Altar Girls? Yea or Nay?

[Michie]

Did anyone read Fr. Longenecker’s objections to female altar servers in the op?

 

[Lady Bug]

Did anyone read Fr. Longenecker’s objections to female altar servers in the op?

Probably not. Probably most people don't read the articles that they comment on

 

[Michie]

Probably not. Probably most people don't read the articles that they comment on

For sure.

 

[mourningdove~]

Yes, I’m female. In my Anglican Church, it’s mostly adults serving, men and women of all ages. There’s even a woman of 80 doing it.

Hi @Sunflower39

I have posted in this thread that I prefer altar boys to altar girls ... and I do, because I was brought up in the Traditional Catholic Church, and I am traditional-minded about these kinds of things ... but I have no opinion on this subject when it comes to ways of the Anglican Church.

Many years ago, I did attend the Anglican Church for a few years with my first late-husband, and it was a very good experience for us. I appreciated the sense of reference observed in the services we attended there. The (married) priest in that church became a priest later in life. And he appeared totally devoted to God in his service to Him. It was a good little church for us at the time. (As I recall, there were female altar servers there, too.)

While I prefer altar boys in Roman Catholic services, I'm happy for you that you've found your ministry as an altar server in the Anglican Church. May God continue to bless you.

 

[mourningdove~]

Did anyone read Fr. Longenecker’s objections to female altar servers in the op?

I did ,,, but only down to the part where I read that Fr. Longenecker says 'Nay" to girl altar servers.

(I just went back and read the rest of the article!)

I appreciate hearing Fr. Longenecker's take on things. He often speaks with much wisdom, imo.

 

[Michie]

I did ,,, but only down to the part where I read that Fr. Longenecker says 'Nay" to girl altar servers.

(I just went back and read the rest of the article!)

I appreciate hearing Fr. Longenecker's take on things. He often speaks with much wisdom, imo.

I usually agree with most of the content he writes.

 

[Akita Suggagaki]

Did anyone read Fr. Longenecker’s objections to female altar servers in the op?

Yep, gender role confusion. I wonder how he feels about women doctors, lawyers, CEO's, and elected officials that all used to be male roles when women knew their places at home with children and housekeeping.

 

[Gnarwhal]

Are you suggesting that everyone who serves at the altar is aiming to become a priest? There are probably men and boys who simply enjoy serving at the altar without any desire for priesthood. So why shouldn’t girls and women have the same opportunity? I’m an altar server, and I enjoy it. I have no interest in becoming a priest; I’m just happy being part of the service.

The Bible does not contain any passages that forbid girls or women from serving as altar servers, which I think is why the Catholic Church has made it permissible. This has absolutely nothing to do with feminism. I think you’re being overly dramatic there.

That is the purpose of serving at altar in the Catholic Church. To give young men a close up view the priestly vocation so they can begin discerning at a young age. Since female priests are an ontological nonstarter that's technically why girls shouldn't serve at altar. But, like other bad decisions (Eucharistic ministers), they were born out of desperation and compromise.

And what's more, I've never seen an adult woman serve at altar in the Catholic Church. Even in cases where adults are serving, it's usually in the interest of training the younger servers and men are in charge of that.

 

[FaithT]

That is the purpose of serving at altar in the Catholic Church. To give young men a close up view the priestly vocation so they can begin discerning at a young age. Since female priests are an ontological nonstarter that's technically why girls shouldn't serve at altar. But, like other bad decisions (Eucharistic ministers), they were born out of desperation and compromise.

And what's more, I've never seen an adult woman serve at altar in the Catholic Church. Even in cases where adults are serving, it's usually in the interest of training the younger servers and men are in charge of that.

I don’t really think there’s a need for Eucharistic ministers at my church.

 

[Gnarwhal]

I don’t really think there’s a need for Eucharistic ministers at my church.

I don't think they need to be in any parish, and I mine the Masses are often full with sometimes just a priest and no deacon. Honestly an altar rail is a very efficient means of distributing Holy Communion, I've seen time trials and the rail was quicker than the line.

