Going back to male servers?

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I’m going to cap off my participation in this thread by just saying:

There is no doubt that females will be barred once again from altar service.

Modernism and Liberalism will be defeated in the Church. The crisis will end.
 
Bluegoat said:
To say that the main purpose for altar servers is to create vocations is simply incorrect. That is not why altar servers were invented. The main purpose of altar servers is to fulfill particular functions. Giving vocations a chance to develop is a secondary issue.
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I’m glad you posted as I was informed by assessment that there were some on these forums who did not think serving at the altar is for the purpose of creating vocations was incorrect.

Do you know more about the history of altar serving?
 
minkymurph said:
Further to this, it has also been stated altar servers aren’t necessary at all; that there’s nothing they do the priest couldn’t do himself on one side of the coin, yet on the other it has been stated serving at the altar is an essential element in encouraging young boys to take up the vocation of priesthood. I would like to suggest clarification in relation to these arguments as they are completely contradictory of one another.
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I’m also waiting for clarification on this one.
 
Let’s face it, the current fad of girl altar servers only came in vogue in the ‘90s as as a cave-in to liberals’ demands. The cry of “it’s not fair” and “you’re sexist” is straight-out liberal “equality” type thinking.

Instead of being firstly concerned about the good of the Church, which in this case entails ensuring that we foster vocations to the male priesthood by following Christ’s example, liberals whine about hurt feelings and expect the Church to indulge subjective wants rather than tending to the common good of the Church.

Girl altar servers is a completely liberal and misguided idea which is a vocation killer to the priesthood. Why? Where’s the proof, liberals demand? Very simple answer - common sense will tell you that only a certain number of altar servers will choose a vocation to the priesthood. Instead of four boys serving at the altar, if two are now girls, you’ve automatically cut the odds of vocations way down. If three are girls, now it’s even lower.
 
Originally Posted by minkymurph forums.catholic-questions.org/images/buttons_khaki/viewpost.gif
Further to this, it has also been stated altar servers aren’t necessary at all; that there’s nothing they do the priest couldn’t do himself on one side of the coin, yet on the other it has been stated serving at the altar is an essential element in encouraging young boys to take up the vocation of priesthood. I would like to suggest clarification in relation to these arguments as they are completely contradictory of one another.
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Just because the Church created a position to encourage vocations does not mean the position is indispensable to the liturgy. Especially since the functions the altar servers perform in the liturgy can be completed by the priest regardless if the servers are there or not. This means Mass can be said with or without the altar servers which therefore means altar servers are not a necessity but a luxury and one that was set in place to encourage priestly vocations by allow boys to participate at the altar.

Anyway I think this topic has run its course.

God bless. :tiphat:

:takeoff:
 
Credo_in_Deum said:
Just because the Church created a position to encourage vocations does not mean the position is indispensable to the liturgy. Especially since the functions the altar servers perform in the liturgy can be completed by the priest regardless if they are there or not. This means Mass can be said with or without the altar servers which therefore means altar servers are not a necessity but a luxury and one that was set in place to encourage priestly vocations by allow boys to participate at the altar.

Anyway I think this topic has run its course.

God bless. :tiphat:

:takeoff:
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Hear hear!

~ Pius :knight1:
 
PBTY said:
Girl altar servers is a completely liberal and misguided idea which is a vocation killer to the priesthood. Why? Where’s the proof, liberals demand? Very simple answer - common sense will tell you that only a certain number of altar servers will choose a vocation to the priesthood. Instead of four boys serving at the altar, if two are now girls, you’ve automatically cut the odds of vocations way down. If three are girls, now it’s even lower.
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Not if there is a rota. Groups of 4 altar servers taking it in turn to serve each week.

If the same 4 boys serve each week, if there are only 4 ‘positions’ open, does that not limit options for other boys who might want to be altar servers?
 
There must be a reason 3 previous popes declared women serving at the altar evil and forbade it, in addition to the 2,000 year Church tradition of male altar servers.

And I seriously doubt the reason had solely to do with “social considerations”.
 
Credo_in_Deum said:
I don’t agree at all with this. The Church didn’t need boys to assist at the altar but regardless they made these positions anyway. Now why do you think they would have done such a thing? It would seem that the secondary issue was actually the primary reason for why the altar server position was created. Not to mention this would explain why the server position was held as a male only function for as long as it was. The term Altar Server was for the longest time known as Altar Boy which implies the Church created the position for boys to allow them the opportunity to fulfill particular functions during the Mass for the sole purpose of encouraging vocations.
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Um, no - the purpose for having anyone serve at the altar is actually have help serving at the altar. A priest can do the whole thing himself, but it is much simpler to have a server to help.

And if you want to have a high mass with lots of incense and so on, you need more than one server for it to work well.

