What Leadership Roles Can Women Play During Mass or in the RC Church

[kozlosap]

I hate to act like a curmudgeon, but it is written:

“Let women keep silence in the churches, for is not permitted for them to speak, but to be subject, as the law says; but, if they would learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home, for it is a shame for a woman to speak in the church.”

1 Corinthians 14:34-35.

If St. Paul was a sexist and misogynist, then I guess God (who spoke through him) is a sexist and misogynist. “Let all mortal flesh keep silence”, it is true, but let women keep a greater silence in Church out of respect for the vices of their gender. Men have particular vices easily manifested in us (most often choleric in nature) which must be conquered, and women have particular vices easily manifested in them (most often sanguine in nature) which must be conquered! Whereas men are more often sinful by concupiscence (food and sex drive), women are more often sinful by irascibility (emotional drive). Quarreling is proper to men as a vice, and gossip is more proper to women; both are the vice of immodesty, but they’re still different forms of the vice. This is not my opinion, but the experience of all wise people through the centuries.

Common experience tells us that God made human beings differently. We have our strengths and weaknesses. The weaknesses of women are more obvious in communal spaces, and the weaknesses of men more obvious privately. “Men and women He created them”, and nothing less. Women should be subject, quiet, humble, and loving; men should be dominant, strong, bold, and protecting. It is a mutual help, a synthesis! We are different, not equal.

What can women do? They are certainly not leaders by nature, but nurturers. Women keep the children, the home, and the emotions, while men keep the workplace, fellow men, and logic. Women can, no doubt, be workers, friends, and logical: but these virtues are more proper to the stern mind of men. As childish as we men can be, we are built differently. We are leaders, and women are excellent in what they do. There are various and diverse ways women can “lead” in Church, anyway: by prayer and holy example.

I’m sure that Queen Victoria, Margaret Thatcher, Hillary Clinton and all of the current women sitting as US Senators and Representatives would beg to differ with your point of view. The Church does not seem to hold with your thesis - in my large city the CEO of the Catholic Healthcare System is a woman who happens to have an MBA and is a Sister of Mercy. I wonder how she gained those leadership skills?

 

[GloriousOrder]

I’m sure that Queen Victoria, Margaret Thatcher, Hillary Clinton and all of the current women sitting as US Senators and Representatives would beg to differ with your point of view. The Church does not seem to hold with your thesis - in my large city the CEO of the Catholic Healthcare System is a woman who happens to have an MBA and is a Sister of Mercy. I wonder how she gained those leadership skills?

H.M. Queen Victoria inherited her throne, and spent most of her reign wallowing in sorrow over the death of her consort, H.R.H. Prince Albert. This sort of decades-long grief is quite peculiar to widows (as opposed to widowers). Just observe the conduct of husbands and wives when one passes on. We have different ways of coping, and women tend to be the ones who go on longer in grief. This sort of debilitating black mood kept Victoria from doing much after 1860. Do you think a king would have acted that way?

My opinion of Thatcher, Clinton, and other female political leaders is not high enough to make me agree with you. Even if you could produce some exceptional female ruler elected by her own merits in a democratic country, they would remain exceptions to the general spirit of femininity. We might say that the reason women weren’t elected to leadership before the last century was due to male-chauvinist oppression… I have a rather different understanding.

God our Lord made it quite clear that women should be subject: not because they are pathetic or useless, but because that’s how the feminine nature works. God knows the two ‘sides’ of sentience perfectly, because He created both masculinity and femininity. He is called “Father”, after all, because He creates and rules. Read the Book of Ruth for an example of how women were really expected to live virtuous lives in Israel. God calls women “virtuous” in His Scriptures only if they are submissive, modest, quiet, and humbly virtuous. It does not belong to the female nature to lead.

I say this in charity, because women are my fellow creatures. They are so high on the order of creation compared to anything else that I love them dearly as sisters. My love for them does not stop me from recognising facts that may stop me from committing the vice of human respect.