 

[FaithT]

I don't think they need to be in any parish, and I mine the Masses are often full with sometimes just a priest and no deacon. Honestly an altar rail is a very efficient means of distributing Holy Communion, I've seen time trials and the rail was quicker than the line.

My church was recently remodeled and I was hoping for a Communion rail but nope.

 

[Michie]

Yep, gender role confusion. I wonder how he feels about women doctors, lawyers, CEO's, and elected officials that all used to be male roles when women knew their places at home with children and housekeeping.

I’m sure he is just fine with it. Gender role confusion? He is talking about altar servers within the Church. And why he feels the way he does. No mention of doctors, lawyers, CEO’s or elected officials. No mention of women knowing their place, keeping house and all the others things you are insinuating. The Church is not of the world but to be the light of the world.

 

[boughtwithaprice]

Yep, gender role confusion. I wonder how he feels about women doctors, lawyers, CEO's, and elected officials that all used to be male roles when women knew their places at home with children and housekeeping.

If they are single, women can have any career they choose. They do a disservice to their children when they value career over their role as mother. Children need their mother. Day care is no substitute and actually breeds emotionally maladjusted children

“knew their place”? That is very disappointing to hear you say that. A married woman with children is a mother. It is the role God gave her, and it is disparaged today because of envy. I work with lots of women, and quite a few said they wish they could be married to me. Am I attractive or good looking? No, I am average or below, but I have the power to give them the lifestyle where they could stay home and take care of their children and never worry about work. One woman told me her children cried to her every morning and one little girl said, “mommy throw your work in the garbage”
I am already married, so I just hear their stories

Men are commanded to love their wives and give themselves for her. Women are called to be subject to their husbands, manage the home and take care of the kids. Those are the roles God gave them.

Modern feminism has rebelled against that, and judging by society, it does not look like the rebellion is working out too well.

Over 60 million dead babies, virginity is scorned and ridiculed, motherhood is to be avoided or derided. Men are turned into milk toast baby boys begging for sex. Fathers are portrayed as bumbling boobs that need a woman to smack them in line

I’m not complaining, this is reality, and it bears no resemblance to the shining city on a hill which is the city of God

 

[Akita Suggagaki]

I’m sure he is just fine with it. Gender role confusion?

"So the sexual revolution includes feminism and homosexualism which subvert traditional sexual roles. Those traditional sexual roles have always determined a woman’s core identity as wife and mother and the man’s core identity as a husband and father. The secular materialistic world prefers to identify a person not as a wife, mother husband and father, but according to their place in the power structures of the world. “What is your job? How much do you earn?” determine a person’s value and identity.

He is talking about altar servers within the Church. And why he feels the way he does. No mention of doctors, lawyers, CEO’s or elected officials. No mention of women knowing their place, keeping house and all the others things you are insinuating. The Church is not of the world but to be the light of the world.

So what does this have to do with girl altar servers you might ask? You don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to see that the push for girl altar servers is part of a feminist agenda driven by feminist assumptions about the world and the church. Put simply, girl altar servers help to subvert traditional gender roles and therefore create confusion in our boys and girls as their self understanding and personhood is in formation.

Where does one draw the line between traditional male roles and those that are now "ok" for females"?

 

[boughtwithaprice]

.

Where does one draw the line between traditional male roles and those that are now "ok" for females"?

The Church should be a witness for God against the errors of the world, not a participant in it

Wives be subject to your husbands, and women are to keep silence in the Church

The primary Christian virtue is humility and the meek shall inherit the earth. These virtues can best be displayed by women. They can be humble before their husbands, and everyone knows a woman has the power to manipulate a man and cause havoc in society which we are witnessing at this time. Meekness is not weakness, rather voluntary restraint of power for the greater glory of God

Most of today’s women do not display humility or meekness. They come across as arrogant entitled grumblers without gratitude

Today reminds me of the Psalm when it says

. 8 Today if you shall hear his voice, harden not your hearts: 9 As in the provocation, according to the day of temptation in the wilderness: where your fathers tempted me, they proved me, and saw my works. 10 Forty years long was I offended with that generation, and I said: These always err in heart.

