This argument seems so ridiculous to me. If there are so many boys that have SUCH a problem with girls, then perhaps we should go back to sex-segregated schools.
In my parish, there are tons of altar servers, boys and girls. They all do a good job. Any mistakes are usually related to newness, not gender. The boys and the girls work fine together. In my kids school, same thing. The boys and the girls run all ability levels, and yet work fine together. They don’t have this whole “I can’t work with the other sex” thing going on. I think we, as adults, sometimes project that stuff onto them. Perhaps I am just lucky, or we live in some kind of specially blessed area, I don’t know.
Frankly, we see the issue as one of service. What can our family do to help our parish run better? We have already had the kids involved in hospitality ministry, serving donuts and cofee after Masses, cleaning up and doing set-up work. They really enjoy it and love feeling useful. Now that my oldest is old enough and has made the required sacraments in order to be an altar server, she is eager to do it. She wants to serve her community in that way. It has nothing to do with future vocations, whether she might be a nun or a married mother, her brothers priests, brothers, or married fathers. It’s being of use to her community right now in a meaningful way. Why does it have to be more than that? Just because some people used to view it that way?
I think making a huge issue out of this, and especially taking a “let’s throw the girls out” stance can only hurt the Church in the end. Do you want to turn off the next generation of mothers to the Church? Do you want to reinforce the secular idea that the Catholic Church is sexist, and arbitrarily so, in their minds? Do you want them to feel that Church itself does not value their service or talents? My daughter is a very dedicated little Catholic, better than her parents much of the time. I wouldn’t destroy that for anything, and I think people who would because they see some link between her service and the lack of vocations are extremely short sighted.
The Vatican says it’s OK. Our (very traditional) bishop has approved it. I thought that was supposed to be good enough for a Catholic. And has already been mentioned, in times of shortage and crisis, it is often the women who step up and keep parishes running. Do you want them to stop doing that, just because they are women? Is it the women’s fault that the men of the parish don’t come forward to be administrators, catechesis directors, liturgists, etc? Perhaps women who were altar servers as children will have a stronger attachment to their parish and want to help it keep running, instead of sitting back and saying she can’t do anything because she is a woman, and letting the men around her allow the parish to stop operating because they don’t come forward to do the jobs. This is not a slam on men, but it’s true that for some reason, women are the ones who mostly are stepping in to help the overwhelmed priests manage parishes.
