[Blzbba]

I don't understand why the Vatican and some traditional Catholics are so afraid of altar girls either.

It's either fear, ignorance, or a sense of overblown importance. Altar girls are harmless modernizations of the Mass and nothing more.

The Vatican's continued insistence that women are 2nd-class citizens (the only explanation for their abhorrence of women taking more-active roles in the Church) will cause them great harm in the future as more and more Catholic women wake up and smell the coffee.

[Desdemona]

The Vatican's continued insistence that women are 2nd-class citizens (the only explanation for their abhorrence of women taking more-active roles in the Church) will cause them great harm in the future as more and more Catholic women wake up and smell the coffee.

I am a Catholic woman and my place is not on the altar. It's actually in the choir loft.

The problem isn't active roles. It's VISIBLE ones. Women have always been the bedrock of the faithful. The sisters have forever done work that men don't. Yes, it's not prominant to MEN but it is to God. God knows and that's really all that matters.

[Aliska]

Catholic women wake up and smell the coffee.

Sad but true. Some already have. Some remain in the church because there is nowhere else to go but they see the double standard. If they are otherwise happy, they can live with it. I don't think future generations of women are going to be willing to take it any more, even if they never can be priests. Women wanting to be priests is only symbolic of the deeper issue. Regardless of what the men say, it doesn't change the reality that women are only good to be workhorses and child nurturers while the men get all the power, honor, and glory.

We really don't need altar persons of either sex when you come right down to it. It wouldn't bother me if they got back to basics and did away with it. I don't believe the eastern orthodox use children at the altar.

[Aquinasfan]

I don't understand why the Vatican and some traditional Catholics are so afraid of altar girls either.

My eight-year-old daughter recently asked me if girls could be priests. I said "no," and she wrinkled her nose. Certainly the sight of altar girls could lead her to this idea.

[My back yard]

women are 2nd-class citizens

Who says they are 2nd-class. Where does it suggest that unless they are let into the priesthood or the alter boys they are 2nd. They are just not boys. Boys and girls have different positions and duties in the church, as in life. Neither of them is more important than the other.

We're talking fundamental stuff here. It is time that the church offer the message that it is ok for girls to be girls and boys to be boys, and the best that they can be in their roles. It is ok for them to be mom's too, and not the breadwinner.

History is also full of great followers, without whom nothing of greatness is ever achievable. It is ok to be a follower, just be the best one you can possibly be.

The purpose to being a priest is doing service for Our Lord. A girl who wishes to circumvent the church in order to fulfill a personal need, rather than the needs of the church, is not of the proper mindset to serve. She serves herself. Just ask Mother Teresa.

I think one of the most evil things done to humanity is convincing them all that women in their roles are secondary.

[BlackElk]

If a woman is sooooo wedded to the standards of the world that equality (or what passes for equality) or ANYTHING else is more important that the Mass, the sacraments and the truth, then she has already apostasized and should recognize her apostasy by leaving until she conforms to the will of Christ as expressed through His Church. Equality lies in the fact that the same exact standard applies to men as well if any of them find ANYTHING more impotant than the Mass, the sacraments and the truth of the Church as described above.

Do not entertain yourself by supposing that fear has anything to do with it or ignorance (??????) or "overblown importance."

You last paragraph is a stew of paradoxes.

[Alberta's Child]

Nobody is "afraid" of altar girls. It's just that it doesn't make sense to have females serving in what is often a first step in the ordination process when they can't be ordained anyway.

[Antoninus]

It's either fear, ignorance, or a sense of overblown importance. Altar girls are harmless modernizations of the Mass and nothing more.

No, it's not. Altar boys have traditionally been a prime source of vocations to the priesthood. Hence, when you replace them with "altar girls," that source dries up. For a nation with a "priest shortage" you'd think the bishops in the US would be doing whatever it took to encourage vocations, not trying to strangle them in the cradle. Of course, if you know any of the inside politics of the Catholic Church in the US, you'd know that there are certain bishops whose mission in life seems to be the destruction of the all-male priesthood.

If you have a problem with the all-male priesthood, I suggest you take it up with Jesus.

[TradicalRC]

I don't know why you're so afraid of the Vatican. Most of what they say has its basis in Scripture. Or have you "progressed" beyond God as well?

Treating women as second class citizens is warmed over feminist garbage. Recognizing that God created differences between the sexes is something the Church has always known. Seems like Time or Newsweek just figured that one out a few years ago.

[RaginCajunTrad]

"...harmless modernizations of the Mass and nothing more."

The whole problem with these novelties of the Novus Ordo is that of the heresy of modernism. It is an attempt to conform the Church to the world rather than the world to the Church (and to Christ).

"The Vatican's continued insistence that women are 2nd-class citizens..."

The Vatican is not insisting that women are 2nd-class citizens. Quite the opposite. The Vatican realizes that there is a separation in the roles of men and women. It is very elementary and the modern unisex society has skewed the roles and acceptance thereof.

[onehipdad]

I agree, girls serving Mass is a small thing, and as a former lector, I found them to be more punctual and responsible to their duties, given the same amount of limited training extended to the boys (sigh, sure miss those Sisters of Providence). I say former lector because we walked out of our church of 15 years last May because our pastor could not resist the opportunity in his homily to once again condemn the President (on Mother's Day!) .

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

[Aquinasfan]

The Vatican's continued insistence that women are 2nd-class citizens (the only explanation for their abhorrence of women taking more-active roles in the Church)

How many female Apostles did Jesus choose?