11 And these men have not known my ways: so I swore in my wrath that they shall not enter into my rest.



Today’s women are like the ungrateful men of Israel. God lead us out into the desert to starve and die of thirst. He wants us to conquer Canaan but there are too many giants, we will be killed

God has given you a perfect life. You don’t have to work and God’s men are commanded to love you and give themselves for you. All He asks is that you submit in humility and raise the children, but they can’t do that, they are full of envy for the roles of men. That is not what God commands you to do or anyone to do

The greatest among you shall be your servant, esteem all others as better than yourself, love your enemies. Satan has bewitched women to get them to rebel against God by supposedly rebelling against men

Girls, you need to repent

 

[Akita Suggagaki]

If they are single, women can have any career they choose. They do a disservice to their children when they value career over their role as mother. Children need their mother. Day care is no substitute and actually breeds emotionally maladjusted children

It is tooo bad that these days mothers very often MUST work with or without a father present.

“knew their place”? That is very disappointing to hear you say that. A married woman with children is a mother. It is the role God gave her,

Isn't a "role" her place?

and it is disparaged today because of envy. I work with lots of women, and quite a few said they wish they could be married to me. Am I attractive or good looking? No, I am average or below, but I have the power to give them the lifestyle where they could stay home and take care of their children and never worry about work. One woman told me her children cried to her every morning and one little girl said, “mommy throw your work in the garbage”
I am already married, so I just hear their stories

O, I get it. My mother stayed home and took care of us and the house. It was great. And dad worked in a steel mill for 32 years.

Men are commanded to love their wives and give themselves for her. Women are called to be subject to their husbands, manage the home and take care of the kids. Those are the roles God gave them.

I wonder how many here interpret that the way you do. "Women are called to be subject to their husbands." How about it Mitchie?

Modern feminism has rebelled against that, and judging by society, it does not look like the rebellion is working out too well.

Over 60 million dead babies, virginity is scorned and ridiculed, motherhood is to be avoided or derided.

only by some. Many women seek IVF at all kinds of ages just to become mothers.

Men are turned into milk toast baby boys begging for sex. Fathers are portrayed as bumbling boobs that need a woman to smack them in line

Is that an accurate portrayal?

I’m not complaining, this is reality, and it bears no resemblance to the shining city on a hill which is the city of God

 

[Akita Suggagaki]

The Church should be a witness for God against the errors of the world, not a participant in it

Wives be subject to your husbands, and women are to keep silence in the Church

The primary Christian virtue is humility and the meek shall inherit the earth. These virtues can best be displayed by women. They can be humble before their husbands, and everyone knows a woman has the power to manipulate a man and cause havoc in society which we are witnessing at this time. Meekness is not weakness, rather voluntary restraint of power for the greater glory of God

Most of today’s women do not display humility or meekness. They come across as arrogant entitled grumblers without gratitude

Today reminds me of the Psalm when it says

. 8 Today if you shall hear his voice, harden not your hearts: 9 As in the provocation, according to the day of temptation in the wilderness: where your fathers tempted me, they proved me, and saw my works. 10 Forty years long was I offended with that generation, and I said: These always err in heart.

11 And these men have not known my ways: so I swore in my wrath that they shall not enter into my rest.



Today’s women are like the ungrateful men of Israel. God lead us out into the desert to starve and die of thirst. He wants us to conquer Canaan but there are too many giants, we will be killed

God has given you a perfect life. You don’t have to work and God’s men are commanded to love you and give themselves for you. All He asks is that you submit in humility and raise the children, but they can’t do that, they are full of envy for the roles of men. That is not what God commands you to do or anyone to do

The greatest among you shall be your servant, esteem all others as better than yourself, love your enemies. Satan has bewitched women to get them to rebel against God by supposedly rebelling against men

Girls, you need to repent

That was a bit of a rant. Don't you think? so Where does one draw the line between traditional male roles and those that are now "ok" for females"?

