Vocations & Girl-Altar Boys

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Agree with the post above me (edit: NO, the one above the above g). I was just serving a mass - smashing two servers, including me - we could use four at least in every mass. And it won’t be different tomorrow evening or sunday at 11.15. The only well-served mass is the one at 9.30 (I wonder if the children today enjoy getting up early on sundays? I didn’t lol).

Talk about taking away spots… on christmas, everybody serves, just for decoration, and we go up to about 60 servers, male and female - in one mass. 😃
 
duskyjewel said:
THIS IS B.S.! I am willing to bet my house that no parish in this country has EVER turned away a boy who wanted to be an altar server in favor of a girl. Many parishes struggle with getting enough volunteers for all ministries. They will train anyone who expresses an interest and meets the qualifications. If a boy never expresses a desire to be an altar server, that is not the fault of the girl who does.
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My point exactly, boys won’t volunteer to serve because they view it now as a “girl” job.
This isn’t a slam on women or girls at all. In fact I commend altar girls for stepping up to the plate and serving if no one else will, and boys won’t if all the girls are doing it. Think about it, if you are a 12 year old boy and everytime you go to mass there are 2-4 girls serving mass are you going to tell your mom, hey I want to start serving mass? Probably not, but for the sake of argument lets say that boy then does decide to serve mass. Now there are 3 girls and 1 boy on the altar serving mass. That boy goes to school and all his friends ridicule him for being the only boy that serves mass. Do you think that boys will ever serve again, and better yet do you think he would think about being a priest. Probably not.
On the other hand you live in the Lincoln Diocese and all the your friends (boys) are serving mass throughout the year. Is that boy going to get ridiculed for serving mass. Nope. He will spend the next 10 years serving mass and being around priest. Which scenerio do you think will produce vocations?
The Vatican never expected all the dioceses in the U.S. and world for that matter to start using altar girls while boys sat in the pews and watched, but this is what has happened.
We also don’t have EMHC’s in the Lincoln Diocese but rather male Acolytes as was the norm in all dioceses until recent times. The same scenerio of altar girls has happened with EMHC’s. They were to only be used in Extra-Oridinary cicumstances but now we see mainly women passing out communion while the men sit on their hands in the pews. It was never intended to be this way. If you keep a diocese orthodox it will flourish. If you cave into secularism, or Lukewarm Catholicism it will flounder. The proof is in the pudding 👍
 
God bless Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz for having so much Courage & Faith.
God has truely Blessed his Diocese.
Let us pray for him and for all Bishops to be as Holy & Devout as him! Amen!

:clapping: Here Are Highlights from The Article:

The Lincoln Roman Catholic Diocese has a reputation as one of the most conservative dioceses, if not the most conservative, in the country.

“The priests seem like they’re praying the Mass, not just saying it,” Alton Davis said. “They really seem to mean the words, especially the young priests.”

All churches follow the proper order and words of the Mass, not adding or omitting things for the sake of innovation as in some other dioceses where they’ve lived. “They (the priests) want to do things right, which helps the laity be obedient to what is right,” Marilyn Friesen said.

One obvious difference between the Lincoln Diocese and others is that Bruskewitz is the only bishop in the country who does not allow girls to be altar servers. Serving as altar boys can encourage young men to consider the priesthood, which may be one reason Lincoln has a high number of vocations to the priesthood compared with other dioceses, Lewandowski and others said.

Examples of greater traditionalism or orthodoxy in the Lincoln Diocese:
  • Only boys, not girls, may be altar servers.
  • Women act as eucharistic ministers only in extraordinary situations
    where a priest is not available or might have difficulty,
    such as in taking communion to a female-only ward in a hospital.
  • Vocations to the priesthood are high, with few signs of the priest shortage that is plaguing other dioceses.
  • Lincoln is one of few dioceses that is successfully recruiting nuns.
  • All parishes follow the traditional form and wording of the Mass.
  • Lincoln’s Catholic schools are healthy and well-supported, while Catholic school systems in some other places have closed.
  • There’s a strong emphasis on religious devotion and worship.
    Many parishioners attend daily Mass or participate in perpetual adoration.
  • Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz requires strict adherence to correct doctrine and practice.
  • In 1996 Bruskewitz issued a list of 12 groups local Catholics are forbidden to join, calling them “perilous to the Catholic Faith.” They include several Masonic groups, Planned Parenthood, Catholics for a Free Choice, Society of St. Pius X, Hemlock Society and Call to Action on penalty of excommunication!
 
