Real Catholic TV on feminism in the Church

[Ruth_Catherine]

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We *do *need to make sure there is an avenue for boys to experience and be close to God in church. Why is it that the Evangelicals seem to understand this so much better than we do? Yes, children need to be taught; need to be shown; need to be guided on their journey in life. They need to have a playingfield wherein they can explore their future and the world around them .

I disagree with you tha Evangelicals seem to have a better undestanding on how to bring boys closer to God than Catholics. My experience in an Evangelical church was my son being encouraged to attend children’s church where he watched the Apple Dumpling Gang and leaned magic tricks. After a while he asked not to go because he said he wasn’t learning anything. This was three different churches. My son is now in a Catholic school and where things aren’t perfect (we homeschooled 8 years and I prefer that) he is getting alot of very good guidance and he worships God side by side with us on Sunday. He felt like childrens church was nothing but being baby sat. Which is probably true. That way there would be not disturbances during church.

Second let’s give the boys a reason to be there. Since this is not at all inherent in the duties performed, then make the job bigger; more important. Give them a manly reason to be there. Eliminating the presence of girls does in no way make wearing a dress and doing dishes “manly”. Try harder than that.

I, agree, we need to give boys a reason to be there. We as parents can be good examples of our faith by catechising them in the truth and importance of the Catholic Church and by our own lives as a demonstration. We need to live out our faith fully.
I’m not sure what you mean by wearing dresses and doing dishes but a priests duties are more than wearing a dress and doing dishes.

The use of vestments goes back to the ritual garb of the priesthood of Aaron. In the Catholic Church, even in catacombe days, priests and bishops were specially, if not always distinctively, garbed when celebrating the liturgy. With the Church’s liberation and her emergence into public life, liturgical garments were commonly used to distinguish them from secular dress. Catholic Reference.Net

A priests garments have special meaning .

And what bigger or greater reason is there than for a man to be a priest and bring Jesus to the people. You can’t get any closer to God than that this side of heaven. They are not “doing dishes.” They are celebrating the sacrifice of the mass.

Priestly ordination creates new men who are bestowed with the gift and office of sanctifying, teaching and governing. Pope Benedict XVI

Priests must also be “present, identifiable and recognizable – for their judgment of faith, their personal virtues and their attire – in the fields of culture and charity which have always been at the heart of the church’s mission,” Pope Benedict XVI

One thing we can do as parents is to pray for more priests and hold them in high esteem in front of our boys. Despite the failures of some priests there are many, many more out there struggling doing great jobs for us. Boys are hearing all the time on the news what sins priests are committing, maybe it is time we start telling our sons what great things priests are doing. That could possibly encourage more altar boys where we would need less altar girls and maybe girls could be taught some nurturing roles, since we as women have a great capacity for caring and nurturing. We might need fewer institutions and strangers caring for our sick and elderly if girls were encouraged more in that direction. Many churches would like to get some women’s ministries going but can’t get women to come and help. Fewer and fewer women are joining altar and rosary societies. There are some times not many women to help families with meals after funerals anymore.

It is not just where are the men and why aren’t they fullfilling their roles but where are the women and why aren’t we fullfilling our own roles. Are we too busy trying to do men’s role?

I heard someone say once that every Catolic family should pray that there would be someone in their family become a priest for God.

Matthew 9:38
Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he send forth labourers into his harvest. Douay-Rheims.

 

[mellowcalico]

This might be controversial, but has it ever been considered to make it a requirement that all boys serve as alter boys? Or at least, all boys must be trained as such and if a Mass comes along and there are no scheduled servers/volunteers, the priest can pick a few boys from the pews to come help.

I am not sure how much this would help at my mom’s Church though. My church has plenty of alter boys, but my mom’s has three servers total (two boys and a girl–and at some masses there are no servers. One of the boys is an older teen too, I am not sure how long he will be around). When I look around her Church, it’s primarily filled with seniors and very few families (if any). At times, some of the senior men will come up from the pews and help–but not always.

 

[Ruth_Catherine]

This might be controversial, but has it ever been considered to make it a requirement that all boys serve as alter boys? Or at least, all boys must be trained as such and if a Mass comes along and there are no scheduled servers/volunteers, the priest can pick a few boys from the pews to come help.

