Women Serving During Mass

[Selah]

Forget the positive! Where in blue blazes is my sammich!?!!?

[HisChildForever]

[quote name='Selah' date='05 May 2010 - 07:00 PM' timestamp='1273100401' post='2105579']
Forget the positive! Where in blue blazes is my sammich!?!!?
[/quote]

Make your own.

[BG45]

[quote name='HisChildForever' date='05 May 2010 - 07:07 PM' timestamp='1273100861' post='2105584']
Make your own.
[/quote]

+1

[Selah]

[quote]Make your own. [/quote]

But...I can't.

[Formosus]

[quote name='Apotheoun' date='24 April 2010 - 11:25 PM' timestamp='1272162308' post='2099499']
Why is "No" not an option?
[/quote]

I was curious about this myself.

I suppose I am fine with women readers, but only ordained clergy or those men who have been granted permission should be allowed within the Altar (sanctuary). So no women altar servers and why do we even need lay EMHCs. Just get rid of those all together. I see no reason why women cantors should not be allowed though, assuming that it is consistent with a particular church's liturgical tradition.

[Nihil Obstat]

I would like to add that my understanding of these issues is greater than it was in June '08.

[fides quarens intellectum]

[quote name='Formosus' date='05 May 2010 - 09:12 PM' timestamp='1273111952' post='2105679']
I was curious about this myself.

I suppose I am fine with women readers, but only ordained clergy or those men who have been granted permission should be allowed within the Altar (sanctuary). So no women altar servers and why do we even need lay EMHCs. Just get rid of those all together. I see no reason why women cantors should not be allowed though, assuming that it is consistent with a particular church's liturgical tradition.
[/quote]

That's interesting. I am no longer fine with women readers, and I actually stopped filling in as a lector at Mass because of St. Paul's 1st Letter to the Corinthians talking about how women should not be speaking out at church.

[Archaeology cat]

[quote name='fides quarens intellectum' date='09 May 2010 - 05:08 AM' timestamp='1273378085' post='2107469']
That's interesting. I am no longer fine with women readers, and I actually stopped filling in as a lector at Mass because of St. Paul's 1st Letter to the Corinthians talking about how women should not be speaking out at church.


[/quote]
Won't get any tomatoes from me - I've come to the same conclusion as you.

[Michele]

[quote name='HisChildForever' date='16 June 2008 - 07:05 PM' timestamp='1213664737' post='1573242']
I think that, by serving, a girl may feel Called to become a sister. After all, she's learning [b]obedience[/b] through serving.
[/quote]

i think your statement is sensible. i wonder statistically if a survey of people who became priests or nuns could give credit back to being an altar server when they were younger. i used to hear a parish prayer which included the words "(or nuns)" but only read the part about them becoming priests, and actually only employed the time of boys for altar servers at all the masses i'd ever seen there. but today on EWTN i watched our Pope celebrate mass for the Ascension/+Fatima, and there were 3 girl altar servers at his mass. i assume he approved of that decision to allow them to serve. i see girl altar servers all the time at local parishes. i don't really feel perturbed about it. it seems like they've got it handled well enough. if girls CAN be altar servers as good as boys can, why not? like you said, it could lead to the thing about obedience. in come-and-see visits to convents, i see how often they have a shortage of boys/men there, and the nuns (females) have to take care of many tasks (other than only what the ordained male priest may do) - for examples, i've seen nuns holding a monstrance to put it on the adoration altar for the handmaiden visiting adorers. there is a St. Clare holy card like that.

Edited May 14, 2010 by Michele

[Apotheoun]

Altar servers at papal masses are - as I understand it - seminarians, and I know of no female seminarians.

[Apotheoun]

As the article below indicates, as recently as 2008 female servers were not allowed at papal masses, but I suppose that - like everything else in the modern Roman rite - is open to revision.

[url="http://www.silive.com/news/index.ssf/2008/04/papal_masses_dominated_by_male.html"]Papal masses dominated by males[/url]

P.S. - For Eastern Christians (both Catholic and Orthodox) it is an Apostolic Tradition that males alone may serve at the altar.

[MIKolbe]

My oldest has expressed interest in being an altar server.

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='MIkolbe' date='14 May 2010 - 02:00 PM' timestamp='1273867230' post='2110681']
My oldest has expressed interest in being an altar server.
[/quote]
Curiosity about doing something exciting is common. One of my female students expressed the desire to serve at the altar, and said that she someday hopes to be a priest, and of course I had to tell her that neither of those things were possible. Life is often filled with hardships of one sort or another.

[MIKolbe]

you state the obvious with such compassion.

thank you.

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='MIkolbe' date='14 May 2010 - 02:10 PM' timestamp='1273867841' post='2110689']
you state the obvious with such compassion.

thank you.
[/quote]
You're welcome. I did give her a more detailed explanation, but I did not think that you needed that.