Female Altar Servers

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LeahInancsi said:
Hot topic! I had a thread going last week on this very subject and it went to two pages.

The very last post was by a young man who gave me the impression that some boys are teased by their friends for being altar servers. That’s why many boys don’t want to do it.

My personal opinion is that if girls weren’t allowed to be servers, the priests would be holding their own books when reading prayers, etc.
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Might be connected to the over abundance of girls as alter servers----to where it may be considered now by some as a “girl thing”. This could indeed lead to the teasing of boys who are interested in this service.

There wasn’t a problem before girls were admitted----the priest did have sufficient boys to help.
 
Walking_Home said:
Might be connected to the over abundance of girls as alter servers----to where it may be considered now by some as a “girl thing”. This could indeed lead to the teasing of boys who are interested in this service.

There wasn’t a problem before girls were admitted----the priest did have sufficient boys to help.
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I dont know if thats a recent thing i know 20 years ago some kids thought it was dorky that I was an altar server and i was attending a catholic school.
 
Walking_Home said:
Might be connected to the over abundance of girls as alter servers----to where it may be considered now by some as a “girl thing”. This could indeed lead to the teasing of boys who are interested in this service.

There wasn’t a problem before girls were admitted----the priest did have sufficient boys to help.
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I have to agree.

The formation of altar servers has definitely gone done considerably in many churches. This is another factor in shaping the “attitude” towards serving.

When I was initially trained as an altar server, hands were folded, black or brown shoes were worn, yawns were covered with a hand and slouching was not tolerated.

Last week I went to a church where the children who were playing altar server that week were twirling their patens, and afterward were hitting each other with the knotted ends of their cinctures. The (too) young man (second grade, I believe) was swinging his legs as his feet did not touch the ground and gazing at everything but the liturgy, while his female counterpart was twirling her hair and dramatically sighing.

My whole take on the female altar server thing is this. The Vatican says its okay. If the Vatican said we’re ordaining women and married men, fine, I’d run with it. But nowhere did the Holy Father ever stand up and say we should be sacrificing solemnity. While my traditional leanings lean me away from the female altar server concept, I have seen and worked with some who, I would not trade for any number of male altar servers. However, regardless of sex, I think our main problem with altar servers today is a lack of understanding with regards to what they are doing and what is taking place around them, which directly results in a complete lack of respect.

And, since someone will most likely fire back some nonsense about how I am in the wrong for noticing the altar servers are wearing shorts and sandals on the altar or playing insteading of praying, as I should have my mind focused elsewhere, I say to you, I MC three masses per week, I serve every weekday mass, I am the Altar Server Coordinator, their appearance, posture and behavior is my business.

My rant is now complete. Who wants to go halves on a pie?
 
Atk_Aheeni said:
I dont know if thats a recent thing i know 20 years ago some kids thought it was dorky that I was an altar server and i was attending a catholic school.
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It is truely sad—how far things had deteriorated by the 80s. Improper formation has led many to not understand the greatness of He who comes to us at the Altar----and the honor to serve Him.
 
I do not wish to have to defend my position as Galileo had to do even in the face of the Papacy.

I know the church’s position very clearly. I attended Catholic School and am definitely not a radical feminist. But I also know that I was more comfortable in the presence of the nuns and could talk to them much more easily than any priest.

I think the church might appear more welcome to many others if women served God as the men are permitted to do. It is just me perhaps but I really think women have been made to appear as servants in the church much the same as women were treated in colonial days. The church might need to reevaluate its position in time but I doubt I will ever see it.

My simple feeling is that women have ascended to heaven as saints but are not permitted to walk up two or three steps to the communion chalice in the celebration of mass.

Lynn-D
 
TimOliv said:
My whole take on the female altar server thing is this. The Vatican says its okay. If the Vatican said we’re ordaining women and married men, fine, I’d run with it. But nowhere did the Holy Father ever stand up and say we should be sacrificing solemnity.
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I completely agree with this, and if they aren’t training the Altar servers properly because there are girls there, then this is exactly the same as the attitude that they shouldn’t be there at all - that girls are something less than fully human beings, or that for some other reason, they don’t deserve to be treated like baptized Christians; that we “endure” girls, but we don’t go out of our way to teach them anything in case they might accidentally get the impression that they are wanted in the Church, since we would really much prefer them to stay home and attend to their knitting, and not cause the boys and men to suffer the agony of their unendurable presence.

All baptized Christians have the duty to serve in LAY roles (altar server is now a lay role; which it wasn’t, before) - they have the duty and the right to be correctly trained in their functions, and to always do so with the reverence due to Jesus Christ on the Altar.

Being in favour of girl altar servers is not at all the same thing as being in favour of irreverence or sloppiness - and if I believed that girls were innately incapable of reverence and neatness, then I too would be opposed to having them.

I happen to attend a parish where the altar servers (both boys and girls) are treated with the dignity of their Baptism - they are patiently and correctly trained, and they respond by serving reverently, and presenting themselves as is most fitting for beloved children of God - neatly, attentively, and cheerfully.
 
Lynn-D said:
Now the discussion is relegated to a woman’s place on the altar when instead I think it should be why are women now denied the joy of saying mass as are men?
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And this provides ample reason for why we PROBABLY shouldn’t allow girls to serve the Mass. They start getting it into their heads that maybe they can be priests. They can’t because of the constant teaching of the ordinary Magisterium and because of a possibly infallible statement by the old Holy Father (whether or not it was an ex cathedra statement is being debated).

So what it boils down to is that it probably isn’t FAIR to girls to encourage them to serve.
 
