[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

[passive1]

Girls serving at Mass is a small thing only if priestly vocations is a small problem. As I point out elsewhere in these postings, surveys have found that as many as 85% of priests began as altar boys. When boys disappear as altar servers, we should not be surprised that priestly vocations are also affected. The question we should be asking ourselves is which is more important: equal rights for girls or bringing more boys into the priesthood?

[JNB]

Try the Dominican Ran parish, Holy Rosary in Portland.