Girls as alter servers

[ComradeAndrei]

Does anybody really think that God cares about this? Sheesh!

I wouldn’t be so flippant nor so vain to presume that one knows what God cares about. Does God care about how we worship Him? Seems the Church has always thought so.

 

[mrs_abbott]

The Church will always have conflict. It’s inevitable. We all have different opinions about matters, that’s inevitable too. Tolerance to those opinions is key to civilized conversation.

mikew262:

Does anybody really think that God cares about this? Sheesh!

I think he would say, “C’mon folks, FOCUS! Whether girls are alter servers or not is a non-issue. There are alot bigger fish to fry out there.”

 

[mikew262]

AltarMan:

And your comment added value in what way? Female alter (sic) servers is not a “non-issue” – although it sounds like you wish it were…

The value added of my comment is that this is “small potatos” as far as issues are concerned. I suppose if one wants to discuss it, then so be it. IMO, I think God welcomes anybody who want to serve him, in this case assisting the priest during mass, whether they be a boy or a girl.

However, the things people get caught up in! Girl alter servers, communion given to hands vs. mouths, whether to see Harry Potter or not, etc… I wouldn’t be surprised if God wasn’t shaking his head and groaning when sees people getting caught up in these trivial things.

I realize this forum is open to any subject, and I suppose I shouldn’t object, but it just amazes me what concerns some people.

 

[mikew262]

ComradeAndrei:

I wouldn’t be so flippant nor so vain to presume that one knows what God cares about. Does God care about how we worship Him? Seems the Church has always thought so.

Having girl alterservers in no way shows any disrespect towards God. Seems the church agrees (whether actively or passively) with that position, since it’s happening.

Jesus always had a special love for children, whether they be boys or girls, I base my opinion on that.

 

[AltarMan]

mrs_abbott:

The Church will always have conflict. It’s inevitable. We all have different opinions about matters, that’s inevitable too. Tolerance to those opinions is key to civilized conversation.

“A man of conscience is one who never acquires tolerance, well-being, success, public standing, and approval on the part of prevailing opinion, at the expense of truth.”
– Pope Benedict XVI

 

[AltarMan]

mikew262:

Having girl alterservers in no way shows any disrespect towards God. Seems the church agrees (whether actively or passively) with that position, since it’s happening.

Jesus always had a special love for children, whether they be boys or girls, I base my opinion on that.

Based on your logic, if something is “happening”, it cannot “shows any disrespect towards God.” That’s out and out garbage.

One very valid reason that some people do not like altar girls is because it comes from a genesis of widespread abuse.

There is something special about male-only altar servers. The Church agreed for well over 1,000 years…

 

[Catholic2003]

ComradeAndrei:

Do you mean auricular confession?

I mean the practice of repeated confession, as opposed to the Order of Penitents, which was a once per lifetime deal.

 

[BillyT92679]

AltarMan:

Based on your logic, if something is “happening”, it cannot “shows any disrespect towards God.” That’s out and out garbage.

One very valid reason that some people do not like altar girls is because it comes from a genesis of widespread abuse.

There is something special about male-only altar servers. The Church agreed for well over 1,000 years…

Relax… I’d much rather have altar boys, but I’ll go along with what the Vatican allows. Heck, I’d rather have girls serve on the Altar than not attend Mass at all. The Church has more wisdom than I or you could even conceive of.

 

[Ace86]

mikew262:

The value added of my comment is that this is “small potatos” as far as issues are concerned. I suppose if one wants to discuss it, then so be it. IMO, I think God welcomes anybody who want to serve him, in this case assisting the priest during mass, whether they be a boy or a girl.

However, the things people get caught up in! Girl alter servers, communion given to hands vs. mouths, whether to see Harry Potter or not, etc… I wouldn’t be surprised if God wasn’t shaking his head and groaning when sees people getting caught up in these trivial things.

I realize this forum is open to any subject, and I suppose I shouldn’t object, but it just amazes me what concerns some people.

You know the Church doesn’t require sainthood, but if people want to strictly follow the rules in order to be more pious and closer to Tradition then no one should have the right to criticize it.

