Anger at Vatican plan to ban altar girls

Gaurdian (UK) ^ | 24 September 2003 | John Hooper

[Lorianne]

A heated battle has been joined in the Vatican between moderates and conservatives over a directive, called for by the Pope, that would bar altar girls and stop millions of Roman Catholics around the world dancing, or even clapping, in their churches. _________________

Anger at Vatican plan to ban altar girls

John Hooper in Rome Wednesday September 24, 2003 The Guardian

A heated battle has been joined in the Vatican between moderates and conservatives over a directive, called for by the Pope, that would bar altar girls and stop millions of Roman Catholics around the world dancing, or even clapping, in their churches. The document would also clamp down on adult, lay pastoral assistants. It would forbid priests during sermons quoting from ethical texts other than the Gospels. And it would rank services jointly celebrated with Protestant ministers or Orthodox priests alongside black masses as one of the four "most serious" abuses

In a clear effort to block, or, at least dilute, the measure, a leaked text of the draft was this week published in Jesus, the monthly review of the Society of St Paul, an international Catholic organisation.

One Vatican insider was yesterday quoted by the Rome newspaper Il Messaggero as saying it contained "idiocies so mad as to incite fear".

The document was compiled by officials from two Vatican ministries, responsible for doctrine and liturgy, after the Pope called earlier this year for new guidelines on the way masses are held. Many clerics had complained that liberalisation and experiment in recent decades had left them not knowing what was allowed.

Catholics in western, and particularly northern, Europe are likely to be most taken aback by the Vatican officials' determination to block one of the few means of participation in church ritual for women.

The draft text states that priests should only allow girls to help them at mass if they have a special dispensation from their bishop and there is "just cause", which Italian commentators took to mean an absence of boys. According to the leaked draft, priests ought "never to feel themselves obliged to recruit girls".

In developing countries, where the Catholic church now has most of its members, the most controversial injunction will be the one banning "applause and dance within the place of worship, even outside the celebration of [mass]".

Dance is an integral part of worship in Africa and Asia and has figured in numerous services attended by the Pope. Clapping is also commonplace in Italy at weddings, baptisms and even during funerals.

The draft "instruction" was reportedly tabled in June and came in for stiff criticism at a meeting of the two departments. A final version is due to be published this year.

[ninenot]

You don't read well, do you? It is the pre-eminent and preferred instrument for accompaniment and for worship. The human voice is the best, and first.

Others are certainly usable--orchestral instrumentation, e.g.--but none which are pre-eminently SECULAR in utilization or nature, or call up secular/profane images, memories, etc.

[Cousin Eddie]

You ought to do some more reading of the posts. I've read endless complaints from self described conservative Catholics that guitar masses and the like are part of the downfall of the church. My MOM (not my aunt if you took the time to read carefully) falls into the same camp. All I'm trying to point out is that my mom is very conservative about church traditions/doctrine/etc. I can't believe how many people are having an apoplectic fit about this point because I didn't list the 362 reasons why she's a conservative. I never commented one way or the other about my position on music in the church...I was just trying to quickly point out that my mom is a conservative Catholic. Sheesh.

Actually, the burden of proof is on you to demonstrate that vocations have increased due to "altar girls."

What? Endless comments on this and other threads blaming the decline in vocations (at least in part) on the presence of altar girls, and the burden of proof is on me????? It seems to me that the person making the original contention has the obligation to prove his/her point. All I continue to point out is that posters keep making this claim without offering any proof. The fact that vocations are low in dioceses with altar girls does not show causality. Maybe it's the other way around. All I would like to see if one person support this argument. I admit that I don't know the facts regarding altar girls and vocations, but no one has yet shown the evidence one way or another in this thread.

[sinkspur]

Altar girls and the use of fleets of EEM's are abuses, they were begun in defiance of authority, and they should be smacked down, hard, Deacon. Communion in the hand, similarly, was begun as an act of defiance.

But, they've been approved by Rome. If Rome didn't "smack them down" intially, it missed its chance because bishops will likely now fight for them, since they are now common practice.

No, "smacking them down" now will require considerable exegesis and and explanation.

Which means, they won't be "smacked down," because there's little support for that, among the bishops.

[sinkspur]

And to you, like LeCourboisier, buildings are merely machines for "living" in, or for "meeting" in, or whatever, eh?

Don't know the guy. But I have no problem with semi-circular church buildings, or churches which attempt to bring people closer to the altar.

You need a bit of remedial time studying the nature and purpose of art (of which architecture is a subset.)

Sorry. I've developed an appreciation for opera, but that's about it, because I like music. If churches are not functional, they're useless, AFAIC.

[sinkspur]

I wish you'd stop slandering the Curia for "trial-ballooning" this document. Reuters reports that the document was leaked by the PoofterLiturgyWonks to stir up opposition from the dedicated modernists.

