing the point of what I’m trying to say to you. Good evening to you.
 
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I didn’t issue any ultimatum. Further, I’m not talking about raggedy or out of fashion garb with this example. I am talking about people who dress immodestly, (e.g. Spandex leggings and skintight yoga pants.)

I have served as an: altar server, MC, sacristan, sexton, reader, EMHC and usher for a great many years. I have also been a planner for large Masses that include our bishop. Formal plans that are approved by the local pastor and then by the bishop’s secretary/MC for up to 1,700 attendees. How’s that?

This specific example has nothing to do with “my specifications.” It has everything to do with dressing in a modest manner while serving at Mass in a liturgical ministry.
 
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Another poster noted the “the many hours of backlash and nastiness that will follow.” That makes a great deal more sense to me than “the pastor doesn’t have enough time.” Further, from my experience, it’s a distaste for experiencing the backlash/nastiness and not the time element that keeps problems from being addresses.
 
edward_george1 said:
Revolutionary change would just beget further revolution. These things have to be done slowly and subtly, particularly in this day and age, where people are very highly informed, though have little accounting for how to process and prioritize what it is they’ve learned from the internet, and furthermore where the internet has begotten a highly polarized culture of rage that leads to everyone being offended at only the slightest thing.

Walk a mile in my shoes. Then you can complain about whatever you’d like.
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This maybe the most fascinating and profound couple of sentences I’ve read here on CAF 🥳. I’ll have to think about this further…It is far more interesting than the discussion about…leggings…so thanks for the very interesting post.

I so rarely think about modesty in dress when I’m at mass. This thread is hard for me to understand. I don’t get offended easily. Good luck dealing with these types of issues 😐.
 
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