Posted on 04/18/2015 2:45:36 PM PDT by NYer
Fr. Joseph Illo and Fr. Patrick Driscoll, Star of the Sea Catholic Church (Photo from Facebook)
When Fr. Joseph Illo, the pastor at San Francisco’s Star of the Sea Catholic Church, announced his decision to train only boys to be altar servers, some parishioners and others protested. Amidst the hullabaloo, the media jumped at the chance to criticize both Fr. Illo and his beleaguered bishop, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone.
Religion News Service quoted Fr. Illo, who explained his reasons for enacting the policy:
The first…is that “boys usually end up losing interest (in altar service) because girls generally do a better job.”
The second and more important reason, Illo said, is that “altar service is intrinsically tied to the priesthood and serve as feeder programs for the seminary.”
“If the Catholic Church ordained women, altar girls would make sense, but the Catholic priesthood is a male charism,” he said. “Nothing awakens a desire for the priesthood like service at the altar among the brotherhood of young men. At the risk of generalizing, I suspect young men serving with young women might just distract them from the sacrifice of the Mass, and perhaps even from a priestly vocation.”
The Huffington Post injected feminism into the conversation, jumping in to declare that the Catholic Church has far to go to achieve equality for women.
Some of the outrage directed toward Fr. Illo and Archbishop Cordileone is a straw man argument, intended to discredit the archbishop for his defense of marriage as between one man and one woman. I reported yesterday about an open letter to Pope Francis, demanding Archbishop Cordileone’s replacement as archbishop.
Here’s the thing: One may argue whether Father Illo’s reasoning is correct. One cannot, however, dispute that he is within his rights as pastor to make that decision for the good of his flock. His archbishop approved his decision. Cardinal Burke has expressed the same concern–that the feminization of the Church has been harmful to efforts to attract young men to the priesthood.
But while the San Francisco Chronicle may believe that the 100 signatories on the open letter represent the Catholic population in the city by the Bay, I do not.
And next weekend, we’ll see who’s right. The OTHER Catholics in the San Francisco area–those who are faithful to the Magisterial teaching of the Church–have organized a Mass Mob at Star of the Sea, Fr. Illo’s parish. They are inviting area Catholics to attend the 4:30 p.m. Vigil Mass on Saturday, April 25, and to sign a Spiritual Bouquet, offering prayers for Fathers Illo and Driscoll. The Spiritual Bouquet will be presented after Mass on that day.
If you’re in the San Francisco area, consider showing your support for Father Illo by attending the Mass next weekend. If you’re elsewhere in the country but you support this holy priest, please consider signing the Spiritual Bouquet at their website, and committing to pray for Father Illo and his associate pastor, Father Patrick Driscoll.
There is also a Facebook page for the movement.
Reason 2 should be switched with Reason 1 ... ultimately, no boys, no priests. Ping!
to train only boys to be altar **The second and more important reason, Illo said, is that “altar service is intrinsically tied to the priesthood and serve as feeder programs for the seminary.”**
BTTT!
I’ve only been to one Mass that featured an “altar girl” - naturally, a family event not my usual St. Agnes jaunt. That damned brat ran all over the place until the priest corralled her. How different from the little well-trained boys of my youth! That convinced me that No. Altar. Girls. Ever.
The Laos tou Theou, are the guardians of orthodoxy...not hierarchs or the lower clergy. The Latins have a problem here, one of their own making.
Our Bishop Gregory Mansour banned girls from altar service many years ago. Since then, more boys have stepped forward to serve, fully appreciating the importance of their responsibilities. One 5 year ols pleaded with the priest to allow him to also serve. The priest acceded. His grandmother took a surplice and altered it to fit the child. He is now 10 and still serving at the altar. God bless our altar boys!
Thank you for the info about a way to support Fr. Illo. He is an excellent priest and role model who serves college students with humility. The Star church in SF is beautiful and I’ll try to make it for the 4/25 evening mass.
Acolytes should be males in order to be in tune with the priest who is consecrating. Canon law gives the power to staff the acolytes with the Bishop and the pastor.
Inaestimabile donum 18: "There are, of course, various roles that women can perform in the liturgical assembly: these include reading the Word of God and proclaiming the intentions of the Prayer of the Faithful. Women are not, however, permitted to act as altar servers", Pope John Paul II.
Of course, it's a woman's prerogative, and a pope's, to change their mind.
Altar girls, in my opinion, are not a good thing. However, since they’re permitted, we have to deal with them, and they can be made to behave as well as boys. The priests simply have to have a program that applies to all altar servers.
They have to dress properly. No heels for the girls, their hair should be tied back, and the boys have to be wearing proper shoes as well. But all of them should be strictly disciplined, which is something that would probably self-eliminate most of the girls.
One priest I knew used to have vocation retreats for all the altar servers over about the age of 12. The boys were looking at the seminary and religious orders, and the girls were looking at the (orthodox) religious orders. There actually weren’t any in that particular diocese, but some of them were allowed to send representatives to give presentations to the girls. And they did get vocations.
I thought that was a good way of using your lemons to make lemonade.
So the “Mass Mob” is actually in favor of the pastors and their decision to ban altar girls at the parish...wasn’t clear from the title.
What is a mass mob?
I will say a rosary on your behalf. I love what you are doing.To this day, people see altar service as a kind of apprenticeship to the priesthood. And that is right. Boys should be around the altar. The girls can join me in the rosary.
... but the sign-up thing didn't work for me. I tried several times and then gave up.
I wonder if they've been sabotaged by some cyber-bully?
Have you ever heard of the choirs that descend on a shopping mall, and at a given signal, break out in song? There was a great video last Christmas of such a mob throughout the shopping center all singing the Hallelujah Chorus.
So a Mass Mob would be a group of people getting together to stuff the church full of supporters in this instance.
Sometimes you can look for the words “Flash Mob”.
I would strongly encourage you to make a general appeal to your local bishop to restore altar service strictly to boys. A good approach would be to research those dioceses that have eliminated altar girls then explore the growth of vocations in those dioceses. Better yet, would be to start a petition and obtain signatures from like minded parishioners.
I think it has to be by personal invitation. A lot better, though, if there is a decree from the Bishop.
Those lemons shouldn’t be there in the first place. No parish is required to have female servers. Priests should resist. The first step should be a catechesis of the faithful. This isn’t happening because many priests are incapable of catechising their people, or else are afraid to.
Poor kids...Not only are they brainwashed at a very young age to become priests, they also must be encouraged at the age of puberty to reject the natural attraction for the opposite sex...
Altar service is a gentle prod toward the priesthood that is wasted on the girls and the girl altarboys turn the boys off. And as with turning over the various “ministries” to the women in a church, the men (and the boys) lose interest and compartmentalize “church” as something women do. The churches often become essentially women’s clubs.
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