JKirkLVNV said:
And this provides ample reason for why we PROBABLY shouldn’t allow girls to serve the Mass. They start getting it into their heads that maybe they can be priests.
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Do you know of even one real-life example of this?

Any Altar servers I know (both boys and girls) don’t make any connection between doing that and becoming a priest. They see it as the same as their parents being EMHCs, or lay readers.
 
Lynn-D said:
I do not wish to have to defend my position as Galileo had to do even in the face of the Papacy.
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I don’t even know what this is supposed to mean. Galileo wanted to promulgate his scientific theory as a religious doctrine. Good thing he was denied, because as it turns out, he was incorrect - the planets travel in ellipses, not circles. They put him under house arrest because he tried to preach his scientific theories at Mass in the place of priests at the time of the homily - which is a grave abuse of the Mass.

I know the church’s position very clearly. I attended Catholic School and am definitely not a radical feminist. But I also know that I was more comfortable in the presence of the nuns and could talk to them much more easily than any priest.

Which has what to do with anything? :confused:

I think the church might appear more welcome to many others if women served God as the men are permitted to do. It is just me perhaps but I really think women have been made to appear as servants in the church much the same as women were treated in colonial days. The church might need to reevaluate its position in time but I doubt I will ever see it.

And how were women treated in colonial days? Men are priests because it was Adam’s sin that condemned the world; not Eve’s. Eve’s sin opened the way for Adam’s sin, but if he had not sinned, we would not be condemned. Therefore, it is the male who must offer the Sacrifice. That is why Jesus (who made the one perfect Sacrifice on the cross for our sins) is called “The New Adam” - because of His perfect and redeeming Sacrifice.

My simple feeling is that women have ascended to heaven as saints but are not permitted to walk up two or three steps to the communion chalice in the celebration of mass.

Because that is not our place. We are Eve - the “help-meet” of Adam, and we have a place in assisting Adam (the priest) in whatever way he asks us to do - but we ourselves are not Adam, and we don’t do his job.

Being an altar server is an ideally Eve-like (help-meet) thing to do, though, in my opinion. 🙂
 

Case in pt.—Since we already have girls and women serving at the Altar—then the next step is----women priests.​

Lynn-D said:
I am not one to be blasphemous but I too have always wondered why it was proper for two women to not only serve at the last supper/first mass but also to share in the event.

Not only that but they also were there to not only witness Jesus being taken down from the cross but also to bath and swaddle Him in clean cloth for burial.

Where were the men who shared in the last supper when that was being done I might ask?

Then who might I ask were the first witness’ to the fact that Jesus had risen from the dead?

Now the discussion is relegated to a woman’s place on the altar when instead I think it should be why are women now denied the joy of saying mass as are men?
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Walking_Home said:
Might be connected to the over abundance of girls as alter servers----to where it may be considered now by some as a “girl thing”. This could indeed lead to the teasing of boys who are interested in this service.

There wasn’t a problem before girls were admitted----the priest did have sufficient boys to help.
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Are you implying that girls have cooties? That’s what it sounds like to me.

How could it all the sudden become a “girl” thing when it has traditionally be a “boy” thing?
 
LeahInancsi said:
Are you implying that girls have cooties? That’s what it sounds like to me.

How could it all the sudden become a “girl” thing when it has traditionally be a “boy” thing?
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Traditionally–male—before girls were allowed. Now because of the over abundance of girls—it may indeed be seen by some boys as a “girl thing”.
 
JKirkLVNV said:
The Church can’t crumble. And sensible shoes are always a good idea.
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The Church most certainly can crumble, and has crumbled for more than 40 years now, as anyone not infected with spring fever can clearly see.

Indefectibility does not imply the Church won’t suffer problems. To claim that means you are again denying history.

But ultimately this discussion is irrelevant as far as I’m concerned. When Fr. Bombay takes the cassock, there won’t be any girls allowed on his altar or anywhere near his sanctuary for that matter. 👍
 
Walking_Home said:
How many women have already been “ordained” within the last few years.:rolleyes:
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In the Catholic Church? None.

What other religions do is totally beside the point - they don’t even have a Sacramental priesthood, anyway.
 
Walking_Home said:
Traditionally–male—before girls were allowed. Now because of the over abundance of girls—it may indeed be seen by some boys as a “girl thing”.
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I’m just not seeing it. Boys and girls do lots of things together - go to school, play on the play-ground, do chores, do service projects, etc. Altar serving comes under the same category.
 
jmcrae said:
In the Catholic Church? None.

What other religions do is totally beside the point - they don’t even have a Sacramental priesthood, anyway.
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While it is true–they are not in the now in the Church–they excommunicated themselves. It seems the idea to be priests originated while they were in the Catholic Church.
 
jmcrae said:
Do you know of even one real-life example of this?

Any Altar servers I know (both boys and girls) don’t make any connection between doing that and becoming a priest. They see it as the same as their parents being EMHCs, or lay readers.
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Honestly, no, I can’t. But…don’t you think it becomes kind of a natural question? Keep in mind, I said it wasn’t such a huge deal…until “the” question came up.
 
Walking_Home said:
While it is true–they are not in the now in the Church–they excommunicated themselves. It seems the idea to be priests originated while they were in the Catholic Church.
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Well, they didn’t get it from the Vatican, of that I am absolutely certain.

The Vatican has said that girls can be Altar servers - that this fits in with the role of the laity, which is all baptized Catholics. Baptized Catholic women and girls are members of the laity.

The Vatican has also said that there is no way for the Church ever to be able to ordain women as priests.

In both cases, I thnk my best policy is to believe the Vatican.
 
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