 

[Jakub]

Yes, let us pick & choose what tradition to ignore or do away with…heck scrap them all, they need replacing after 1900 years…

james

 

[ComradeAndrei]

We have learned that in some of the churches in Spain the faithful are doing penance not in accordance with the canonical rule but in another detestable way, that is, they ask a priest to grant them pardon as many times as it pleases them to sin. We wish to put an end to this abominable presumption, and accordingly this sacred council declares that penances should be given in the manner prescribed by the ancient canons.

You know, that is still an abuse and an error. If we go to Confession with presumption and with every intention just to do it all again, it doesn’t profit us one bit. It is not saying that individual auricular confession is an abuse.

Furthermore, the Council of Toledo is a local council, not an Ecumenical Council that can actually define dogma. While the Council of Toledo had authority over Spain (or whatever region was carved out of the area at the time), it does not hold for the whole Church. Also, what is the context for their decree? Was the old protestant charge that “Catholics can sin as much as they want, because they can just go to confession…” happening in their area?

However, the Council of Trent certainly was an Ecumenical Council and does have binding authority over the Universal Church.

The Fourteenth Session, On the Most Holy Sacraments of Penance and Extreme Unction, Canon I-

CANON I.–If any one saith, that in the Catholic Church Penance is not truly and properly a sacrament, instituted by Christ our Lord for reconciling the faithful unto God, as often as they fall into sin after baptism;let him be anathema.

Until the Church solemnly declares that girls can be altar servers, it is not a matter of “Roma locuta est, causa finita est.” Rome allows it, and I totally assent to that, but that isn’t it. They could just as easily put it back to how it was, and they allow bishops to do so (and our bishop has) and we can argue for that possition.

 

[Catholic2003]

ComradeAndrei:

You know, that is still an abuse and an error. If we go to Confession with presumption and with every intention just to do it all again, it doesn’t profit us one bit. It is not saying that individual auricular confession is an abuse.

I’ve never seen this interpretation of Toledo before. Do you have any documentation for this view? I’m going from the historical discussion in Doors to the Sacred by Joseph Martos.

ComradeAndrei:

Furthermore, the Council of Toledo is a local council, not an Ecumenical Council that can actually define dogma.

This doesn’t have anything to do with my point, which is that repeated confession (that is, being able to be absolved of sins committed after baptism more than once in a lifetime) started out as a massive abuse. Neither Rome nor the bishops came up with this practice; it came from the people. It was practiced in defiance of Church authority, as the Council of Toledo illustrates, and the abuse continued for around a hundred years before it was embraced by the Church hierarchy.

And as your quotation of Trent points out, it is now the normative practice of the Church, shrouded in doctrine and dogma.

ComradeAndrei:

Also, what is the context for their decree?

From the Catechism:

1447 Over the centuries the concrete form in which the Church has exercised this power received from the Lord has varied considerably. During the first centuries the reconciliation of Christians who had committed particularly grave sins after their Baptism (for example, idolatry, murder, or adultery) was tied to a very rigorous discipline, according to which penitents had to do public penance for their sins, often for years, before receiving reconciliation. To this “order of penitents” (which concerned only certain grave sins), one was only rarely admitted and in certain regions only once in a lifetime. During the seventh century Irish missionaries, inspired by the Eastern monastic tradition, took to continental Europe the “private” practice of penance, which does not require public and prolonged completion of penitential works before reconciliation with the Church. From that time on, the sacrament has been performed in secret between penitent and priest. This new practice envisioned the possibility of repetition and so opened the way to a regular frequenting of this sacrament. It allowed the forgiveness of grave sins and venial sins to be integrated into one sacramental celebration. In its main lines this is the form of penance that the Church has practiced down to our day.

 

[mrs_abbott]

Good thing I’m not a man of conscience.