Oh, I agree. The absolute LAST thing the Vatican bureaucrats wanted was for this document to see the light of day.

It is a work of the Spirit that it did.

[sinkspur]

for about 10 years or so. Then the crisis will be over and the Church will return to an authentic understanding of manhood, priesthood, and femininity.

I think the authentic understanding is there now.

But, we may retrograde yet.

[BlackElk]

My wife knows Fr. McLucas much better than I. She thinks the world of him as a priest. She is a good judge of character. One thing he certainly is not is insecure. He is a warrior.

[fatima]

nickcarraway bump.

[nickcarraway]

Thanks

[fatima]

nickcarraway,Your welcome.

[PennsylvaniaMom]

I agree with you 100%. My recollections mirror yours...I can clearly remember, as a young girl, thinking how it was somehow very wrong that our teachers, Sisters who had devoted their entire adult lives to their faith, could not set foot upon the altar...but any number of smart ass male contemporaries of mine could. At the age of 12.

I don't see female altar servers as the biggest problem facing the Church in America today. I see my Diocese, which paid out millions in pedophelia cases, asking the faithful for more offerings; I see Catholic education being priced out of the reach of the middle class ($6000 a year for HS in our Diocese); and I see the gross hypocrisy of 'catholic' (purposely with a lower case c) politicians being allowed free reign to use their faith as a prop rather than a theology they live by (think any Kennedy). I would be much more impressed if more Bishops spoke out against Catholic pols who vote against the ban on partial birth abortion rather than taking aim at 12 years girls as altar servers. Or clapping. The current controversy is more akin to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titantic .

[Cousin Eddie]

Amen!

[ninenot]

Yeah--disobedience, like certain other vices, gets to be habitual, doesn't it?

Rome has the authority and, for that matter, good REASON to make the practices in question go away. The Bishops only need to heed authority--although, with a little work, I am sure they can ALSO find the reasoning behind the moves, when they happen.

And I am absolutely sure that your obedience to Rome will prevail, too.

[ninenot]

If churches are not functional, they're useless, AFAIC

Dysfunctional is the description we can give to certain Dioceses.

As to Architecture, it is expected that the designer will take into accord the use of the building, and in the case of RC church buildings, the focus of the congregation is certainly not the celebrant--it is God.

All Art, properly understood, represents the True, Good, Beautiful, and Holy (all of which are, of course, a unity) and its application should reflect this.

"Ars pro gratia artis" is a modern heresy; the fact is, if "ars" is not "pro Deo" then it is not Art.

[ninenot]

It is a work of the Spirit that it did.

I am certain that the 'spirit' you referred to was Lucifer--that way, your remark cannot be scandalous, Deacon.

Since you know the pervert crowd quite well, I don't have to explain to you that one of their hallmarks is their proclivity to abandon their trusts--that is, double-cross their legitimate superiors.

And given their 'spiritual' father, I am also quite certain that they know very well how to lie artfully enough to confuse those who do NOT share their, ah, disorder--such as American church functionaries.

[ninenot]

Well, Deacon, that's curious. Given the parameters of this discussion, (altargirlies and other abuses) YOU state that 'manhood, femininity, and priesthood' are properly understood at this time.

Somehow, I doubt that, and as has often been stated, "you know the tree by its fruits."

We are certainly not lacking fruits, Deacon.

But they are not real men.

[ninenot]

I suggest to you that your accurate perception of problems in the Church (all of which are temporal) are a direct result of the abuse of Her Liturgy.

This is a synthesis. Defiance of authority, pervert clubs, treachery, and the 'reductio ad absurdum' which is the current liturgical practice in many places has led DIRECTLY to the pedophile problem, the money problems, and the "priest shortage" in certain well-defined Diocesan areas.

And this defiance and treachery was what began the whole process, well before the II Vatican Council was held. It was defined clearly as "modernism" in the early 1900's.

As to keeping women from the altar--this practice is a linear descendant of both Jewish Temple practice AND the Church's CERTAIN understanding of the inviolability of the male priesthood. It IS a synthesis. The altargirlie thing was a grave error based on the feminist heresy--a form of indifferentism--that women and men are all the same except for a few minor details which are irrelevant.

This error has enormous social repercussions outside the Church, as well--the 'women in combat zones' problem being only the most obvious and recent.

[ninenot]

Just to make clear where the lines are drawn on this debate, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel's lefty-wacko Waukesha County columnist rather impudently and disrespectfully dismissed the notion that handclapping, altargirlies, dancing, and fleets of EEM's are either illicit or regrettable practices.

Another vote for the "History Began When I Was Born" thesis...

[RobbyS]

Does this person claim to be Catholic?

[ninenot]

Yup.