 

[Michie]

From the op:

Of course having girl altar servers doesn’t cause these problems any more than allowing girls to join the Boy Scouts. However, all of these decisions–minor in themselves–contribute together to a shift in assumptions and expectations that are part of the wider sexual revolution.

This, I have come to understand, is part of our reason for having only boy altar servers.

So how does this work in practice? In our parish we encourage boys to be altar servers. They love serving and when I’m outside greeting people coming to Mass the boys run up, “Father can I serve today?” We typically have five or six boys serving the weekend Masses and at the main high Mass at 10:30 we will have up to twenty boys serving. The younger boys fit in and learn the ropes. The older boys mentor them as big brothers.

What about the girls? We have formed a fine girls’ choir and the girls are encouraged to contribute to worship by singing in the choir–and they do so to a cathedral-standard–leading the Mass parts and hymns and singing the Gregorian chant and sacred polyphony that makes up our Catholic worship.

Have I explained all of my thinking on this topic to our boys and girls? No. This is just the way we live and worship together. It’s natural. It’s traditional. It’s Catholic. Detailed analysis is not always necessary. Life that is local is real and reality trumps theory every time.

Finally, some will ask how we managed to create this situation in a modern American parish. I outlined the steps in my book Letters on Liturgy but basically, when I came to the parish I did not alienate the girls who were serving. They were good girls from fine families. Instead we segregated boys and girls. Boys served at some Masses. Girls at others. Girls wore the cassock albs. Boys wore traditional cassocks and surplices. We started the girls choir. Eventually the boys naturally migrated to altar serving and the girls to the choir. In time we stopped training new girl altar servers.

Now there are few objections and when there are we take the time to listen to the concerns and explain our position. There is, of course, some disagreement but the overall joy that our boys show in serving the altar and our girls in singing in a choir to be proud of is sufficient reward.

 

[boughtwithaprice]

That was a bit of a rant. Don't you think? so Where does one draw the line between traditional male roles and those that are now "ok" for females"?

A rant? We have been listening to women rant in earnest since the sexual revolution in the 1960s
Time to end the insanity

The roles are not divided. The man is responsible for his household and should be able to perform all the duties or keep the home. His wife is his helpmeet, not his competitor .

If you think of the home as a ship, the father is the captain and his wife is his executive officer, the children are the crew. What feminism has done is lead a mutiny, and the family ships are sinking all over the place

We have divorce, adultery, single parent homes.
IVF is no good, as it kills more than it creates, and donor eggs add adultery to the mix. Society has separated procreation from the marital act.


Mary Wollstonecraft, the author of A Vindication of the Rights of Women, believed that women of her time were undereducated and groomed to be mothers. This came out of the French Revolution which made “reason” its god, instead of the Lord. She reasoned that a woman was a human being apart from being a mother.

Her daughter Mary Shelley was part of a free love group with her husband Percy Shelley and their friend Lord Byron. This was free love 150 years before the 1960s

Reason as god, and rebellion against Christian truth came to its logical conclusion with Elizabeth Stanton and Susan B Anthony who wrote the Declaration of Sentiments. It was a woman’s rewrite of the Declaration of Independence, and Stanton eventually wrote a woman’s Bible with the serpent as hero and source of great wisdom.

See any red flags yet?

I don’t divide what society has lampooned into men’s work and women’s work.

I am the captain of my ship and I am capable of doing all tasks to keep the ship afloat. Cooking, cleaning, changing and feeding babies. I am incapable of bearing children or nursing them, nor would I endeavor to try.