 

[TMC]

God our Lord made it quite clear that women should be subject: not because they are pathetic or useless, but because that’s how the feminine nature works. God knows the two ‘sides’ of sentience perfectly, because He created both masculinity and femininity. He is called “Father”, after all, because He creates and rules. Read the Book of Ruth for an example of how women were really expected to live virtuous lives in Israel. God calls women “virtuous” in His Scriptures only if they are submissive, modest, quiet, and humbly virtuous. It does not belong to the female nature to lead.

The Church does not teach that women should be subordinate to men. I am not sure if you are meaning to say that God is male, but the Church clearly teaches that God is neither male nor female, and that both genders are equally made in His divine image.

 

[GloriousOrder]

The Church does not teach that women should be subordinate to men. I am not sure if you are meaning to say that God is male, but the Church clearly teaches that God is neither male nor female, and that both genders are equally made in His divine image.

God is truly neither male or female, but “God is a spirit”. There is no ‘problem of universals’ with God, because He made all universals in His perfect intellect and created them by His perfect will. Just because God is not “male”, however, doesn’t mean we can’t call Him ‘masculine’, for He has masculine qualities. He rules, guides, leads, dominates, and teaches us. When the Bible was written, these professions and vocations were reserved to men. I think the Lord revealed the Word specifically where He did and when He did so all future generations would inherit Israel’s ideas of man and woman.

It would be Nominalism to say that God has no masculine qualities in the abstract, because masculinity does exist. He fulfills all the prerequisites to be considered ‘masculine’. Masculinity is mostly of fortitude and justice, especially when justly and courageously protecting the weak. There are just so many facts in ‘real life’ that verify this. God is not a man, but has ‘manly’ qualities, yes?

To me, it seems that the last 80+ years of a ‘rush to equality’ has produced a severely disordered mindset about genders. By “women should be subordinate to men”, I was referring to the spirit of daily life, not by law. True justice means that all souls are equal under the law, but the spirit of the law is more important than its letter, as our Lord showed us.

 

[TMC]

God is truly neither male or female, but “God is a spirit”. There is no ‘problem of universals’ with God, because He made all universals in His perfect intellect and created them by His perfect will. Just because God is not “male”, however, doesn’t mean we can’t call Him ‘masculine’, for He has masculine qualities. He rules, guides, leads, dominates, and teaches us. When the Bible was written, these professions and vocations were reserved to men. I think the Lord revealed the Word specifically where He did and when He did so all future generations would inherit Israel’s ideas of man and woman.

It would be Nominalism to say that God has no masculine qualities in the abstract, because masculinity does exist. He fulfills all the prerequisites to be considered ‘masculine’. Masculinity is mostly of fortitude and justice, especially when justly and courageously protecting the weak. There are just so many facts in ‘real life’ that verify this. God is not a man, but has ‘manly’ qualities, yes?

To me, it seems that the last 80+ years of a ‘rush to equality’ has produced a severely disordered mindset about genders. By “women should be subordinate to men”, I was referring to the spirit of daily life, not by law. True justice means that all souls are equal under the law, but the spirit of the law is more important than its letter, as our Lord showed us.

God has both manly and womanly qualities. In the Catholic faith, there is no theological basis for asserting that one gender is subject to the other. The Church reserves ordination to men, but does not otherwise limit the roles for women within or outside of the Church.

 

[AngryAtheist8]

I hate to act like a curmudgeon, but it is written:

“Let women keep silence in the churches, for is not permitted for them to speak, but to be subject, as the law says; but, if they would learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home, for it is a shame for a woman to speak in the church.”

1 Corinthians 14:34-35.

If St. Paul was a sexist and misogynist, then I guess God (who spoke through him) is a sexist and misogynist. “Let all mortal flesh keep silence”, it is true, but let women keep a greater silence in Church out of respect for the vices of their gender. Men have particular vices easily manifested in us (most often choleric in nature) which must be conquered, and women have particular vices easily manifested in them (most often sanguine in nature) which must be conquered! Whereas men are more often sinful by concupiscence (food and sex drive), women are more often sinful by irascibility (emotional drive). Quarreling is proper to men as a vice, and gossip is more proper to women; both are the vice of immodesty, but they’re still different forms of the vice. This is not my opinion, but the experience of all wise people through the centuries.