I don’t know if girl-altar servers has an effect on vocations, but I know it’s not “the” reason for a lower rate of vocations to the priesthood. I’ve heard about a shortage of priests all my life and when I was a child there were no girl altar servers.

It’s my opinion that other factors drove the decrease in vocations. Lincoln’s success at recruiting priests isn’t a one-to-one correspondence with it’s rule of only allowing boy-altar servers.
 
Jared123 said:
My point exactly, boys won’t volunteer to serve because they view it now as a “girl” job.
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They won’t volunteer to serve? Really? News to me. As someone said in an earlier post, if a boy refuses to serve because girls do, then why punish the girl when it is the boy with the problem? That is ridiculous.
 
proudnifi said:
I don’t know if girl-altar servers has an effect on vocations, but I know it’s not “the” reason for a lower rate of vocations to the priesthood. I’ve heard about a shortage of priests all my life and when I was a child there were no girl altar servers.

It’s my opinion that other factors drove the decrease in vocations. Lincoln’s success at recruiting priests isn’t a one-to-one correspondence with it’s rule of only allowing boy-altar servers.
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As I stated earlier altar girls aren’t the only reason for a shortage of priest throughout the country. However, this is one of the reasons, and when you start combining other factors like closing Catholic schools, a weak Bishop, lukewarm Catholics who want to run parishes and take power away from the pastor…bingo you aren’t going to have many vocations. Unfortunantly this is what is happening throughout most of the country.
 
Pius_X said:
They won’t volunteer to serve? Really? News to me. As someone said in an earlier post, if a boy refuses to serve because girls do, then why punish the girl when it is the boy with the problem? That is ridiculous.
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You are missing the point. Do you think we are punishing girls for not allowing them to serve as altar girls in the Lincoln Diocese?
 
Yes, girls playing altar boys are very harmful to the harvesting of vocations. What do they do around the altar anyway? Thats not the place for a woman or girl. Instead one should start clubs for girls where they did good deeds and could visit nuns and such.

For those who think it is OK with girls around the altar, is it still OK when they get older, what is the age limit?
 
Well, there is no age limit for male servers, why should there be one for females?

I know several congregations in Germany where the sisters serve the priest when he comes to say mass - and they are really not “young” any more by usual standards.
 
Jared123 said:
You are missing the point. Do you think we are punishing girls for not allowing them to serve as altar girls in the Lincoln Diocese?
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It is my opinion that the Lincoln Diocese is doing a disservice, yes. No harm can come from female altar servers, and it can help inspire a better sense of what the liturgy is for the female servers.
 
iviking said:
Yes, girls playing altar boys are very harmful to the harvesting of vocations. What do they do around the altar anyway? Thats not the place for a woman or girl. Instead one should start clubs for girls where they did good deeds and could visit nuns and such.

For those who think it is OK with girls around the altar, is it still OK when they get older, what is the age limit?
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What do they do around the altar? The same duties as the other lay servers. The church says it is a place for women and girls, as Rome has allowed them. Why would a club and serving have to be mutually exclusive?

I would say that the age limit would be the same as that of a male server. 🙂
 
Pius_X said:
It is my opinion that the Lincoln Diocese is doing a disservice, yes. No harm can come from female altar servers, and it can help inspire a better sense of what the liturgy is for the female servers.
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Pius X,
If you get a chance go back and post #43, the article about the Lincoln Diocese. Or you can go back and read post #44 were the article was summerized.
As I stated earlier the proof is in the pudding. If the Lincoln Diocese was doing such a disservice to women why do we have some young women entering religious orders in this diocese, and young men joining the priesthood.
I also don’t understand what you mean by how it inspires a better sense of what the liturgy is, by using altar girls? And if this was the case why did the Church just now allow altar girls in the early 90’s? Don’t you think the Church would of wanted to inspires us as much as possible before the 1990’s?
 
Pius_X said:
What do they do around the altar? The same duties as the other lay servers. The church says it is a place for women and girls, as Rome has allowed them. Why would a club and serving have to be mutually exclusive?

