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.

[wideawake]

Just trying to be logical here.

An admirable goal.

What do you think the church's priorities should be?

Restoring orthodoxy and orthopraxy to the Church.

Straightening out the legal mess or stifling members of the flock?

Anyone who believes that banning altar girls is "stifling" was never a member of the flock to begin with.

Altar girls began as a deliberate act of disobedience.

[Cousin Eddie]

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.

[ArrogantBustard]

The Church's priority should be what it has always been: preaching the Gospel to the ends of the Earth, and baptising all nations in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Kowtowing to the radical feminazis and flaming queers, as too many bishops have done for the last third to half century, is what stifles the flock.

[wideawake]

those of us who don't blindly agree with everything that comes out of the Vatican.

In other words, apostates.

Catholics obey the Holy See. Non-Catholics don't.

[nickcarraway]

They don't have enough priests and they are working very hard to alienate their largest group of active members, women.

I have some questions for you in this event:

Since you have identified that Catholicism has a problem attracting men, should they decide to abandon men and focus on women? Would that strategy benefit women or be detrimental to women?

Not just in Catholicism, but other Christian denominations their is often the problem that women are the largest group of active members? Has this benefited these women? Have you ever known women who complain about this very fact?

[SouthernFreebird]

You have a sewer of a mind.

Excuse me??? the church has been protecting child perverts and you accuse me of having a sewer mind. I wouldn't think anything like this if it didn't happen to be in the news for the last few years. Decades of the church priests having sex with little boys with protection from above. And what problem does the church find to deal...? girl alter boys. Go figure

[pgkdan]

That's one of the stupidest remarks I've ever seem anywhere. You should be proud of yourself! That's quite a feat.

[tarmac]

There is an old theological principle called lex orandi, lex credendi, which essentially means that the way in which you worship God reflects the way you think about God. Clapping hands to congratulate creatures at a time specifically reserved for reverent song or silent prayer to God implies that creatures deserve more attention than God in His own house.

The time, to which you refer, has been specifically reserved by man, not God. The way I think about God, is that an event which brings joy to his creatures, would be pleasing to God as well. Therefore, God might very well be leading the applause. Provided God has hands, of course.

[hilaryrhymeswithrich]

Dimentia?

[sinkspur]

The only Catholic parishes that are both gaining in numbers and producing new vocations are conservative parishes where altar girls are unknown.

That's not true, of course, but why not just issue sweeping generalizations to back up your point of view?

Female altar servers are a sideshow in this document.

What this article doesn't reveal is that there are also proposed restrictions on communion in the hand and under both kinds, both of which would never fly in the United States.

It's obvious that a coterie of reactionaries decided to issue a trial balloon, and it is quickly losing air, as bishops and cardinals, in other versions of this article, have said "these will never be accepted."

Trying to restrict quotations in homilies to Scripture alone? How silly. Bishop Fulton Sheen wouldn't have been able to give half the homilies he did, as he liberally quoted Shakespeare, and Chesterton, and Hammersjkold, and even Popes!

Or banning clapping for a newly baptized baby or new confirmand, or when the Pope processes in at Mass? Ludicrous.

What are these dolts thinking?

[ArrogantBustard]

Excuse me?

I find that difficult to do. The Church hierarchy proposes banning a theologically problematic practice which began as a subversive act of defiance to politically incorrect theology, and all you can think of is pederasty.

I'm sorry. I feel that I may have insulted the sewers of the world.

[Pan_Yans Wife]

Even non-Catholics like myself can see that removing altar girls from the church, would be a good thing. :)

If the Catholic Church has a set of rules or traditions that make them uniquely Catholic, then why would anyone who doesn't believe with these rules want to remain in such a church? To change the rules, and go against everything that the Church deems holy or important, weakens the Church, and doesn't strengthen it. It will cease to be the Catholic Church, if obstructionists have their way. The Church must protect itself.

[longtermmemmory]

No alter girls is just restating what is already the rule. I think this part is good. There is nothing wrong with working to re-educate people to the different roles of men and women in life.

[sitetest]

Dear Lorianne,

I just asked my wife, who is a Catholic, a woman, and a mother.

She's not offended.

The next generation here will continue to be reared Catholic.


sitetest

[Republic If You Can Keep It]

Like when the King of England wanted a divorce and the Pope said no.

Why did the king & the pope divorce? They seemed so happy together!

And anyway.....were they fighting over the kids, the money, or what?

[nickcarraway]

They don't have enough priests and they are working very hard to alienate their largest group of active members, women

You have identified that women are the largest groupof active members among Catholics. Yet until recently, there were no altar girls. If altar girls were a deciding factor in alienating women, then why have women been the largest group of active members throughout the Church history?

[sinkspur]

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.

[A. Pole]

Unbelievable. We complain about feminazis, about leftists claiming our young girls and twisting them, and they want to ban something that keeps at least some of them grounded? Are they insane?

Christian priesthood and conducting services is for men only.

[hilaryrhymeswithrich]

This in no way alienates me....just one Catholic woman's opinion.

I had along conversation with my brother last night about a similar topic. We all know the rules of the organizations we join be it Church, school etc. Barring any obvious evil,if we don't like the rules it isn't fair to those who do buy into them to insist on changing them just because you (the universal you) don't like them. The option is always there for you to find a group that fits.

[Lorianne]

No but I've heard priests and Catholic school teachers complain about the lack of males in church, and the lack of men active in their children's religious education. It is largely women who are responsible for bringing up the next generation of in the Church, or not.

It would seem logical to me that the church would want more men to participate (and more European origin people), but at the same time, alienating the groups who are currently the most active in the Church (women and non-European descent peoples) doesn't appear to me to be a good game plan.