Common experience tells us that God made human beings differently. We have our strengths and weaknesses. The weaknesses of women are more obvious in communal spaces, and the weaknesses of men more obvious privately. “Men and women He created them”, and nothing less. Women should be subject, quiet, humble, and loving; men should be dominant, strong, bold, and protecting. It is a mutual help, a synthesis! We are different, not equal.

At least you’re honest.

A lot of the conservative/traditionalists claim that they believe both that women are unfit to exercise authority in the home (male headship) and in the Church (the male priesthood and hierarchy) yet somehow men and women are equal in some sort of deeper more spiritual/cosmic sense. But you GO don’t bother with that nonsense.

 

[kozlosap]

H.M. Queen Victoria inherited her throne, and spent most of her reign wallowing in sorrow over the death of her consort, H.R.H. Prince Albert. This sort of decades-long grief is quite peculiar to widows (as opposed to widowers). Just observe the conduct of husbands and wives when one passes on. We have different ways of coping, and women tend to be the ones who go on longer in grief. This sort of debilitating black mood kept Victoria from doing much after 1860. Do you think a king would have acted that way?

My opinion of Thatcher, Clinton, and other female political leaders is not high enough to make me agree with you. Even if you could produce some exceptional female ruler elected by her own merits in a democratic country, they would remain exceptions to the general spirit of femininity. We might say that the reason women weren’t elected to leadership before the last century was due to male-chauvinist oppression… I have a rather different understanding.

God our Lord made it quite clear that women should be subject: not because they are pathetic or useless, but because that’s how the feminine nature works. God knows the two ‘sides’ of sentience perfectly, because He created both masculinity and femininity. He is called “Father”, after all, because He creates and rules. Read the Book of Ruth for an example of how women were really expected to live virtuous lives in Israel. God calls women “virtuous” in His Scriptures only if they are submissive, modest, quiet, and humbly virtuous. It does not belong to the female nature to lead.

I say this in charity, because women are my fellow creatures. They are so high on the order of creation compared to anything else that I love them dearly as sisters. My love for them does not stop me from recognising facts that may stop me from committing the vice of human respect.

What are “facts” for you are opinion for the rest of the Western/Non-Third-World societies. Agreeing or disagreeing with the politics of any of the women that have been elected over the last fifty years have nothing to do with the fact that yes, some human beings are born leaders, be they male or female. Would you discourage your daughter from running for office in high school or college because “women aren’t natural born leaders”? What if your adult daughter was a physician who wanted to run for the president of the AMA, would you vote for a man rather than for her because, by nature, she isn’t leader material? Would you convey (verbally and in person) these views (and don’t say they are Traditional, they are not), to the women seated on the Supreme Court of the United States?

The Old Testament and Torah show many examples of cultural norms from the time that we obviously would not tolerate today. St. Paul’s writings are also interpreted differently by various biblical scholars. I find using the Bible to justify one’s own superiority over a whole group to be disingenuous, to say the least. You appear from your posts to be a thoughtful person who loves God and wants to serve - could you explain this one blind spot?

 

[AngryAtheist8]

What can women do? They are certainly not leaders by nature, but nurturers. Women keep the children, the home, and the emotions, while men keep the workplace, fellow men, and logic. Women can, no doubt, be workers, friends, and logical: but these virtues are more proper to the stern mind of men. As childish as we men can be, we are built differently. We are leaders, and women are excellent in what they do. There are various and diverse ways women can “lead” in Church, anyway: by prayer and holy example.

If women are truly as emotional, illogical, and servile as you claim why would** I** or any other man want one as a friend?

Do you actually think so little of all women?

 

[AngryAtheist8]

I’m sure that Queen Victoria, Margaret Thatcher, Hillary Clinton and all of the current women sitting as US Senators and Representatives would beg to differ with your point of view. The Church does not seem to hold with your thesis - in my large city the CEO of the Catholic Healthcare System is a woman who happens to have an MBA and is a Sister of Mercy. I wonder how she gained those leadership skills?