I would say that the age limit would be the same as that of a male server. 🙂
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Unfortuanatly Pius X you have been misinformed about the Vaticans view on altar girls. The Vatican never expected there to be altar girls used at every mass while young men sat in the pews and watched. But this is the reality of what has happened throughout the country and world. Girls were ONLY to be used if there were no boys to serve. Unfortunantly many diocese took this as we can have girls serve all time, it’s no big deal. Also many Bishops didn’t have the guts to stand up and say “no we are not allowing altar girls”, even though this decision is left up to the Bishop. The end result in many places has been a whole bunch of altar girls and very few boys who will now serve.
Something else that hasn’t really been spoken about is how there is a direct correlation between this and the movement in the U.S. of Catholics who want women ordination. We now have all these girls who serve mass, pass out communion, so why can’t they be a priest? This is what many Catholics now think and believe, even though any informed Catholic knows that a women can’t ever bee ordained a priest. If you keep a Diocese orthodox it will flourish…👍
 
This seems to be a topic that people can’t get enough of. It seems like it is the same arguments over and over. The one that always strikes me as odd is about boys not wanting to serve because girls serve. How on earth did the first girl decide to serve then? Wouldn’t it play out the same way, the girls won’t do what boys do? Or is it just the girls are trying to take away whatever the boys have, and if that is the case, wouldn’t the boys fight just as hard to keep it?
I don’t think children are that calculating. They are generally innocent and open to learning. I think if families and schools are involved in teaching the faith, it doesn’t matter who is assisting father at the Altar.
 
Lovemyfaith said:
This seems to be a topic that people can’t get enough of. It seems like it is the same arguments over and over. The one that always strikes me as odd is about boys not wanting to serve because girls serve. How on earth did the first girl decide to serve then? Wouldn’t it play out the same way, the girls won’t do what boys do? Or is it just the girls are trying to take away whatever the boys have, and if that is the case, wouldn’t the boys fight just as hard to keep it?
I don’t think children are that calculating. They are generally innocent and open to learning. I think if families and schools are involved in teaching the faith, it doesn’t matter who is assisting father at the Altar.
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It strikes you odd that if a girl will do a job, the boys will gladly let her??? Check out any job at your local parish, be it altar servers, EMHC’s, readers, choir etc and see how many are women and how many are men. This isn’t a slight on women at all, but rather shows how men can be very lazy.
Do you really think it plays both ways when talking about women wanting to do a job that originally was set aside for men? The secular society has bombarded girls with this idea that if a man can do a job so can she. I heard this all the time growing up in middle school, high school, and especially college. Now we have this institution called the Roman Catholic Church that traditionally has always had all men on the altar. Do you think the American culture is ever going to look at this in a positive light? No way, many mothers and some fathers of Catholic girls are going to say, “why can’t my daughter serve on the altar? She can do anything a boy can do.” Hence we have more girl altar servers now than boys, and a huge movement in the U.S, that wants women ordination, because remember “girls can do anything boys can do.”
Oh, and I forgot, a huge vocation shortage in the United States.
 
Jared123 said:
It strikes you odd that if a girl will do a job, the boys will gladly let her??? Check out any job at your local parish, be it altar servers, EMHC’s, readers, choir etc and see how many are women and how many are men. This isn’t a slight on women at all, but rather shows how men can be very lazy.
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So raise boys not to be lazy, my mother in law did, which maybe is the reason my husband is an EM. Don’t say the boys won’t do it because they don’t want to do a girl-thing, make sure there is an understanding the boys won’t do it because they don’t want to, or at least there are things they want to do more, like soccer or football, and by the way with the approval of their parents.
As far as the issue with anything boys can do girls can do better- I believe the rule is if there are not enough boys to fill the places, girls can fill the spots. In my parish, those girls are needed because there aren’t enough boys. This isn’t an issue of women’s lib, these are faithful girls from families who go to Mass and have put that before other “activities”, much the same as the boys who are servers. If the pastor sent a letter to all families informing them he would only use male servers in an effort to increase vocations, and he was hoping more boys would step up and become servers, boys who aren’t serving now would not join up. That is probably the reason our pastor looks for other ways to inspire religious vocations, like trips for the boys to the seminary and vocation speakers at the parish school. As much as my pastor will do, he knows the family has to be working hard for religious vocations too.
Talk to priests, especially in large parishes, I have, and hands down they have said this is not an issue they want to put time into.
 