I am not sure how much this would help at my mom’s Church though. My church has plenty of alter boys, but my mom’s has three servers total (two boys and a girl–and at some masses there are no servers. One of the boys is an older teen too, I am not sure how long he will be around). When I look around her Church, it’s primarily filled with seniors and very few families (if any). At times, some of the senior men will come up from the pews and help–but not always.

Yeah, it might be controversial but IMO not a bad idea to have learning altar serving as part of a boys catechism.

 

[dixieagle]

The real (and not snarky) answer, is that they have been contracepted out of existence. If couples were not contracepting their families down to one boy and one girl perfection, then mothers would not be so reluctant to give up their only son and carrier of the family name, to the priesthood.

I heard an awesome story about a priest who was asked by someone in his parish, what concrete thing can we do to help vocations. The priest answered, go home, flush your contraceptive pills, and have sex with your husband.

~Liza

I suspect you are dead on with this, sadly. With large Catholic families of the past, one son was almost expected to become a priest (sometimes a good thing, sometimes not, depending upon the son…)

 

[InspiritCarol]

I suspect you are dead on with this, sadly. With large Catholic families of the past, one son was almost expected to become a priest (sometimes a good thing, sometimes not, depending upon the son…)

Contracepted and aborted, you mean. Don’t overlook the stats on the # of so-called “Catholics” who get abortions.

This fact does not exclude other contributing factors. Like the fact that far fewer men come to church than women. I have no stats on this. I don’t need them. Just look around.

Sounds like we need to have a thread on how to encourage our boys to be priests; a far more positive and productive approach than this silly finger pointing. Here’s a few to get us started:

-Personally, I take every opportunity I can to invite Priests over to my home on a social level. If my children see them as people, then they can conceive relating to them as role models a little better.

-We never miss Mass and it really means something that they see both their Father and I DOING something in church and in the community to help people.

-We pray as a family. Every night, at every meal, and on car rides.

There are many many more things that contribute to the faith formation of our children that we can do and, I’m sorry, but if people were doing these things in a sincere way, this whole altar girl thing would be a complete non-issue.

Stone-casters, it’s been fun (in a depressing kind of way), but I’m about ready to hop off this crazy thread.
:whacky::sad_yes:

 

[InspiritCarol]

At one of the parishes in my area, the girl servers actually smile and greet everyone at the door. Now THAT makes me very uncomfortable. I don’t think I’d want my daughters to be doing that, if I had any daughters. We’re throwing around all these legalities around but it seems as if someone has to draw a line as to what constitutes Mass serving and what doesn’t.

By the way, it was the last time I visited THAT parish. The only OF parish I attend now (when I don’t attend the EF) has no altar servers and they do just fine.

Hey, ANOTHER *good *thread idea: What makes a good greeter?

 

[InspiritCarol]

Heaven forbid we actually have any sense of welcome or community in the church. Surely you must be joking… ?

This whole debate is ridiculous. I work for my diocese and am an active volunteer in 2 different parishes. Women outnumber men in volunteer postions 3:1 because they are the ones willing to volunteer. I have never been given a difinitive answer by a man when asking him to volunteer for something, it is always, “Well, I guess so, so long as nothing comes up, I’ll let you know…” and then, in the end, I ususally have to scamble to find a “body” at all. Where as most of the women say “Oh, sure, I’ll put it on my calendar right now.”.

Wow, 3:1?, you’re blessed: it’s more like 10:1 here in the Godless NW.

Bottom line-
parents, granparents, aunts, uncles, etc…
encourage your children to get involved, and do so by example, not just with words.

I suppose it begs the question for the people that want to take away altar serving for girls: What do you propose they do instead?

 

[InspiritCarol]

Correlation in itself does not mean causation, but in social science it is the only mean to analyze the causes. The facts that you have to consider are:

• 41 percent of Catholic families send their children to Catholic grade school. Only 48 percent of the priests to be ordained this year attended Catholic school
• 30% of the Catholic families send their boys to serve at the altar. 70% of the priests to be ordained in 2011 was altar boy.

My analysis is that altar boys feel the strength of serving God, met each other with the same feeling, met the priest and see from closer his life. Each event promotes the vocation in a way which is not open for the 70% of the boys, who are not altar servers .

