Taking up the collection: why no women?

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It depends on the Parish I go to. Some it’s always men. Others it’s men and women. At one the Saturday evening Mass it’s more women than men. I’m not sure if parishes have a lead usher/collector for each Mass but at this Mass one particular woman seems to be doing the most. She’s there first cleaning up after Saturday weddings. She directs the other ushers/collectors. At Communion she walks to the front and .directs EMHCs to people who are not able to get out of their pews. She takes the collection to the sanctuary.
 
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I was one of the regular ushers at 5PM Saturday for several years. There were 2 of us at that particular Mass time. I’m not currently ushering, but have occasionally filled in at 7:30 AM. I believe there are, at present, 4 women active as ushers in our parish.
 
The more time I spend on CAF, the more I become convinced that there are a lot of Catholic men who:

A. Don’t respect women
B. Don’t really like women (and I don’t mean sexually, but just as people)
C. Both of the above

It’s quite astonishing.
 
Like others here, the Knights of Columbus are the ushers and the ones passing the plates for my Parish.
 
At our parish, we have women who help with the collections and with passing out bulletins after Mass. One of the women who does it now took over that role from her father after he passed away.
 
DoGodsBidding1 said:
At our parish, we have women who help with the collections and with passing out bulletins after Mass. One of the women who does it now took over that role from her father after he passed away.
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My husband, daughter, or I are the ones who do it at my parish. I took over the job when my father passed away. I also inherited a few other jobs, as did my husband. Must be nepotism in action.

(Seriously, nobody is irreplaceable in a job, but it did take about 10 people to replace what my dad did for the parish.)
 
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Women can handle crowd control, medical emergencies, giving a hand to someone getting out of a pew, and even disruptive people as readily as men. If a 300-pound person faints, anybody from the parish could and most likely would step up to help lift the individual, so the gender of the ushers is moot. There are no “obvious reasons,” to use your words, why men are more preferable than women as ushers.

That said, in my own experience at least, ushers aren’t even trained in disruptive people.
 
Cor_ad_Cor said:
Some parishes have no ushers at all.
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Mine has men who take up the collection, mostly KofC, but they don’t “usher” per se. It’s every man for himself if a seat is not readily available, tough that would only happen at the early Mass Christmas Eve and a few select funerals.
 
GiftofMercy said:
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Genesis315:
a majority in the choir
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We would like more men to join the choir.
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Depends on the choir, the more professional the more even.

I sing in the choir and the subtleties of belonging to the male minority in that group are plenty.
DeniseNY said:
A. Don’t respect women
B. Don’t really like women (and I don’t mean sexually, but just as people)
C. Both of the above
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Count me OUT OF those @DeniseNY .
Genesis315 said:
seems to be the only lay role that remains in practice the exclusive province of men
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In my experience it’s the opposite except in one of the churches. Probably just the product of circumstances how the roles were distributed. (All things considered it’s the simplest of all roles, requiring nothing more than being present, able to walk, and hold a basket - plus not being suspect of pocketing any offerings.)
 
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adgloriam said:
Depends on the choir, the more professional the more even.
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My Choirs are all volunteer. That being said, we have some stellar and talented volunteers as well as those learning and those who come to every event , including funerals with very little notice. We do have some men, I think the commitments of life tend to get in the way during working years.
 
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