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.
Puns are fine. Painfully bad leaps of logic are not.
Yes, these excuses are spouted out by many, but so what?
The number of people arguing on behalf of the truth is immaterial. The truth is not.
1. Whether it started out as act of disobedience or not is neither here nor there.
If one is a Christian, one believes that all the pain and suffering in the world derives from a single act of disobedience. Loving God and serving him is consequential. It is not "neither here nor there."
Rosa Parks refusing to move to the back of the bus was an act of disobedience, and thank God for that.
This is the worst analogy I have seen in a while. If Rosa Parks had pushed the driver out of his seat at gunpoint and tried to drive the bus, you might have had a point. As it stands, you don't.
The origins of the practice have nothing to do with whether it is right or wrong TODAY.
In other words, all morality is purely situational. There is no right or wrong, there is only what is "right or wrong TODAY", as you put it.
This practice does not interfere with recruitment to the priesthood.
It certainly does and the statistics prove it. Wherever the practice is common there are next to no seminarians. Wherever the practice is rare, there are many.
Boys can still be altar boys, and if it influences them to become priests, then great.
At the age of 8-12 most boys would rather die than join a club with girls in it. The feminization of the acolytate is a sure way of discouraging boys from joining.
Whether or not there is a girl standing next to a 10 - 14 year old boy (the age of altar servers) during the mass is not going to affect a young man's decision to enter the priesthood when he is 18 - 20.
It affects his decision to stand at the altar in the first place.
Human nature does not change, no matter how radical feminist church-wreckers wish that it would.
Women have suffered from the lack of men devoted to the Church, because the end up ``unequally yoked,'' or with some similar problem.
Why did the king & the pope divorce? They seemed so happy together!
Double LOL! It is posts like that which make the board fun.
Define "young." Most Catholic parents bring their kids to Mass with them, even as teenagers.
I don't know of many parishes that rely on "young males" 18 and over to serve at Mass, so I'm not sure what your point is.
Even in the old days, when I was serving Mass, most Catholic boys were not altar servers, and only a handful ever darkened the door of a seminary, much less ever reached ordination.
This "well, we've got to restrict altar service to boys so we'll have future priests" is an old wives tale, in my experience.
This is no different than teachers in the schools of America... most are women. Could it be that women are drawn more to teaching, than men are?
That said, I don't really have a problem with just boys being altar servers as long as girls can still participate in Mass by bringing up the gifts, lecturing, and so on.
I agree that our priests need to remain guys, but there's got to be stuff us chicks can do to be involved in the Church also.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.