Posted on 09/24/2003 3:06:09 PM PDT by 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.
This "suicidal relgion" is two thousand years old, and has grown from 12 Apostles to one billion Catholics. If this is suicide, give us more of it.
Grounded in what, a traditionally all male role? Altar girls is feminism on steroids, and banning them is banning feminism in the Catholic Church. Personally, I am sick of seeing little girls on the altar fixing their hair, giggling to each other and looking out into the pews to wink and smile at their mothers. That is not the purpose of acolytes.
Questions like this simply amaze me. Have you taken a look lately at what's happened to the Catholic Church since liberals and feminists have had their way? It stands in a shambles, reeling from all the errors of liberalism, feminism and worldliness. Every Pope for nearly 2,000 has "backed" what Pope JPII is trying to do now; which is to bring back sanity and the traditional form of worship to the Church. Why do you even ask such a question?
What you fail to see is that the mentality that allowed all this innovation and silliness in the first place is the very same mentality that has allowed the queer clergy to disgrace the holy name of the Catholic Church. This liberal mentality must be abolished, along with the self destructive, liberal innovations like altar girls and fat women reading the epistles from the lecturn.
There are over 400,000 Catholic preists in the world, my dear. More than enough. Once the Vatican restores traditions and conservatism, rids the Church of feminism and queers, (which it is now trying to do), men will return to the priesthood in droves. Though women are "active", as you say, they are "active" in subverting the Church's traditions more than helping it in any way.
Altar girls never existed until the 1980's, it's a recent innovation. Banning girls from the altar never kept them from being Catholic before, why would it now?
The strategy is this: first, you create a crisis. Then, you use the crisis as a pretext to impose your "solution".
Typical response by a new-age "Catholic".
Just so you understand, stanz, the Church of Christ was never, ever meant to be 'attractive' in the context you desire it to be. On the contrary, Jesus told us to reject selfish desires and worldiness, and He said: "Take up your cross and follow me". Christ also said: "If they persecute me, they will persecute you also".
No, the "attractiveness" of the Catholic Church is not that we get what we want, or that we find creature comfort there, but that in our sufferings and joys, in the health of our youth and the infirmity of our old age we follow Christ to the Cross, and to eternal happiness in the next world. You new-age "Catholics" have forgotten the real message of Christianity. You seek to fullfil the desires of your pride and ego by finding "equality" in the Church, rather than in humble submission to lawful Church authority and in prayer.
May God speed the Pope's actions to bring back the truth.
The Vatican has already defined the real issue, they quite correctly called it HOMOSEXUALITY. The cheif spokesman for the Pope also stated that the Church must find a way to ban the ordination of these perverts in the future.
"Pedophilia" was just the convenient term the anti-Catholic news media used in their daily barrage of gossip stories. Most of the victims of preistly abuse were post-pubescent boys. The media are saturated by homosexuals, and so they would not use the correct terminology to describe the scandals.
My daughter is an (Episcopalian) altar server. She is a serious, devout girl (with a special devotion to St Maria Goretti), and no raving feminist, steroids or no. I assure you she takes her this year's promotion to within the rail very seriously (only 4th year acolytes and above - everybody else is crucifer, torchbearer, tacky felt banner toter, etc.) She doesn't giggle, her hair is firmly up, and you can see that she is completely concentrated on her service. While it seems slightly frivolous, the only thing I can compare her to is a very good waiter in a small, quiet restaurant - very quiet, very unobtrusive, never putting herself forward but always in the right place at the right time with whatever the celebrant needs. And, after all, doesn't the Lord's Supper deserve the very best service? (Mel Brooks to the contrary notwithstanding . . . ;-) "will you have a beverage with that?" )
Because of all the heretical brouhaha in the Episcopal Church, we will be going either to a orthodox Anglican church (if an orthodox wing is established in October by Canterbury) or signing up for RCIA. She will be disappointed if she is not allowed to serve -- but she has done Altar Guild as well and performs that duty competently and well (rinsing the vessels and plate, cleaning candlesticks, etc.), so she has an alternative if the local bishop does not permit female altar servers.
BTW, the way our church avoided the problem of discouraging boys from altar service is to have sex-segregated teams. It seems to work pretty well.
Huh? The Vatican created the crisis of homosexual preists in the U.S. so they could exercise their lawful right abolish liberal abuses in the Church? The Vatican doesn't need a pretext to do anything, they are the lawful authority of the Catholic Church, which is not a democracy.
Huh? So the rest of the bible couldn't be used for sermons? Sounds like this may have been misquoted or taken out of context.
If not, then I think this is a clear sign the Pope needs to be retired.
You say you may leave your church, I don't blame you. But since Maria Goretti was a devout Catholic, and it was her very Catholicity that made her proclaim: "No, I cannot do this, it will offend God", to her attacker, why not follow in Maria Goretti's footsteps and become a Catholic?
You misunderstood me. I was referring to the decline in vocations, which is caused mostly by modernist "reforms". Next, modernists want more "reforms" to fix the problems they caused.
(We are "nosebleed high Anglican", or as my dad says, "up in the rafters with the bats".)
But given all the complaining here on FR about Vatican II, folk masses, communion in both kinds and in the hand, mean short haired feminist theologians, heretical priests, etc., we are going to take a long hard look at our local bishop and nearby parishes before we take the plunge. No point in going from the Episcopal frying pan into the Catholic fire!
For my part, I would welcome you aboard if you choose to become Catholic. I note that you're flying a Georgia flag. None of the dioceses which prohibit altar-girls are in Georgia. I seem to recall that about a decade ago one of the bishops in Georgia was a real bad actor, and his replacement was specifically charged with cleaning up the mess. I also seem to recall that he had done a decent job of it.
The problems "folk masses, communion in both kinds and in the hand, mean short haired feminist theologians, heretical priests, etc." are not evenly distributed. Virginia, for example, has one diocese (Arlington) which is often held up as an exemplar of orthodoxy, and another (Richmond) which is an exemplar of lunacy.
My brother in law is an Episcopal convert to Catholicism - he will never go back. He, and I, both attend the old fashioned Catholic Tridentine, (Latin), Mass. The innovations found in the modern Catholic Church are merely what the Protestants sought after for so long. But they will not last. Perhaps you could come on over to the true Church and add a much needed conservative dimension to her. It has always been said that converts make the best Catholics, and I agree with this 100%.
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