“A man of conscience is one who never acquires tolerance, well-being, success, public standing, and approval on the part of prevailing opinion, at the expense of truth.”
– Pope Benedict XVI

 

[maryalene]

“…the presence of girls at the altar alters the holiness, the sacredness, and the sublimeness of what is transpiring at the altar…”

This is exactly the attitude that makes it difficult not to conclude that the church has a problem with females especially to a young girl trying to find her place in the religion. As I said earlier, I and my daughters have no delusions about female priests, but this attitude makes it hard to believe that the church does not feel that females are not of equal worth and dignity to males. I want to believe it doesn’t, but this makes clinging to that belief hard. I believe females can be seen to have equal worth even if the roles they fill are not the same. I can buy the idea that the altar “boy” experience fosters candidates to the priesthood. I can even buy that boys won’t want to do it if any girls are allowed although I think that reflects a problem with the boys and a problem those boys will have when they need to shepard women in their priesthood. What I can’t buy is that God and the church rather than just some of it’s members believe that the meer presence of girls diminishes the holiness of the sacrifice taking place on the altar.

This is what I was thinking reading some of the responses, but couldn’t quite put it into words. Well said. :clapping:

 

[maryalene]

AltarMan:

At my parish (where perhaps slightly more women take part in “liturgical ministries”) those involved protect their places in the different liturgical ministries with a vengence. It’s status and exposure.

You want to be a reader or an EMHC or a server? Good luck – and you had better be part of the “club.”

I think the problem I have with some of your posts AlterMan is that you seem to be speaking exclusively from your limited experience in your parish. In your parish, you see feminist women pushing their daughters to be servers and hoping for priestesses. And that may be true for your parish. However, many of us have had radically different experiences in our parishes and you seem reluctant to acknowledge that the situation elsewhere may be different from your experience.

 

[mikew262]

AltarMan:

Based on your logic, if something is “happening”, it cannot “shows any disrespect towards God.” That’s out and out garbage.

One very valid reason that some people do not like altar girls is because it comes from a genesis of widespread abuse.

There is something special about male-only altar servers. The Church agreed for well over 1,000 years…

Widespread abuse? What are you talking about?

Again, the church allows it, so accept it, and move on to more important issues.

 

[mikew262]

BillyT92679:

Relax… I’d much rather have altar boys, but I’ll go along with what the Vatican allows. Heck, I’d rather have girls serve on the Altar than not attend Mass at all.

Amen (except I have no preference to boys or girls as alter servers).

 

[mikew262]

Ace86:

You know the Church doesn’t require sainthood, but if people want to strictly follow the rules in order to be more pious and closer to Tradition then no one should have the right to criticize it.

I suppose.

 

[Annunciata]

Originally Posted by GeorgiaCatholic
“…the presence of girls at the altar alters the holiness, the sacredness, and the sublimeness of what is transpiring at the altar…”

This is exactly the attitude that makes it difficult not to conclude that the church has a problem with females especially to a young girl trying to find her place in the religion. As I said earlier, I and my daughters have no delusions about female priests, but this attitude makes it hard to believe that the church does not feel that females are not of equal worth and dignity to males. I want to believe it doesn’t, but this makes clinging to that belief hard. I believe females can be seen to have equal worth even if the roles they fill are not the same. I can buy the idea that the altar “boy” experience fosters candidates to the priesthood. I can even buy that boys won’t want to do it if any girls are allowed although I think that reflects a problem with the boys and a problem those boys will have when they need to shepard women in their priesthood. What I can’t buy is that God and the church rather than just some of it’s members believe that the meer presence of girls diminishes the holiness of the sacrifice taking place on the altar.

maryalene:

This is what I was thinking reading some of the responses, but couldn’t quite put it into words. Well said. :clapping:

Thank you Maryalene… I feel the same way too about this post and your subsequent post regarding the following
quote:

Originally Posted by AltarMan
At my parish (where perhaps slightly more women take part in “liturgical ministries”) those involved protect their places in the different liturgical ministries with a vengence. It’s status and exposure.

You want to be a reader or an EMHC or a server? Good luck – and you had better be part of the “club.”

maryelene:

I think the problem I have with some of your posts AlterMan is that you seem to be speaking exclusively from your limited experience in your parish. In your parish, you see feminist women pushing their daughters to be servers and hoping for priestesses. And that may be true for your parish. However, many of us have had radically different experiences in our parishes and you seem reluctant to acknowledge that the situation elsewhere may be different from your experience.

 

[AltarMan]

mikew262:

Widespread abuse? What are you talking about?

Again, the church allows it, so accept it, and move on to more important issues.

You need to study this issue. The genesis of allowing female altar servers is based in dissent and abuse – the references already exist in this thread. Enjoy.