Conservative/traditionalist men like Glorious Order would probably call them the exception that proves the rule. That or simply claim that they don’t deserve such positions and that under any fair system no woman would become so prominent.

 

[AngryAtheist8]

H.M. Queen Victoria inherited her throne, and spent most of her reign wallowing in sorrow over the death of her consort, H.R.H. Prince Albert. This sort of decades-long grief is quite peculiar to widows (as opposed to widowers). Just observe the conduct of husbands and wives when one passes on. We have different ways of coping, and women tend to be the ones who go on longer in grief. This sort of debilitating black mood kept Victoria from doing much after 1860. Do you think a king would have acted that way?

My opinion of Thatcher, Clinton, and other female political leaders is not high enough to make me agree with you. Even if you could produce some exceptional female ruler elected by her own merits in a democratic country, they would remain exceptions to the general spirit of femininity. We might say that the reason women weren’t elected to leadership before the last century was due to male-chauvinist oppression… I have a rather different understanding.

God our Lord made it quite clear that women should be subject: not because they are pathetic or useless, but because that’s how the feminine nature works. God knows the two ‘sides’ of sentience perfectly, because He created both masculinity and femininity. He is called “Father”, after all, because He creates and rules. Read the Book of Ruth for an example of how women were really expected to live virtuous lives in Israel. God calls women “virtuous” in His Scriptures only if they are submissive, modest, quiet, and humbly virtuous. It does not belong to the female nature to lead.

I say this in charity, because women are my fellow creatures. They are so high on the order of creation compared to anything else that I love them dearly as sisters. My love for them does not stop me from recognising facts that may stop me from committing the vice of human respect.

Look I was right!

 

[At_Trent]

The EF, or TLM if you like, is what it is and it has rubrics and a very long running tradition.

It needs to be left alone. It doesn’t need women in the sanctuary. Nor does it need indults to allow novelties.

It is absurd to suggest any changes whatsoever regarding the Gregorian Rite as prayed per the 1962 Missal. H.H. BXVI, in his Summorum Pontificum, has freed the EF from indult and in the document it is stated… use the 1962 missal.

We don’t need to speculate what can make it better, nor what we can change. H.H. chose to change the wording of a prayer used on Good Friday. That is fine, and that is how it works. From Rome do these things come, not us.

The Novus Ordo Missae as we have seen, had it’s rubrics tampered with. Some at the bottom of the ladder decided to change the rubrics on their own without approval from Rome. Even after they were told “no”, it wasn’t good enough. They persisted and got their way. That way being CITH. Then came the Altar Girls and Lectors.

That’s fine… it has become the norm. Enjoy it if you want. But don’t try and mess with the Gregorian Rite. It doesn’t need anything changed unless the pope wants it changed… and he’s not seeking suggestions.

Women have been blessed with the most wonderful instrument in the world, the female voice. In the EF, their place is in the choir, kneeling at the rail, or the pews. Nowhere else.

In general, there are many ministries that women can do a better job at than men. That is where we need them, where they will do good. And God Bless those who do their part.

But they do not belong in the sanctuary, or in the aisles handling the Blessed Sacrament. Not at the EF.

 

[LDNCatholic]

Conservative/traditionalist men like Glorious Order would probably call them the exception that proves the rule. That or simply claim that they don’t deserve such positions and that under any fair system no woman would become so prominent.

All due respect here, but as we’re specifically talking about women in the context of leadership roles within the Catholic Mass, I don’t think you have a horse in this race.

Back on topic. Regardless of gender, I think far too many concessions have been made to the laity, readers, EMHC’s (even with a tiny congregation), etc.

I’m hardly a full blown traditionalist but I’d like to see less laity wandering about the sanctuary, men or women.

Outside of Mass, most of our Sunday School teachers, catechists, and parish council are women, so there are definitely possibilities of leadership within individual parishes.