As Will, below, points out, servers were a replacement for acolytes, who were generally adults, and not necessarily intending to be priests.
Will_S said:
Altar servers are a replacement for acolytes. Acolyte is an office reserved to males. Hence it only makes sense that those persons filling in for acolytes be male. Everyone understood this. Pope Paul said that females cannot serve at the altar. Pope John Paul II said that females cannot serve at the altar.
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“Can” can mean different things. Woman have been serving at the altar for a long time before the 20th century in convents. Women do it today - clearly they “can” do it, with the permission of the Holy See.

What that means is that there is no ontological reason a woman cannot be a server. The question is whether it is desirable, or allowed.
 
PBTY said:
Girl altar servers is a completely liberal and misguided idea which is a vocation killer to the priesthood. Why? Where’s the proof, liberals demand? Very simple answer - common sense will tell you that only a certain number of altar servers will choose a vocation to the priesthood. Instead of four boys serving at the altar, if two are now girls, you’ve automatically cut the odds of vocations way down. If three are girls, now it’s even lower.
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This rather assumes that having girls means there is no room for all the boys that want to be servers.

More often than not, parishes are struggling to find enough people to serve at all. Ideally, it shouldn’t be the same people every week, and there should be enough to cover off in case anyone is missing.
 
minkymurph said:
I’m glad you posted as I was informed by assessment that there were some on these forums who did not think serving at the altar is for the purpose of creating vocations was incorrect.

Do you know more about the history of altar serving?
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It was originally adults who were servers. Children were used primarily to fill in for a lack of men who were willing to serve.
 
I can suggest a few reasons why there are problems with vocations that seem much more significant that servers including girls.
  1. Our society doesn’t have the respect for priests it once did.
  2. Our society doesn’t have much respect for celibacy.
  3. Our society encourages rampant materialism that isn’t likely to be easy for a priest to indulge.
  4. The pedophilia scandal.
  5. A lot of Catholic, and Christian, families these days, even when active in Church, don’t buy into much of Catholic teaching. Catholics divorce and use ABC at the same rate as non-Catholics. How likely are vocations to come out of that?
  6. There is a distinct lack of dads in Church. If they can’t get men to serve, boys won’t either.
 
Bluegoat said:
I can suggest a few reasons why there are problems with vocations that seem much more significant that servers including girls.
  1. Our society doesn’t have the respect for priests it once did.
  2. Our society doesn’t have much respect for celibacy.
  3. Our society encourages rampant materialism that isn’t likely to be easy for a priest to indulge.
  4. The pedophilia scandal.
  5. A lot of Catholic, and Christian, families these days, even when active in Church, don’t buy into much of Catholic teaching. Catholics divorce and use ABC at the same rate as non-Catholics. How likely are vocations to come out of that?
  6. There is a distinct lack of dads in Church. If they can’t get men to serve, boys won’t either.
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Here here.

Sometimes people see what they want to see.
 
minkymurph said:
Really? There are female Anglican ministers and deacons here.
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He was suffering to Anglican Use parishes. They are Anglicans who are in communion with Rome and use a slightly modified Anglican liturgy - not part of the Anglican Church any longer. So they wouldn’t have women priests, although I am would have guessed that the use of female servers would have varied somewhat. Though I am not entirely surprised either way.
 
minkymurph said:
Really? There are female Anglican ministers and deacons here.
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Anglican is different from Anglican Catholic. As far as I was told Anglican Use does not allow women alter servers, priest, and such… If they do, thats news to me and I want no part of their rite.

I know for a fact the Anglican Catholic Church does not allow it at all 👍
 
I heard a pretty good argument recently as to why we should go back to all male altar servers, and as an adolescent boy myself I can definitely testify to this.

The adolescent boy and girl are (and I’m doing a lot of generalization here) totally different creatures. If there is something that needs to be done, the adolescent girl is on the case ready to do what needs to be done. The adolescent boy, on the other hand, is pretty selfish and just wants to lie around and hang out with his friends. Therefore, when girls start serving at the altar, the boys think “well, this job is already filled” and are no longer attracted to it.

A recent study of new priests showed that aside from being Catholic males, the most common characteristics among them was that they had served as altar boys. By allowing altar girls, the Church is degrading one of the best sources of vocations.
 
Paxvobis said:
I heard a pretty good argument recently as to why we should go back to all male altar servers, and as an adolescent boy myself I can definitely testify to this.
The adolescent boy and girl are (and I’m doing a lot of generalization here) totally different creatures. If there is something that needs to be done, the adolescent girl is on the case ready to do what needs to be done. The adolescent boy, on the other hand, is pretty selfish and just wants to lie around and hang out with his friends. Therefore, when girls start serving at the altar, the boys think “well, this job is already filled” and are no longer attracted to it.
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Yes, but not all male altar servers become priest. Degrading???
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Serving at the Lords altar is an honour and a grace and should be treated like one. I am an adult male server (in training) - the first in my parishes 45 year long history up today of date.

Soon i will also start my training to become an altar server at the traditional latin mass.
It is might odd for some (or many), but feels good and 100 % right to do.
 
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