What is your analysis?

You have presented a nice succinct package of “facts” but human beings are far more complex as individuals than three facts let alone the exponential complexity of throwing society in the mix. Your “facts” are simple FAR too limited to draw any kind of real conclusion except the one you have endeavored to contrive. (Sorry, but that’s the way I see it)

I do not subscribe for the talk, that God calls every single candidate to the priesthood immediately unrelated to anything else.

Oh, no, no. I wasn’t saying that, human beings do not exist in a vacuum. My husband and I were just discussing this. Of the dozens of priests we have been privileged to know on a personal level, only one single one spent his life knowing he would be a priest. He was admitted into the seminary at age 12, in fact. He says he’s the last one they did that with. He’s an odd duck.

The vocation is th call of bishop before the ordination, to which the candidate answers: Here I am. (Adsum).

Could you clarify? I’m sorry. Are you just saying a Priest must be Bishop approved; before ordination - I guess I never explored this particular detail with anyone.

As for the parents responsibility who is altar bor or altar girl and what they do at the altar, parents are responsible. The enemy always wants to make believe, that the responsibility lays on others, but parents are responsible and their #1 responsibility is for their children.

YES … but … parents today are so often poorly catechized and HAVE been taught to expect other to take that responsibility. It is necessary to let parents know about their responsibilities and expectations. Now … how to do THAT?

One more thing. Only 23% of the candidates came from families with 1 or 2 children. 53 % of the candidates came from a family with 4 or more children. Less that 7 percent of the US families has 4 or more children.

This makes me agree with the comment of liza’s priest: 'If you are woman and want to serve God, go home, flush your contraceptive and make love to your husband. ’

 

[InspiritCarol]

As far as shortages, I think it has much more to do with the perception of the Priesthood more than anything. Men I know generally see the Priesthood as single men who couldn’t find a woman in life, homosexual, or cannot understand why anyone would give up sex for life. This perception wouldn’t help them in achieving “manhood” plus with all the abuse scandals, the Priesthood image is severely hurt. The weight of secular views also doesn’t help with society always pushing to be skeptic and asking why anyone would waste their life. The Priesthood is under attack daily.

Saint Vianney, pray for us.

This is such a lie. Get to know these men and you will find REAL men there. I have almost never been comfortable being around a priest w/o my husband because of this very real fact. It is another reason, ladies, we should wear modest dress. ~sheash~ Their trials are difficult enough as it is.

As I said earlier, invite them over for family time. Let the kids get to know them. Don’t let Hollywood or the media create your perceptions of reality: explore it yourselves.

 

[InspiritCarol]

I’m not sure what you mean by wearing dresses and doing dishes but a priests duties are more than wearing a dress and doing dishes.
…

A priests garments have special meaning .

Thank you, dear, I know this (but thank you); I was speaking to the perspective of a young man. (You must have missed my previous post where this was my husband’s contribution). No offense was intended.

One thing we can do as parents is to pray for more priests and hold them in high esteem in front of our boys.

Good…

Despite the failures of some priests there are many, many more out there struggling doing great jobs for us.

How sad that we have to qualify our statements with these words. They are so misleading. The implication is that, somehow, priests fail more than other human beings. Don’t you see? I mean, we don’t say “Despite the failures of some MOTHERS, … yadda yadda” or "Despite the failures of some teachers… " or “Despite the failures of some … administrators”, etc. I mean why are we helping to spread the distortions regarding our faith.

Boys are hearing all the time on the news what sins priests are committing, maybe it is time we start telling our sons what great things priests are doing.

Great! The list is enormous.

Many churches would like to get some women’s ministries going but can’t get women to come and help. Fewer and fewer women are joining altar and rosary societies.

What are those (seriously)?

There are some times not many women to help families with meals after funerals anymore.

Hey - at least we’re good there. (at my church)

It is not just where are the men and why aren’t they fullfilling their roles but where are the women and why aren’t we fullfilling our own roles.

Are we too busy trying to do men’s role?

umm… no. Afraid we’re doing both too often, which is why we’re getting so darn burned out, sister.

Matthew 9:38
Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he send forth labourers into his harvest. Douay-Rheims.

And a big to that; but PEOPLE ; guess what? YOU are the laborers too.