 

[AngryAtheist8]

H.M. Queen Victoria inherited her throne, and spent most of her reign wallowing in sorrow over the death of her consort, H.R.H. Prince Albert. This sort of decades-long grief is quite peculiar to widows (as opposed to widowers). Just observe the conduct of husbands and wives when one passes on. We have different ways of coping, and women tend to be the ones who go on longer in grief. This sort of debilitating black mood kept Victoria from doing much after 1860. Do you think a king would have acted that way?

My opinion of Thatcher, Clinton, and other female political leaders is not high enough to make me agree with you. Even if you could produce some exceptional female ruler elected by her own merits in a democratic country, they would remain exceptions to the general spirit of femininity. We might say that the reason women weren’t elected to leadership before the last century was due to male-chauvinist oppression… I have a rather different understanding.

God our Lord made it quite clear that women should be subject: not because they are pathetic or useless, but because that’s how the feminine nature works. God knows the two ‘sides’ of sentience perfectly, because He created both masculinity and femininity. He is called “Father”, after all, because He creates and rules. Read the Book of Ruth for an example of how women were really expected to live virtuous lives in Israel. God calls women “virtuous” in His Scriptures only if they are submissive, modest, quiet, and humbly virtuous. It does not belong to the female nature to lead.

I say this in charity, because women are my fellow creatures. They are so high on the order of creation compared to anything else that I love them dearly as sisters. My love for them does not stop me from recognising facts that may stop me from committing the vice of human respect.

You certainly don’t seem to respect them.

Tell me GO, if women are so irrational, servile, and unfit to assume leadership in any area, why bother having them go to church?
Or educating them for that matter?

Wouldn’t it be easier to ‘keep them in their place’ if all women were illiterate?

If women are our inferiors as you seem to be saying (you say that men and women are not equal, and I seriously doubt that your claiming women are superior) then shouldn’t we metaphorically hide all the knives so they don’t hurt themselves?

What are you really advocating?

 

[MarkThompson]

Women have been blessed with the most wonderful instrument in the world, the female voice. In the EF, their place is in the choir, kneeling at the rail, or the pews. Nowhere else.

At Trent, I didn’t know you held such progressive, -]feminazi/-] feminist views! As anybody really committed to upholding the most sacred traditions of the Church would know:
13. On the same principle it follows that singers in church have a real liturgical office, and that therefore women, being incapable of exercising such office, cannot be admitted to form part of the choir. Whenever, then, it is desired to employ the acute voices of sopranos and contraltos, these parts must be taken by boys, according to the most ancient usage of the Church.

– Pope Saint Pius X, Tra le sollecitudini (1903)
You see, even the female “instrument” cannot be preferred over that of males with high-pitched voices. I guess for women that just leaves kneeling at the rail or in the pews. But pews are a fairly modern novelty themselves, aren’t they?

 

[AngryAtheist8]

God is truly neither male or female, but “God is a spirit”. There is no ‘problem of universals’ with God, because He made all universals in His perfect intellect and created them by His perfect will. Just because God is not “male”, however, doesn’t mean we can’t call Him ‘masculine’, for He has masculine qualities. He rules, guides, leads, dominates, and teaches us. When the Bible was written, these professions and vocations were reserved to men. I think the Lord revealed the Word specifically where He did and when He did so all future generations would inherit Israel’s ideas of man and woman.

It would be Nominalism to say that God has no masculine qualities in the abstract, because masculinity does exist. He fulfills all the prerequisites to be considered ‘masculine’. Masculinity is mostly of fortitude and justice, especially when justly and courageously protecting the weak. There are just so many facts in ‘real life’ that verify this. God is not a man, but has ‘manly’ qualities, yes?

So you basically believe all the best qualities are masculine, therefore men (at least the manly ones) are more like God.

Yes, you are definitely a traditionalist.

You views would be welcome (because they so closely match the mainstream) in conservative Islam and Ultra-Orthodox Judaism as well.

 

[TMC]

The EF, or TLM if you like, is what it is and it has rubrics and a very long running tradition.

