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To: wideawake
Neither of these "reasons" hold water (and pardon the multiple puns). Yes, these excuses are spouted out by many, but so what?

1. Whether it started out as act of disobedience or not is 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. The origins of the practice have nothing to do with whether it is right or wrong TODAY.

2. This practice does not interfere with recruitment to the priesthood. Boys can still be altar boys, and if it influences them to become priests, then great. 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.
62 posted on 09/24/2003 3:46:13 PM PDT by Cousin Eddie
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To: Cousin Eddie
This practice does not interfere with recruitment to the priesthood. Boys can still be altar boys, and if it influences them to become priests, then great. 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.

Of course it doesn't. Most of the men entering seminaries today are in the mid-20s, after college, far after the days when they were serving at an altar.

There's other stuff in this "draft" that is far more insidious than restricting the use of altar girls.

77 posted on 09/24/2003 3:55:58 PM PDT by sinkspur (Adopt a dog or a cat from a shelter! You'll save at least one life, maybe two!)
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To: Cousin Eddie
Neither of these "reasons" hold water (and pardon the multiple puns).

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.

83 posted on 09/24/2003 3:58:01 PM PDT by wideawake (God bless our brave soldiers and their Commander in Chief)
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To: Cousin Eddie
Rosa Parks refusing to move to the back of the bus was an act of disobedience, and thank God for that.

Rosa Park was fighting for political rights and equality. The Church is not a democracy. And God is not an elected official.

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.

How do you know?

111 posted on 09/24/2003 4:12:46 PM PDT by A. Pole
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To: Cousin Eddie
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.

The girl's presence at the alter probably means there is one less boy there. If she is not out-right displacing the boy, having her fill the position means there is less ipetus to find a boy to fill the position. As it stands at many churchs today, all of the alter servers are girls and there are no boys. Being an alter server increases the chances of a boy later seeking the priesthood, therefore we should seek to have as many positions filled with boys as possible.

190 posted on 09/24/2003 6:08:44 PM PDT by Flying Circus (As you do pray, so you do believe)
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