Whats wrong with female altar girls?

[ComradeAndrei]

How do you know Mother Theresa never helped a priest with mass?

In order for this comment to prove anything you would have to establish-

a) that Mother Theresa in fact did help a priest in the role of an altar server

and

b)that said action by Mother Theresa wasn’t the result of a real and pressing need (i.e. the priest was old and feeble)

Altar Girls are an innovation that has come up from human desire, not from obedience. So?

You don’t find it the least bit odd that having “altar girls” flies in the face of 1900+ yrs. of tradition? Furthermore, the Church isn’t a democracy. Altar girls are an innovation borne of manifest disobedience. Simple as that.

Maybe girls desired to serve God by helping the priest at Mass.

Maybe people should serve God in ways that are proper to their state in life.

Maybe some girls have entered the convent after their experience as an altar girl.

Also, a “maybe” isn’t a justification for anything because it works both ways. “Maybe” having altar girls hasn’t done jack to increase vocations to the religious life. Maybe having altar girls discourages boys from getting involved in the Church at a young and bountifully formative age and thus adds to our priestly vocation shortage. How about that maybe?

My church has an equal amount of boys and girls serving at Mass with no problems.

This is so much-a-doo about nothing.

What do you consider “problems”? “If it works, it must be OK” is not a very Catholic way of thinking of things.

IMO, God is not concerned in the least that female children want to serve his Church as altar servers. In fact, he probably welcomes it.

Since when have you been able to probe the Divine Intellect?

If the Church thought this was a improper practice, then it would ban it. It hasn’t. Trust your Church.

Are you sure this is how the Church works? The Church is not infallible when it comes to disciplinary measures, and the reason the Church allowed girls and women to do things around the altar was not because they thought it was the enlightened thing to do. It was more like, “Oh, by the way Your Holiness, we’ve been doing this for a while despite the clear directives of the Holy See but if you stir up a big stink over it you’ll end up “alienating” people…”

Just because something is “allowed” doesn’t make it Gospel nor encouraged.

 

[Ace86]

Just because something is “allowed” doesn’t make it Gospel nor encouraged.

The GIRM (I believe) actually says that girls are allowed, but that boys are preferred. I really think the girl altar servers should be banned.

 

[netmilsmom]

Maybe people should serve God in ways that are proper to their state in life.

.

You are most probably going to get slammed for that statement but I’m right behind you.

In my parish, Altar Boys/Choir girls. 250 Altar Boys, 100 Choir girls.
I will tell you that my nine year old has said that she would like to serve on the altar. I told her that it is not her place. God has given her a lovely singing voice (well I think so) for something. Girls should not serve on the Altar. If she wants to move on from the Choir, she can be a reader.

I really don’t what anyone thinks of this.

 

[ComradeAndrei]

The GIRM (I believe) actually says that girls are allowed, but that boys are preferred. I really think the girl altar servers should be banned.

I don’t know if it is in the GIRM, but documents from the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments are the ones that really should be noted.

Seems to me, read in the light of tradition and custom, girls serving at the altar should be understood as a development of allowing girls or women to make the servers responses from a front pew or altar rail in the old Mass. For example, little Susie comes in to tell Father that her brother is sick today. Father asks Susie to fill in for him because there are 5min until the start of Mass and the other boy was sick too. Granted, there is no “need” for a server but they are handy.

 

[ComradeAndrei]

You are most probably going to get slammed for that statement but I’m right behind you.

I’ve gotta be prepared for the day when I possibly will have to deal with stuff like this in my own parish. In all reality, that is the way we should be thinking. The Church has no place for ideologies that seek to distort or make in their own image the God given relationship between males and females.

 

[netmilsmom]

Maybe people should serve God in ways that are proper to their state in life.

.

You are most probably going to get slammed for that statement but I’m right behind you.

In my parish, Altar Boys/Choir girls. 250 Altar Boys, 100 Choir girls.
I will tell you that my nine year old has said that she would like to serve on the altar. I told her that it is not her place. God has given her a lovely singing voice (well I think so) for something. Girls should not serve on the Altar. If she wants to move on from the Choir, she can be a reader.

I really don’t what anyone thinks of this.

 

[Brendan]

You are most probably going to get slammed for that statement but I’m right behind you.

In my parish, Altar Boys/Choir girls. 250 Altar Boys, 100 Choir girls.
I will tell you that my nine year old has said that she would like to serve on the altar. I told her that it is not her place. God has given her a lovely singing voice (well I think so) for something. Girls should not serve on the Altar. If she wants to move on from the Choir, she can be a reader.