It needs to be left alone. It doesn’t need women in the sanctuary. Nor does it need indults to allow novelties.

It is absurd to suggest any changes whatsoever regarding the Gregorian Rite as prayed per the 1962 Missal. H.H. BXVI, in his Summorum Pontificum, has freed the EF from indult and in the document it is stated… use the 1962 missal.

We don’t need to speculate what can make it better, nor what we can change. H.H. chose to change the wording of a prayer used on Good Friday. That is fine, and that is how it works. From Rome do these things come, not us.

The Novus Ordo Missae as we have seen, had it’s rubrics tampered with. Some at the bottom of the ladder decided to change the rubrics on their own without approval from Rome. Even after they were told “no”, it wasn’t good enough. They persisted and got their way. That way being CITH. Then came the Altar Girls and Lectors.

That’s fine… it has become the norm. Enjoy it if you want. But don’t try and mess with the Gregorian Rite. It doesn’t need anything changed unless the pope wants it changed… and he’s not seeking suggestions.

Women have been blessed with the most wonderful instrument in the world, the female voice. In the EF, their place is in the choir, kneeling at the rail, or the pews. Nowhere else.

In general, there are many ministries that women can do a better job at than men. That is where we need them, where they will do good. And God Bless those who do their part.

But they do not belong in the sanctuary, or in the aisles handling the Blessed Sacrament. Not at the EF.

OK, but beyond your opinion is there any authority that says that women cannot serve in the EF as they do in the OF? Summorum Pontificum says that the Mass may be celebrated in accordance with the 1962 Missal but also that the Mass should observe “all the norms of law.” I don’t think the missal sets out the rules on servers, and if it did, wouldn’t it require that servers be acolytes (wasn’t that the requirement back then)? It seems to me that other than the form of the Mass, the other laws of the Church apply to the EF as they do to the OF, or is the EF exempt from the GIRM and other authoritative instructions on the Mass?

 

[GloriousOrder]

Pius X:

…singers in church have a real liturgical office, and …] women, being incapable of exercising such office, cannot be admitted to form part of the choir. Whenever, then, it is desired to employ the acute voices of sopranos and contraltos, these parts must be taken by boys, according to the most ancient usage of the Church.

Usage and Scripture point to the humble silence of women in Church. I agree with St. Pius X in the entirety of his letter. Just as much as I love Haydn’s settings of the Mass, their brilliance is not fitting for the liturgy; on the same principle, as much as I love the female singing voice, it is too piercing and glorious for Mass. Fluid movement of bass, tenor, and even countertenor parts appeal to me personally, so I don’t think women have a place in the choir.

You certainly don’t seem to respect them.

Tell me GO, if women are so irrational, servile, and unfit to assume leadership in any area, why bother having them go to church?
Or educating them for that matter?

Wouldn’t it be easier to ‘keep them in their place’ if all women were illiterate?

If women are our inferiors as you seem to be saying (you say that men and women are not equal, and I seriously doubt that your claiming women are superior) then shouldn’t we metaphorically hide all the knives so they don’t hurt themselves?

What are you really advocating?

There’s no need to be such an angry ath… oh, wait!

These posts testify that I do respect women. They are our sisters, and have a greater dignity than the sun, moon, stars, grass, and flowers of the field; in being rational, sentient creatures, they are equal to us. Eve was taken out of Adam’s own essence, though Adam was brought forth out of the dust of the ground. St. Paul gives men a greater number of admonitions in treating their wives than he does to women in treating their husbands. Women are to be pampered with love, protection, courage, justice, and good will; just the same, men are to be served with and accompanied by women with love, obedience, sweetness, temperance, and an open heart. It’s a self-giving cycle, a model of God and His Church. Christ leads the Church. Just because I recognise these differences among us doesn’t mean I’m some monocle-wearing top-hat-sporting terrorist who wants to oppress women and force them to wear the corset while baking pies and birthing babies inside a kitchen.

