Well, a building is just a building.
Posted on 09/23/2003 7:50:20 AM PDT by presidio9
No dancing in the aisles or applause in church, please, we're Catholic. And we'd prefer altar boys to altar girls.
Those are some of the warnings contained in the draft of a document the Vatican (news - web sites) is preparing to crack down on what it considers "liturgical abuses" of the mass, the focus of Roman Catholic worship.
According to the authoritative Italian Roman Catholic monthly magazine "Jesus," a draft document urges the faithful to notify their bishop or the Vatican to report suspected abuses.
The magazine released an advance text of the article which will feature in its October edition.
If issued in its draft form, the document, known as a directive, could have wide-ranging ramifications on some worship practices that have come into common use in many developed countries, particularly the United States and in western Europe.
According to the magazine, the draft says the use of girl altar servers should be avoided "unless there is a just pastoral cause" and that "priests should never feel obliged to seek girls for this function."
The Vatican in 1994 gave individual bishops the power to decide whether to allow altar girls in their dioceses. But some conservative Catholics are against altar girls, saying their presence has eroded a traditional recruiting ground for priests.
Traditionalists have also seen altar girls as a foot in the door to a female priesthood, which the church bans.
Italian media reported that the initial reaction to the draft, circulated to the world's bishops, has been negative and the document may have to be at least partially modified.
The draft document also discourages applause during masses and "dances inside the sacred building."
Ironically, Pope John Paul (news - web sites)'s sermons during masses, even those in St Peter's Basilica, are often interrupted by applause.
Some of the pope's masses in Rome and around the world have included dancing, particularly those celebrations marking Asian, African or Latin American events.
The document, drafted by two Vatican departments which oversee doctrine and liturgy, was ordered by the pope who will eventually have to approve a final version.
The draft also warns against the use of non-Biblical language during the mass, such as readings from poets.
It discourages the practice where the faithful receive the wafer and wine at communion.
Catholics believe Christ is present in the wafer and wine but the document says it is preferable just to receive the wafer.
"Self-service" communion is also frowned upon. This appeared to be a reference to the faithful taking the consecrated host directly from the chalice instead of receiving it on their tongue from the hand of a priest.
We've spent the summer visiting different churches and all of them have problems to the extent that it's nearly impossible to concentrate on the matter at hand; the bottom line culminates in a basic lack of reverence. There's too much gabbing before Mass, the servers slouch and fidget, the choirs perform rather than complement the Mass and are congratulated with vigorous applause afterwards, and most people don't use a Missal or follow along with paperback prayerbooks provided them. At the Church we're currently attending (wife wins out), the priest gives great homilies, but he skips the Gloria (more time for his homily, maybe), rushes through the preparation of the bread and wine and jokes with the servers during absolution, and "wings" the Eucharistic Prayer. I know I should address this with him but I haven't gotten around to it yet (I will, though). But that's pretty much the same wherever we go around Portland. /rant
Well, a building is just a building.
Well, you are picking it up on your own, cause that is not what is being offered.
Saying women can not be priests is not sexism, it is reality. The Church has said so.
It has little to do with my applecart. It has much to do with the way Jesus established His Church and the way the Church will forever be.
It is no more "sexist" than the Church's insistence that men can only marry women, and women men. It is simply an acknowledgement of the roles God created for the sexes.
To rail against this as some sort of slight or opression is to struggle against reality.
SD
A building set apart for the service of God is not "just a building."
Do you then not favor laws against the desecration of churches? Is burning down a crack house the moral or legal equivalent of burning down a church?
SD
That's your reality. It's not mine. You only want to put me down. You have offered nothing to lift me up. And you would expect me to go to men like you for spiritual answers. I don't think so. I'll find my own. It won't be from someone who sounds like you sound.
Jesus is present at all times in the heart of the believer, and the witness of the Holy Spirit confirms this.
The Bishops have expressly prohibited any and all forms of dancing in the Liturgy.
I see. The Bishops have this prohibited. But where does God prohibit it?
I attended school at St. Joseph High School, which is in the Diocese of Cleveland. I've been to many a Mass.
Three times through. It doesn't say a whole lot to make women feel better about their womanhood. Even Jesus referred to one woman as a dog in front of other listeners. There is a lot about attitudes that I don't understand.
Maybe it's not about you. When God created the world, do you think He designed things so that they would create the most misery for you?
Did He make a mistake? Is His Church wrong?
Is "lifting you up" synonymous with all of us men admitting we are just full of it and really just like male priests because it helps us subjegate women? Should we crawl to you and apologize and start ordaining women immediately?
Would that lift you up? Would you smile?
SD
Absolutely -- I was May queen in high school and crowned the statue in Church -- after a procession of all the elementary, high school and Sunday school students around the block (my parish did it up big in those days!).
But as I recall the hymn, it was
Bring flowers of the fairest, bring flowers of the rarest,
From garden and woodland and hillside and dale.
Our full hears are swelling, our glad voices telling,
The praise of the loveliest Rose of the Vale.
O Mary, we crown thee with blossoms today
Queen of the Angels, Queen of the May. (2)
We did burn a British priest, one Fr. Wycliffe, at the stake in England for publishing an unauthorized English-language mistranslation of Scripture against the direct orders of his superiors. Nothing particularly unique AND nothing particularly significant.
How many female Apostles did Jesus choose?
Applause that "distracts from worhip and praise of God?"
Hmmm...
That had nothing to do with her being a woman and everything to do with her being a gentile. He tested her faith by explaining to her that he was not sent to her kind (whom the Jews considered dogs). When she persisted and would not take "no" for an answer, He relented and granted her a miracle.
She passed the test and thus pleased Jesus greatly.
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