Ezekiel 37:1-3
The hand of the LORD was on me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the LORD and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?”
I said, “Sovereign LORD, you alone know.”
People, the Lord God has breathed on you and yet you sit and wait for others to do the work. What is going on? What do you expect?

How DARE you criticize those who are at least doing something … anything while you do … What, exactly?
oops - I’m very pregnant BTW and getting a little grumpy - guess I better leave it at this.

Peace all.

 

[ProVobis]

Hey, ANOTHER *good *thread idea: What makes a good greeter?

Ability to sell girl scout cookies, such as those you see in front of stores?

 

[bkovacs]

I think Michael raises a great point:

Where are all the Catholic men?

They are serving either in the Eastern Catholic Churches or a Roman Rite parish that offers the EF Mass. From what I can see. Get every parish to offer the EF Mass, and the altar boys will return. Keep in mind that in a Novus Ordo only parish, the lay people set up for Mass, and the altar boys have to serve with altar girls. So the role of an altar boy has since deminished. When I was an altar boy, we set up for Mass, and were thoroughly trained by the priest. Not by the laity, as it is done today. But by the clerics, themselves. I comletely agree with Michael Voris.

 

[PA650]

Aaah! Again with the logic!

Where are these so-called statistics?
**
Ireland supplies more priest than any country I’ve seen. (I fully admit I have no real data on this.) Yet they allow altar girls… How can this be?**

Maybe there is another factor or factors that contribute; I’m thinking like maybe the fact that a country puts God as its priority. It’s my understanding that people actually attend Mass in these countries that supply priests. Maybe we should start there, doesn’t it make more sense that when a population goes to Mass and puts God first, it is only natural that Priestly vocations result?

The state of the Church in Ireland, similar to other Western European nations is in near total collapse. Ireland has only one seminary left in the entire country, which may close due to heterodox teaching with those few seminarians studying for the priesthood being moved to a possibly improved situation in Rome.
irishcatholic.ie/site/content/radical-shake-maynooth-michael-kelly

Moreover, I had the privilege to briefly live and study in Ireland and sadly I didn’t experience much of a Catholic society, but rather one characterized by secularism and materialism.

 

[PA650]

They are serving either in the Eastern Catholic Churches or a Roman Rite parish that offers the EF Mass. From what I can see. Get every parish to offer the EF Mass, and the altar boys will return. Keep in mind that in a Novus Ordo only parish, the lay people set up for Mass, and the altar boys have to serve with altar girls. So the role of an altar boy has since deminished. When I was an altar boy, we set up for Mass, and were thoroughly trained by the priest. Not by the laity, as it is done today. But by the clerics, themselves. I comletely agree with Michael Voris.

You may find Fr. Z’s review of Letters to an Altar Boy from Angelus Press insightful:
wdtprs.com/blog/2011/04/review-letters-to-an-altar-boy-angelus-press/

The role of altar server is ingerently emasculated even without girls there: you wear a dress and you play with dishes. Come on. Is it any wonder that the boys don’t want to do it?

Frankly, I desire not to serve often since I’m finding our daily Masses to be characterized by unneeded liberal abuses and poorly formed celebrants. Simply, I don’t at all prefer the Missal of Paul VI currently celebrated in many parishes, but I would be greatly interested in serving at Mass according to the Missal of Blessed John XXIII. Lastly, a worthwhile comment from the above link regarding a few sections found in the altar serving booklet:

“You are so important because you are helping the priest to say Mass, to bring our Lord into the world each morning. You are the priest’s first assistant. In fact, the Church considers you so important that the law of the Church requires a priest to have an altar boy before he may say Mass. A priest must have special reason or permission to say Mass without a server. That’s how important the Church considers you.

“Whether you realize it or not, you are more important at Mass than your own dear mother, or the Sisters at school, or a princess in a royal castle, or the mother of a bishop, or even the sister of the Holy Father.

“Why? Well, you see, these good and holy women may answer the prayers of the priest at Mass, but they are never permitted to leave their pews and come into the sanctuary while Mass is being offered. They may not walk up the altar steps during the Mass to change the Missal from the Epistle to the Gospel side of the altar. Neither may they bring the water and wine up to the priest. That privilege is reserved only for altar boys. Yes, you are the only person who may come so close to our Lord during Mass.