I really don’t what anyone thinks of this.

I’m at the same parish as netlmil(name removed by moderator).

I would also like to note that this is a parish of about 800 families.

We have 6 men from our parish studying for the priesthood, 3 in various stages towards the permanent diaconate and 3 women in noviate\postulanacy towards religious life.

It would be interesting to hear from those who have altar girls on how many women their parishes have entering the convent right now.

 

[childofmary1143]

I don’t know, but I think its a plea for the past, nostalgic urges at work. A little short sighted.

The Magesterium has o.k.'ed the altar service of girls, and I think they realize that this work might help at least some of the girls discern a calling to serve as adult women as readers or Eucharistic Ministers of Holy Communion.

Correction the Hierarchy approved it. The Hierarchy is not the Magesterium

 

[unworthy]

It would be interesting to hear from those who have altar girls on how many women their parishes have entering the convent right now.

Dear Brendan,
I’m an altar girl and am discerning a call to religious life . The reason I am discerning is not because I served but because God may be calling me. The reason any man joins the Priesthood is not because they served but because they had a calling.
The reason I do serve, however, is because I love the Eucharist very much as should all good Christians. If I am serving I do not believe I am doing something against God’s will. If that were to change I will freely accept the change. If you would freely accept that they make altar serving reserved to boys, why can’t you accept that it has allowed altar girls? There is a problem here with regards to obedience.

Serving at the Altar has made me develop a deeper respect for my parish Priests and the work that they do. I do not believe girls should aspire to be Priests, because it is reserved for those men chosen for such an amazing vocation! To celebrate the Mass! Just as why I do not believe men should aspire to be mothers because it is reserved for those women to bear life!

Serving at the altar can help ALL–whether one is discerning marriage, Priesthood, religious life, or single life–come to a better realization of their already existing vocation. To see “how many women in their parishes have entered the convent right now” is to say that altar serving is exclusive to those discerning religious life. That reasoning is extremely faulty.

-unworthy

 

[netmilsmom]

If you would freely accept that they make altar serving reserved to boys, why can’t you accept that it has allowed altar girls? There is a problem here with regards to obedience.

Why? What has Brendan done to be disobedient? He stated facts about our parish. The problem is…?
When it comes to disobedience, you need to understand that this did start with disobedience and in many ways continues. We are suppose to be encouraging boys and using girls only when the boys are not there. Ummmmmm. Is that what is happening? I think not.

Serving at the altar can help ALL–whether one is discerning marriage, Priesthood, religious life, or single life–come to a better realization of their already existing vocation.

Does it help one in a way that hinders another from finding a vocation? Is feminizing altar serving keeping boys from joining? It’s the 64,000 question and you don’t have the answer. Did you read our stats? 800 registered families. 200 Altar boys/100 choir girls. We have 6 men from our parish studying for the priesthood, 3 in various stages towards the permanent diaconate and 3 women in noviate\postulanacy towards religious life.
What are we doing right?

. To see “how many women in their parishes have entered the convent right now” is to say that altar serving is exclusive to those discerning religious life. That reasoning is extremely faulty.

Okay, then I’ll PM you when this argument is made by the pro-female Altar servers is made. We hear it all the time, girls can become nuns from serving on the altar.
I don’t have the answer, but you seem to have solved it.

 

[scylla]

We have 650 families, no priest, altar girls and no vocations for the last 17 years.

The last vocation we had to the priesthood was my brother when he served under a good strict Priest, who passed on a few years ago, and was replaced sometime around 1992 or so.

Altar Girls at our parish have not had any positive impact whatsoever in vocations or piety. What it has done is replace the boys who previously served as we had plenty of boys when our parish was half the size.

This doesn’t matter to the parish coordinator as she is in favor of women priests and looks to see tradition with a small t change as it “has to”.

Truth doesn’t reflect in our practice and adherence to tradition in my parish, though when asked about this, the answer to me was we should be willing to question and see what is possible.

I am embarrased to invite Protestants to my parish, as the last time all they heard was complaining about the oppression of women in the Church. Not the beauty of adherence to truth.

In Christ
Scylla

 

[awindrose]

We have 650 families, no priest, altar girls and no vocations for the last 17 years.

In my parish we have had 3 young men enter the seminary in the last 8 years.