My wife is my executive officer and I have given her full power of attorney to that end. She used to have problems at the bank and they would give her grief preventing her transactions because I was not there. She is my wife, and before women’s liberation a wife could not testify against her husband as they were considered one person, and the USA has the fifth amendment where one is not required to testify against themselves. I had my lawyer draw up the power of attorney papers, and now she has no problems, as far as the bank goes, she is me .

I don’t separate male and female jobs, but the role is leader and help meet, not oppressor and competition. Those roles lead to misery, God’s roles lead to life

This 50 50 partnership and mutual submission is crap. It’s 100 100, all in or no go. I am not good enough to be a captain? She doesn’t like that? Ok don’t come onboard, that ship don’t sail, next.

My daughter will be taught to be a woman, not a feminist. College is a lot of money and a big waste of time if all she is going to do is quit working to have kids. I’d rather sponsor her with a dowry so her and her husband can get married younger and build a family together rather than face the temptation of sterile sex advocated by society. She could live her life for God, rather than in conflict with the Church.

If a woman wants a career, why have children? Stay single and chaste.
If she wants children, why deprive the children of their mother to pursue a career that probably only makes enough to pay for the daycare anyway? Children need their mother at home especially up to age 5.

 

[Akita Suggagaki]

A rant? We have been listening to women rant in earnest since the sexual revolution in the 1960s
Time to end the insanity

The roles are not divided. The man is responsible for his household and should be able to perform all the duties or keep the home. His wife is his helpmeet, not his competitor .

If you think of the home as a ship, the father is the captain and his wife is his executive officer, the children are the crew. What feminism has done is lead a mutiny, and the family ships are sinking all over the place

We have divorce, adultery, single parent homes.
IVF is no good, as it kills more than it creates, and donor eggs add adultery to the mix. Society has separated procreation from the marital act.


Mary Wollstonecraft, the author of A Vindication of the Rights of Women, believed that women of her time were undereducated and groomed to be mothers. This came out of the French Revolution which made “reason” its god, instead of the Lord. She reasoned that a woman was a human being apart from being a mother.

Her daughter Mary Shelley was part of a free love group with her husband Percy Shelley and their friend Lord Byron. This was free love 150 years before the 1960s

Reason as god, and rebellion against Christian truth came to its logical conclusion with Elizabeth Stanton and Susan B Anthony who wrote the Declaration of Sentiments. It was a woman’s rewrite of the Declaration of Independence, and Stanton eventually wrote a woman’s Bible with the serpent as hero and source of great wisdom.

See any red flags yet?

I don’t divide what society has lampooned into men’s work and women’s work.

I am the captain of my ship and I am capable of doing all tasks to keep the ship afloat. Cooking, cleaning, changing and feeding babies. I am incapable of bearing children or nursing them, nor would I endeavor to try.

My wife is my executive officer and I have given her full power of attorney to that end. She used to have problems at the bank and they would give her grief preventing her transactions because I was not there. She is my wife, and before women’s liberation a wife could not testify against her husband as they were considered one person, and the USA has the fifth amendment where one is not required to testify against themselves. I had my lawyer draw up the power of attorney papers, and now she has no problems, as far as the bank goes, she is me .

I don’t separate male and female jobs, but the role is leader and help meet, not oppressor and competition. Those roles lead to misery, God’s roles lead to life

This 50 50 partnership and mutual submission is crap. It’s 100 100, all in or no go. I am not good enough to be a captain? She doesn’t like that? Ok don’t come onboard, that ship don’t sail, next.

My daughter will be taught to be a woman, not a feminist. College is a lot of money and a big waste of time if all she is going to do is quit working to have kids. I’d rather sponsor her with a dowry so her and her husband can get married younger and build a family together rather than face the temptation of sterile sex advocated by society. She could live her life for God, rather than in conflict with the Church.

If a woman wants a career, why have children? Stay single and chaste.
If she wants children, why deprive the children of their mother to pursue a career that probably only makes enough to pay for the daycare anyway? Children need their mother at home especially up to age 5.

so in your view women should not have jobs traditionally held by men such as doctor, lawyer, police officer, mayor, etc