Lovemyfaith said:
So raise boys not to be lazy, my mother in law did, which maybe is the reason my husband is an EM. Don’t say the boys won’t do it because they don’t want to do a girl-thing, make sure there is an understanding the boys won’t do it because they don’t want to, or at least there are things they want to do more, like soccer or football, and by the way with the approval of their parents.
As far as the issue with anything boys can do girls can do better- I believe the rule is if there are not enough boys to fill the places, girls can fill the spots. In my parish, those girls are needed because there aren’t enough boys. This isn’t an issue of women’s lib, these are faithful girls from families who go to Mass and have put that before other “activities”, much the same as the boys who are servers. If the pastor sent a letter to all families informing them he would only use male servers in an effort to increase vocations, and he was hoping more boys would step up and become servers, boys who aren’t serving now would not join up. That is probably the reason our pastor looks for other ways to inspire religious vocations, like trips for the boys to the seminary and vocation speakers at the parish school. As much as my pastor will do, he knows the family has to be working hard for religious vocations too.
Talk to priests, especially in large parishes, I have, and hands down they have said this is not an issue they want to put time into.
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There are many things in your post I would like to touch on. First of all I will still contend that if you have a situation where there are altar girls especially several girls, young boys will look as this as a girls job and are less likely to volunteer to serve. However, boys will also be lazy at times, both play a part in why boys won’t serve. I never said that girls can do jobs better than boys, I said that boys will are more likely to sit back and let girls do the jobs. You keep saying that all these girls are needed to serve? Are there no boys in your parish?
If your pastor sent a letter saying that only altar boys will now be used, there would be a huge uproar, because remember we live in a culture where girls should be able to do anything boys can do. The pastor would never want to be in this situation and I can unerstand that. The key is to never go down that road in the first place. Once a diocese does there is no going back. Arlington, Virginia was the only other diocese to not allow girl altar servers, but as of recently caved in on the issue and now allows this. I hope they realize there will be no going back on this issue.
I will state this again, why is there such a need for altar girls througout the country but not in the Linclon Diocese? We have no problem finding 5-8 boy servers for each mass. The difference is that our Bishop didn’t cave in on this issue when the Vatican alowed for altar girls (only in a time of need, if boys weren’t availiable) and said we won’t allow this, there are plenty of young men to do this. He had the foresight to see what was going to happen. Eventually girls would be on the altar while the boys sat in the pews and watched. Eventually this would be another reason why young men would not want to be a priest, hence we have a very large vocation shortage throughout the country.
 
Jared123 said:
Are there no boys in your parish?
realize there will be no going back on this issue.

I will state this again, why is there such a need for altar girls througout the country but not in the Linclon Diocese? We have no problem finding 5-8 boy servers for each mass.
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There are a lot of boys in this parish. They just are not altar servers. There is a set of twins in fact where one serves, the other doesn’t. 🤷 About 2/3 of the server crew are boys. The director of the servers is excellent. The priest in charge of the servers is excellent. With all their might, they can not get more boys than that, so they need the girls.

The Lincoln Diocese has 89,000 Catholics, 136 parishes. My diocese has over 1.4 million Catholics, over 1200 parishes. I believe our Archbishop is doing his best to make the faith available to everyone in his diocese, while keeping his mind on religious vocations. I think if he thought having all male servers would increase vocations, with the number of churches he needs priests to attend to, he would do it. The day he makes that decision, I will back him up 100%. He has not done that, so I have to accept the fact that there will be girls on the altar assisting father.
 
Lovemyfaith said:
There are a lot of boys in this parish. They just are not altar servers. There is a set of twins in fact where one serves, the other doesn’t. 🤷 About 2/3 of the server crew are boys. The director of the servers is excellent. The priest in charge of the servers is excellent. With all their might, they can not get more boys than that, so they need the girls.

The Lincoln Diocese has 89,000 Catholics, 136 parishes. My diocese has over 1.4 million Catholics, over 1200 parishes. I believe our Archbishop is doing his best to make the faith available to everyone in his diocese, while keeping his mind on religious vocations. I think if he thought having all male servers would increase vocations, with the number of churches he needs priests to attend to, he would do it. The day he makes that decision, I will back him up 100%. He has not done that, so I have to accept the fact that there will be girls on the altar assisting father.
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I understand that the Lincoln Diocese is a small diocese in regards to population. But I don’t understand what this has to do with your argument of need. Your diocese has 1.4 million Catholics and roughly 12 times more boys than we have here in Lincoln. Look at it this way, what did the Church do before 1992? Every mass was served by boys. This didn’t matter if it was in a large Archdiocese with millions of Catholics or in a small diocese with thousands of Catholics. Was the reason for the Vatican allowing girls truely due to need, or because many Bishops and Archbishops were feeling pressue by lay Catholics, specifically women to allow girls/women on the altar? I tend to think it was the later. Remember altar girls is a tradition within the Church that can change. At anytime Rome can say, we now will not allow altar girls.
I personally don’t know of any Archbishop, or Bishop that is going to say, “no more altar girls, due to the fall out and pressue he would enduure.”

this is a good article to read:

www.ad2000.com.au/articles/1993/sep1993p4_808.html
 
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