Women have their “place”, but I don’t mean it in the hilarious stereotypical sexist sense you’re taking it; for men have their “place” too. We all have our places on so many levels. It’s childish to say, simply, “women are equal to men”, since not even I am equal to my fellow man. Each human person was made by God, and He didn’t have to do it, which makes us all the more valuable. You are a unique human person, and not a machine: never to be repeated! All things that exist are already equal, in that God made them from nothing; however, God was also pleased to make distinctions from the nothingness. Men are distinct from women. Men do some things better than women, and women do some things better than men.

In the Church, I think it’s just more prudent for men to arrange the liturgy. Wherever I go to a Mass of any sort that has “blah” hymns, or has the priest sitting on the sidelines while dozens of lay-people do his jobs for him, I know there is a female “liturgist” around. Please don’t take this the wrong way, but women are creatures of sensitive emotion to a greater degree than men. We can get angry more easily, but that’s of a different sensitive appetite. This is a difference between genders, not an inequality. Female liturgical experts and parish staffers are always coming up with silly raffles and happy-go-lucky childrens’ liturgy. In my experience, wherever there’s a female liturgist “leading” the parish, there’s some nonsense going on around the altar.

Forgive me for my anger, but I want all human beings to experience the same Holy Mass everywhere, not be poked and poked and poked by weird innovation and progressive ideas. A 1903 book about the liturgy said “The Catholic Church is an inherently conservative institution, because it conserves the Mass as best it can”. Is it any coincidence that the most ridiculous deconstructions of the Mass since the 1960’s have occurred just as women have taken leadership roles? Not all women are gushy about prayer, but when prayer is led by women it generally becomes a thing of feelings rather than a thing of justice (which is the definition of religion: justice rendered to God for His love in creating us).

The priest is the leader, just as Christ leads His Church. Priests are men; therefore, women cannot be leaders in or of the Church.

 

[MarkThompson]

OK, but beyond your opinion is there any authority that says that women cannot serve in the EF as they do in the OF? Summorum Pontificum says that the Mass may be celebrated in accordance with the 1962 Missal but also that the Mass should observe “all the norms of law.” I don’t think the missal sets out the rules on servers, and if it did, wouldn’t it require that servers be acolytes (wasn’t that the requirement back then)? It seems to me that other than the form of the Mass, the other laws of the Church apply to the EF as they do to the OF, or is the EF exempt from the GIRM and other authoritative instructions on the Mass?

First, the EF is exempt from the GIRM, since the GIRM by definition only applies to the Missal of Paul VI.

Second, my reading is that you are conceptually right, in that, just as with questions like the pre-Communion fast, the issue of who can be an altar server is governed by Church law and norms rather than by the liturgical books themselves, and thus the permission to use the liturgical books of 1962 does not – again, conceptually – extend to such matters. The EF is not a time warp back to 1962.

That said, people who like female altar severs wouldn’t be caught dead at an EF Mass, and people who go to EF Masses would never put up with female altar servers. Accordingly, if memory serves, to keep the peace the PCED has ruled as a pragmatic matter that EF servers are to be male.

 

[AngryAtheist8]

At Trent, I didn’t know you held such progressive, -]feminazi/-] feminist views! As anybody really committed to upholding the most sacred traditions of the Church would know:
13. On the same principle it follows that singers in church have a real liturgical office, and that therefore women, being incapable of exercising such office, cannot be admitted to form part of the choir. Whenever, then, it is desired to employ the acute voices of sopranos and contraltos, these parts must be taken by boys, according to the most ancient usage of the Church.

– Pope Saint Pius X, Tra le sollecitudini (1903)
You see, even the female “instrument” cannot be preferred over that of males with high-pitched voices. I guess for women that just leaves kneeling at the rail or in the pews. But pews are a fairly modern novelty themselves, aren’t they?

Catholicism really is a boys club isn’t it:shrug:

 

[MarkThompson]

Catholicism really is a boys club isn’t it:shrug:

No, not at all. In fact, if anything is striking about the preconciliar era, it is the immense faith and devotion of women. There are certainly elements of the liturgy that can resemble a boys’ club from time to time, but the liturgy itself is only a fragment of what it means to be Catholic.