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BobP123
Guest
Am not sure either. I’ve heard of non-Catholic cantors, choir members, and organists but don’t know about altar servers or lectors or even eucharistic ministers for that matter.
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Brendan
Guest
No they weren’t. Pope Paul suppressed them in 1972 in a independant document, Ministeria quædam.
( If I had a dollar for every time I heard "Vatican II did such and such, when it really didn’t
)And they were only supressed in the Latin Rite (another sign that it didn’t happen in Vatican II) . All the other sui juris Churchs still ordain Sub-Deacons.
In fact, our parish has a Sub-Deacon, a Chaldean who is now attending our Latin Rite parish.
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Brendan
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Judith,
the Insitiuted Ministries of Lector and Acolyte are Lay positions in the Latin Rite Church.
Lay Men can be Installed as Lector or Acolytes, women cannot.
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AJV
Guest
The thread was originally posted in the TC forum, and the OP had mentioned traditionally so I was speaking with reference to that. Apologies for the confusion
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VAC
Guest
This is the first I have EVER heard that it’s wrong to have women as lectors. I have also never been aware of a requirement to ‘install’ them. It is my understanding that lay ministry is permitted by either males or females.
At our mass, we have only 2 adult lectors, one man, one woman. They both do an excellent job. Ours is a children’s mass, and we sometimes have children as lectors, many of them (boys and girls) read as clearly and fluently as any adult. The children also serve as ushers, but I can’t recall ever seeing a female usher, now that you all have pointed this out…
As long as I have you all shocked, I’ll add that my Jewish husband was pressed into service as an usher a couple weeks ago when none of the regulars showed up. He also helps me set up the sound system for the music at mass.
Here’s my opinion… As long as the Pope himself hasn’t forbidden it… I think most parishes are fortunate to have people with the desire to serve in ministry. For example, at our church they are currently begging for CCD teachers…
At our mass, we have only 2 adult lectors, one man, one woman. They both do an excellent job. Ours is a children’s mass, and we sometimes have children as lectors, many of them (boys and girls) read as clearly and fluently as any adult. The children also serve as ushers, but I can’t recall ever seeing a female usher, now that you all have pointed this out…
As long as I have you all shocked, I’ll add that my Jewish husband was pressed into service as an usher a couple weeks ago when none of the regulars showed up. He also helps me set up the sound system for the music at mass.
Here’s my opinion… As long as the Pope himself hasn’t forbidden it… I think most parishes are fortunate to have people with the desire to serve in ministry. For example, at our church they are currently begging for CCD teachers…
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jmcrae
Guest
Seminarians, though, and pre-Seminarians - not fathers of children, etc. Not ordinary lay men.
These were stages on the road to the priesthood - someone not intending to become a priest would not have been asked to take these roles, unless it were an emergency and no Seminarians were available.
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Brendan
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Actually, yes, ordinary laymen.
That was the whole point to Ministeria quædam, to make those ministries open to lay men instead of having them be Minor Orders open only to those on the way to the priesthood.
Several diocese regularly Install men to these positions (yes, fathers of children)
In fact, why should having children bar someone from being an Instituted Lector or Acolyte?
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jmcrae
Guest
Why should being female, then?
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jmj603
Guest
Could you provide the relevant excerpt?
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jmj603
Guest
Married men can serve as clerics in the Church. Women cannot. This wasn’t a problem for the Blessed Mother. Why is it a problem for a Catholic?Why should being female, then?
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VAC
Guest
So lectors and sacristans are considered clerics? That’s a new one on me.
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jmj603
Guest
Lectors have always been considered clerics. See the Catholic Encyclopedia article on the topic, which begins, “A lector (reader) in the West is a clerk having the second of the four minor orders. In all Eastern Churches also, readers are ordained to a minor order preparatory to the diaconate.” Clerk is another word for cleric.
As has been mentioned in the thread, Pope Paul VI in the motu proprio Ministeria Quaedam of 1972 abolished the minor orders for the Latin Church, but retained the ministries of lector and acolyte, requiring that “*n accordance with the ancient tradition of the Church, institution to the ministries of reader and acolyte is reserved to men.” This reservation was again confirmed by the Code of Canon Law of 1983, canon 230 §1. Thus lectors are not considered clerics now in the Latin Church (although the ordination to minor orders is still performed by some Latin-rite bishops), but a ministry reserved to lay men. However, lectors are still considered clerics in the Eastern Churches.
The office of sacristan was not necessarily reserved to clerics: “The Council of Trent desired that, according to the old canons, clerics should hold such offices; but in most churches, on account of the difficulty or impossibility of obtaining clerics, laymen perform many of the duties of the sacristan and under-sacristan.” St. Therese served as sacristan in the Lisieux Carmel, and considered it a great privilege.
In any case, being a cleric does not imply that one is unmarried, but it does imply that he is male. That is the error I was correcting.*
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jmcrae
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Married men with little children cannot, either.
There is absolutely no qualitative difference between a lay male and a lay female.
Both of them are icons of God (Genesis 1:26-27).
Neither of them is in persona Christi - lay males are not members of the clergy any more than women are.
If lay persons should not be in the Sanctuary, that goes for lay men as much as it does for women. Just because a lay male can be mistaken for a member of the clergy doesn’t mean that he actually is one.
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Biblioassistant
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I don’t refer to myself as a lector - I’m a reader. If the Holy See says that women can’t be readers, I will obediently step down, but as long as they say it’s all right, I will be a reader. I have a very nice speaking voice.
Jesus did say we were to use our talents
Jesus did say we were to use our talents
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jmcrae
Guest
That’s true - He did not have very nice things to say about people who bury their own talents.I don’t refer to myself as a lector - I’m a reader. If the Holy See says that women can’t be readers, I will obediently step down, but as long as they say it’s all right, I will be a reader. I have a very nice speaking voice.
Jesus did say we were to use our talents
(I wonder what He thinks of those who bury other people’s talents?)
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blacktiger057
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Yes, God forbid that women have an equal part in mass as men do…
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Titus
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We seem to skirting the difference between the instituted lector and the extraordinary minister who may fill in in his absence- the reader. One must be a man; the other can be either a man or a woman. The instituted ministries are reserved to men in view of their historic role as minor orders (they may still be referred to as subdeacons by order of the conference of bishops). They are very rare, because bishops dont want to stop women performing these roles. A lector always supersedes the extraordinary minister, you see.
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BobP123
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You may want to take that issue up with Christ, who chose only men to serve in the priesthood.
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jmcrae
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Yes, but He chose both women and men to serve in every other capacity, as we see in last Sunday’s Gospel reading, in Luke 7:36-8:3.
It is only the priesthood that is absolutely reserved to men, regarding service in the Church. Nothing else.
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jmj603
Guest
This is a calumny against the thousands of permanent Latin Rite deacons, the priests of the Eastern Churches, and other married men who are members of the Catholic clergy.
This is radical feminism, which has been condemned by the Vatican. Suffice to say, it is impossible to deny a qualitative difference between the sexes. Men, for example, are incapable of giving birth.
In persona Christi applies to Sacraments, not to the clerical state within the Church.
The unanimous testimony of two thousand years of Christian tradition, dating back to the time of the Apostles, argues against this. There have always been altar boys. Permission for women in the sanctuary was first granted in 1994, when the Pope was sick in hospital, just several months after he promised Mother Teresa that he wouldn’t allow it. What happened?
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