“So, you see, as an altar boy, you are very important, more important than you might think. Our Lord depends on you to help Him come into the world. Isn’t that strange and wonderful? Our Lord, who is the Master of heaven and earth, asks you to help Him come down among men.

“Each day when you serve Mass, you can look up at the Sacred Host at the Elevation and smile as you say to our Lord: ‘Jesus, I have helped You in my own small way to come into the world this morning. I hope my serving Holy Mass has pleased You. Thank You, Jesus, for giving me this wonderful privilege.’”

 

[MtnDwellar]

I was an altar boy and I am not a priest. As I recall, altar servers started in the fourth grade. I remember at a younger age, it was impressed upon me that when I got older, I would become an altar boy. I had no choice in the matter. At that age I did not want choices. I only wanted to do as my parents wished. Wearing a cassock and surplus seemed cool to me. Although the mass had just changed from Latin to English, it was irrelevant to me at nine years old. I liked leaving class occasionally to serve a funeral. I didn’t mind weddings on the weekend. We received tips for weddings and funerals

My thinking is that it would not have made an iota of difference if girls were also servers. It was only the prompting of my parents that influenced me.

 

[laszlo]

Contracepted and aborted, you mean. Don’t overlook the stats on the # of so-called “Catholics” who get abortions.

This fact does not exclude other contributing factors. Like the fact that far fewer men come to church than women. I have no stats on this. I don’t need them. Just look around.

Related to the procreation it does not makes any difference weather it is contracepted or aborted. In both cases there is virtual life which is deprived from the actual life.

I used to count those who attend masses. In weekdays there are more adult women, not counting the home-schooled children, men are working. In Sundays families attend the Masses, and this is the natural thing. The number of the old women is higher, simply because women live longer. In my age group (above 70) there are 50% more women then men.

 

[Dawnia]

In the end I was told I was not qualified, it was unfair to girls, and that those names like knights of the altar or MC belong to those on their way to ordination.

Is there anything preventing you from starting a group independent of that particular parish?

 

[Mrs_Sally]

The person that trained me is still there and always complaining about all the different she has to do in the parish, including training for servers. I offered to take over and presented a plan for them:
1, start a new group called Knights of the Altar, were boys 5th grade and up receive very well training and take an exam at the end to see if they are up for the task. Once they have passed have a mass to celebrate their entrance to the group, taking an “oath” to serve Christ and his priest and be a guardian of the most sacred altar.
2. Have a “leadership structure” where the new ones start at the bottom and work their way up example: book bearer to torch bearer, to MC
3. Continue educating them about the theology of the mass, and encourage vocations.
In the end I was told I was not qualified, it was unfair to girls, and that those names like knights of the altar or MC belong to those on their way to ordination.

I think your program sounds great!

I did want to point out though that the peson that trained you was a woman (someone’s mom?), not the priest, a layman, or even the oldest altar boy. If the priest is not available, the next best person to be the altar boy coordinator/trainer would be an adult man who spent his time serving the altar when he was a boy.

I have to say that I agree that if men in general are offended/annoyed/scandalized by women volunteering or girls serving, than they need to get themselves and their sons into the church. I seriously doubt that any priest is going to put up a huge fuss about a group of men and their sons volunteering. Get your boys some dress pants, black shoes, bring them on time and have at it!

 

[Mrs_Sally]

The real (and not snarky) answer, is that they have been contracepted out of existence. If couples were not contracepting their families down to one boy and one girl perfection, then mothers would not be so reluctant to give up their only son and carrier of the family name, to the priesthood.

I heard an awesome story about a priest who was asked by someone in his parish, what concrete thing can we do to help vocations. The priest answered, go home, flush your contraceptive pills, and have sex with your husband.

~Liza

Agree completely. BUT, that perfect one son can at least be an altar boy while he waits to get married and have 2 boys (so one can be a piest).

 

[AngryAtheist8]

youtube.com/watch?v=LW-JWhSWmyk

It reminds me of the evangelical Biblical Masculinity & Femininity movement (and not in a good way).

The part that really stuck in my head was where the speaker was talking about how real men confront their problems and enemies head on, while women cry.