Altar Girls Outnumber Altar Boys
Some Catholics Fear Girls Are Scaring Boys Away
Many progressive Catholics cheer the gender shift in the altar server ratio, praising the opportunity and ability for girls to serve in the Catholic Church alongside boys, and happily putting behind the former comments of the Vatican that cited girl altar servers as an "abuse" of the liturgy. Yet there are also Catholics who are concerned about this development.
All Catholic parishes in the Madison Diocese have removed girls from the altar server positions, citing that the role should be reserved for boys so that vocations in the priesthood could be encouraged. Since the Roman Catholic Church refuses to ordain women as priests, the argument of the Madison Diocese and many other conservative Catholics is that girls usurp positions that should be rightfully reserved for boys to insure the population of the priesthood. In the Madison Diocese girls are cited as "distracting" and "intimidating" to boys, as written in the Wisconsin State Journal article, "Sauk City-area priests inspiring some, alienating others".
While the Vatican, who has allowed girls to serve on the alter since 1994, had recently praised the recent event with no direct comment about any suggested relationship between the gender of altar servers and the future of the priesthood, bloggers like Meghan Duke of FirstThings.com First Thoughts address the issue in the post The Rise of Altar Girls as a need to readjust the role of girls as altar servers:
"There are many fine altar girls out there, and their desire to serve is admirable. It reflects, in fact, a very feminine quality, like Martha, they feel compelled to serve the one they love [...] If altar serving is going to continue as a way of fostering priestly vocations, it seems that another form of service needs to be found for altar girls."
Over the past ten years, the number of priests has been decreasing. The priesthood molestation scandals and growing attraction of secular life have been widely known issues for the decline in priesthood enrollment. Parishes have closed or been reduced to Missions so that priests can tend to more than one church. Seminary enrollment is down by as much as 70% in some countries from its numbers 50 years ago. Priests are retiring from the Baby Boomer generation to not have replacements from the next generation of adults. With conversion to Roman Catholicism on the rise during the same decade, the demands of parishioners will not be met with an able-bodied clergy.
Now that Catholic Dioceses are removing parishioners' children from altar server positions on the basis of only their gender, there is an underlying concern that conservative Catholicism will kill the religion's conversion rate and families will leave the Church.
Sources:
L'Osservatore Romano; Vatican News Service; Weekly news report for August 4, 2010
Wisconsin State Journal; Doug Erickson; Sauk City-area priests inspiring some, alienating others
First Things.com First Thoughts; Meghan Duke; The Rise of Altar Girls
Published by Maggie Lee
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12 Comments
Post a Commentyes - boys have bailed as predicted - thank libs -- but it doesn't matter anymore cuz Extraoridinay ministers of the Eucharist seem to be growing like a cancer and pushing out the altar girls and the priest
There's no "vocations crisis" among traditional Catholic apostolates (SSPX, FSSP, and others), all of whom stick to traditional male/female "roles", the Latin Mass, the Church's Tradition, and have never allowed female altar servers. They're also having large families, unlike in the liberal NO parishes where you can tell by a simple glance in the pews that most people are not following the Church's teachings on sexuality.
The families that would "leave the Church" based on the removal of female altar servers (an abuse that never should have been allowed) most likely aren't following Church dogma and are Catholics in name only anyways. It's not like they're really "there" just because they attend on Sunday. The collection plate might suffer, but then again, maybe not. It's the same kind of whine you here about how not allowing married priests, homosexuals, etc. is supposedly the cause of the crisis of numbers in the Church when in reality the Church crisis only started when the Chur
anyone with even the minimal understanding of child and adolecent psychology would have predicted that girst would scare away boys. No boys, no priests. But that was the intent to begin with: this utopian empowerment of women. And unless you miss the point, there was never any equality intended in this whole charade. First it was 50/50, but then 60/40, and finally up to at least 90/10 in favor of women. Look at teachers, rectory staff, everywhere. The ultimate equality for the feminsts is 100/0 and often quite attainable with the church's blessings.
Not all Catholic parishes in the Madison Diocese have removed female altar servers, nor has there been any mandate to do so. Look at the photo on the altar servers' page of the diocesan website:
http://www.madisondiocese.org/Ministry/Worship/LiturgicalMinistry/AltarServers/tabid/1683/Default.aspx
"Over the past ten years, the number of priests has been decreasing." Try "60 years."
The real problem is that in the Novus Ordo Mass (the Vatican II Mass) there is absolutely nothing for the server to do. They pretty much walk in, sit down, and then walk out at the end. Who would want to do that? And it's not much of a reason to want to become a priest.
Before Vatican II, the server's set up the altar, lit and extinguished the candles and attended the priest directly as he celebrated the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. They recited the responses to the priest's prayers. They copied his every moves, they moved the Mass Missal for him, they watched for his moves as signals as for when to genuflect and ring the bells. They attended him at Holy Communion with a paten, placing it under the chins of communicants to prevent sacred hosts from falling to the floor. Servers were an important part of the celebration of the Mass.
I know of at least parish in my archdiocese with a very l
Again, it would be great if the general population of laymen would see fit to educate themselves on the actual doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church and her history, rather than spout out about what is Catholic and what is not.
If one's concept of the Mass is that of it being a mere "meal", or a gathering of "community", of course it doesn't make sense to prohibit females servers! Neither would there be a theological problem with girls helping at the "table". Why, many a waitress do exactly that!
However, if one believes as a Catholic, that the Mass is the re-enactment of Calvary, that we are truly present at the foot of the Cross in which Christ offers HIMSELF as the Victim, then the woman has no place in assisting in this Sacrifice. The sacerdotal role in any form - including as assistants,(sub-deacons, deacons, acolytes) has Traditionally been assigned to men.
Only in pagan worship, has there ever been women acting in any type of sacerdotal ministry.
How tough it must be defending all the abuses that are slowing going away.
http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/6892585/
Interestingly enough, there is no theological dictate at any time in the Roman Catholic Church that girls are forbidden from fulfilling the role of altar servers. There was a time when the practice was cited as an abuse of liturgy but such views were briefly in the 20th century only. This sudden desire to ban women from serving in the liturgy is really nothing more than oppression and sexism. The Roman Catholic Church cannot afford the politics of homophobia and sexism, especially when the latter has no grounds in scripture or doctrine. It would be better to educate the ignorant public about the doctrine rather than allow others to continue shouting that there is some "God ordained" role that bans women from the roles in which they have served God for over two centuries and that, somehow, "modern thinking" is destroying the Church.
Contrary to current, modern thinking, there is a hierarchical order and there are Godly ordained roles for the two genders. Happy the male who fulfills the role for which God created him. Likewise, happy is the female who serves God with all her feminine prerogatives. (And it isn't at the altar!) Someone really should write a theological treatise on this subject - on why it is not the role of women to assist at the altar of sacrifice.