We have female altar servers.
We hold hands during the Lord’s Prayer.
We even sing the Lord’s Prayer whenever there is a baptism.
We have EMHC and female readers.
And on occasion, we sing “Gather Us In”

We are also a very happy community that makes people feel welcome even if they wear shorts and/or flip-flops.

 

[netmilsmom]

In my parish we have had 3 young men enter the seminary in the last 8 years.

We have female altar servers.
We hold hands during the Lord’s Prayer.
We even sing the Lord’s Prayer whenever there is a baptism.
We have EMHC and female readers.
And on occasion, we sing “Gather Us In”

We are also a very happy community that makes people feel welcome even if they wear shorts and/or flip-flops.

Wow! Could you just imagine how many you would have if you did things a little more Historically Catholic!!!
Happy Catholic in my area is about the same as the local evangelical church. In fact, there is a huge campus near us that was started by disinfranchised Catholics.
Their services are not too much different from the Happy Catholic masses they came from.

 

[mommyaprilj]

My sixth grade boys CCD class do not want to have alter girls as they do not want to be near them. I have five boys in my class that are alter boys and they are glad that our paster will not ask the bishop for permission to have alter girls (our diocese recently began to allow alter girls). Then again, at confession on Monday night for the kids in CCD, the boys told me that the reason the girls were taking so long is that girls sin more than boys. So I don’t always trust there theological instincts.

Sounds to me like your boys have some serious issues. If that’s their attitude and thinking, God help them trying to have a healthy relationship as adults.

 

[netmilsmom]

Sounds to me like your boys have some serious issues. If that’s their attitude and thinking, God help them trying to have a healthy relationship as adults.

Sixth grade, 12 years old.
I’ve known my share and even raised one who is now happy and healthy with a wife, three boys and one on the way.

Trust me, boys sometimes think this way and many times will say it if they think it makes them cool.

 

[Brendan]

The reason any man joins the Priesthood is not because they served but because they had a calling.

That is interesting, because the very same document that allowed altar girls in the first place stressed the importance that service at the altar has in discerning a call to the priesthood.

If you would freely accept that they make altar serving reserved to boys, why can’t you accept that it has allowed altar girls? There is a problem here with regards to obedience.

Can you point out exactly where I am not being obedient to the Church?

BTW, the Vatican has also determined that a individual priest cannot be forced to accept altar girls at any Mass he says, even if “mandated” by his own bishop.

I, as a Catholic, have freedom to attend any Mass I so wish. So if I wish to only attend Masses said by priest who do not allow altar girls, where would the disobedience be?

Serving at the Altar has made me develop a deeper respect for my parish Priests and the work that they do. I do not believe girls should aspire to be Priests, because it is reserved for those men chosen for such an amazing vocation!

Even if it means that fewer boys choose to serve, and thus participate in a program that Pope John Paul II says increases vocations.

That reasoning is extremely faulty.

I offered no reasoning, just a request for information. Reason, or hypothesis, comes after the data has been collected.

unworthy, how many vocations, either to the priesthood, diaconate or religous life (either male or female) has your parish produced in the last 5 years?

Just a simple request for information. Raw numbers will be fine. We can reason or hypothesize about them afterward.

 

[Brendan]

Sounds to me like your boys have some serious issues. If that’s their attitude and thinking, God help them trying to have a healthy relationship as adults.

Would you also prefer that Cub Scout troops be co-ed, or whould a boy’s desire to be in Scouting also be a detriment to “a healthy relationship” as an adult?

Being a father myself, I think that my children having a clear understanding of what is appropriate for each sex be a better indicator of future healthy relationships.

 

[Formosus]

It has no precedence in Tradition, in fact has been condemned by Popes throughout the ages and John Paul II himself even condemned them until finally allowing girl Altar Boys, giving in to the hardness of the hearts of the American Bishops and Modernist forces within the American Catholic Church.

 

[Brendan]

Unworthy,

FYI, here is the Vatican ruling that priests cannot be obliged to use girls in service at the altar.

So even if the bishop permits the use of altar girls, no priest is required to use them. (and likewise, no Catholic can be required to attend a Mass where altar girls are used)

adoremus.org/CDW-AltarServers.html

So given that, where would any disobedience be?

 

[fullofzeal]

all boys=more priests

nun’s in habits= more nun’s

of course other ancillary type things fuel this but this has been proven, hasn’t it. Women think their daughters as a general rule, have some sort of right to be servers. Legislative pottage.

peace