Right wing Catholics and female altar servers

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FGS.

I’m a culturally Protestant atheist. But I’m
also female. How are grown men and women in this day and age actually able to be even performatively upset at a female person at the altar with the Pope?

We had female altar servers in my childhood Catholic Church in the 1980s… though I’m not entirely sure the priest had approval for it.

I’m a very lapsed catholic. I find all the sexism depressing. Not sure what this is referring to though. Good there is a female Archbishop of Canterbury…. She will face huge challenges.

I'm a culturally Catholic atheist, and yes, it is crazy. Having said that, a sizeable group of C of E priests and bishops jumped ship to Catholicism when women were first ordained, because they preferred moving to a different version of Christianity (which involved the Pope inventing a new Ordinariate to allow married Anglicans to become Catholic priests) to the horrible prospect of remaining within a church with women priests!

I have a C of E priest friend, a woman, who has usually worked as a university chaplain, but who, when she used to locum for vicars on holiday, said she regularly dealt with parishioners who required advance notice of which services she was taking, so they could avoid them, and who, even if they tolerated a service, refused to take holy communion from her.

A person with a vagina and ovaries on the altar is clearly triggering for a certain type of person.

I’m probably just importing rage bait from Twitter, but certainly there are some very odd Catholics on there who genuinely seem to think that a female person with a ceremonial role where the Pope is, is wrong.

Yes, they were introduced in my home parish in the 80s by one parish priest (fortunately too late for me, because my mother would certainly have forced my sisters and I to do it, as she did my brother), but were all summarily fired again when he retired and a new PP came in.

At the risk of being the Devil's Advocate here, I think that they have established a single sex organisation over many, many years (centuries, in fact) and, in their view, no person of the opposite sex has the ability to identify into the role just because they really, really want to. And if those people don't agree with this being a single sex organisation, they are perfectly at liberty to join and perform the role at other similar organisations that are mixed sex.

Permissibility: In 1994, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments clarified that Canon 230 §2 allows for women to serve at the altar, reversing the strict 1980 ban.

• Bishop’s Discretion: Individual bishops decide whether to permit girls to serve in their dioceses.
• Priest’s Discretion: A priest cannot be forced to have female altar servers, even if the bishop allows them.
• Traditional Preference: The Church still encourages the formation of altar boy groups, as it is seen as a way to foster vocations to the priesthood.

The problem stems from the Bishops and Priests discretion

Ive seen women giving out communion as well as altar girls
Id prefer a progressive church

but then Rochester Cathedrals ( Church of England) choir is boys only
They have a separate girls one but they don’t do the main services
The altar boys are also boys.( not been there since 2010 ish thi so may have changed)

Canterbury Cathedral also have only had mixed sex since 2014

The Catholic Church is not a single sex organisation.

It is at the 'management' end of the business. You know, the actual acting as a conduit between non-ordained customers and their god bit.

agree and
Times
they are a changing even more

Pope Francis changed canon law in 2021 (Apostolic Letter Spiritus Domini) to allow women to be formally installed as lectors (readers) and acolytes (altar servers). They can also serve as extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion.

Leadership roles
Women hold positions in the Vatican Curia, including roles in the Dicastery ( central Governing body of the Catholic Church) for Bishops and as under-secretaries of the Synod of Bishops.

Historically and now
Women have a long history as religious sisters or nuns, leading institutions, conducting missionary work, and providing education and pastoral support

Teaching and pastoral
Women teach in theological seminaries, serve as canon lawyers, and work as pastoral associates or directors of religious education in parishes.

Discussions continue regarding expanded roles for women, with some reformers advocating for a women's diaconate.

I’m Catholic and I don’t want female priests etc - AMA!

I don't want women priests either, and I'm glad that the female diaconate has been ruled out.

Convents always allowed some women to have the same ecclesiatical status as Bishops (which was of course very challenging for some men).

I've been a reader and a eucharistic minister for decades, but I can see that boys resist taking on any job they see as being 'for girls', so can understand why people question girl altar servers.

PS, I am not 'right wing' in any sense that that term was used until the last two or three years.

I’m an atheist ‘cradle catholic’. I was an alter server back in the 80s, and there were more female than male.

But why would you allow some boys' misogyny to prevent girls from doing something, in case it puts boys off doing it too?

Why you don't want women priests or deacons while you're happy to be utilised in a support role without which the average parish couldn't function is another matter.

Priests are not managers or social workers or Sunday school teachers or secretarial support, though they do all those things and more; as @NeverDropYourMooncup put it, they are the conduit between non-ordained customers and their god bit. The centre of the Mass, and the thing the servers serve, is the Eucharist, the sharing of the consecrated and transubstantiated body and blood of Christ. That seems to be something that needs a celibate male celebrant. It is a supernatural role.

That's why biologists are outraged by it, but advanced quantum physicists have no problem.

I can see the argument for celibate, but why do they have to be male?

I don't know, but male celibacy and female celibacy involve different sorts of sacrifice and commitment. Because men and women are different. In the secular world they should be equally able to access any job, fulfill any role. Female religious communities are as valid as male religious communities.

But the priesthood has a different quality and a unique role.

I’m from a very religious family (I’m now an atheist). In 1992 our local priest said he was going to allow a few female alter servers. Oh the out cry my mother, aunts and grandmother actually cried, pure devastation, actually considered writing to the pope. We where all made to do a double rosary for two weeks to see if god could sway the
priests mind. I thought times had changed!

Girls were altar servers at my school in the 1960s.

In a Catholic Church. That seems very Progressive
.

I was an altar server in the 90s. Had they not allowed girls there would have been none...

I’m a Catholic, I spent 12 years in Catholic school in London and did all my sacraments. I had nuns for teachers. We have always had female altar servers (I started school in the 80’s). I remember some girls in my class doing it. My cousins are altar servers (m/f). My brother serves at a particularly traditional parish that does Mass in Latin and has ladies showing up in headscarves and I’ve never seen female servers there, but then maybe it’s only my brother and his friend.
The people bashing female servers also have been complaining about all women on the altar eg readers and Eucharistic ministers. Again, I read, have done for many years, no one would bat an eyelid, including before 2021. My mum is a Eucharistic minister, like many other women. In the super traditional parish I don’t think I’ve ever seen them use a Eucharistic Minister, but certainly they have female readers.
Pope Francis did some work to get women into more
leadership roles but it’s a global organisation filled with old men and many conservative people so I can’t imagine women priests or even deacons coming any time soon, it would be nice to be wrong. But the altar servers outcry does seem quite far removed from reality…

It’s a really interesting question when you get beyond the outrage and bigotry.

It’s not unlike same sex marriage.

I’m in favour of both women in ministry and same sex marriage, but I understand those who are not. Some of them are indeed simply bigoted and unpleasant people. I would say most are not. They have a fixed understanding of words and their meanings, theology, doctrine, and think that x precludes y by definition.

I had a moment some years ago where I was confused about same sex marriage because of a lifetime’s understanding of the words marriage, groom and bride. My brain couldn’t compute to dress wearing brides, or two suit wearing grooms, and thought that one of them would have to take on the other role. One of the women would need to be the groom, one of the men be the bride. Bonkers I know but that’s what my carefully trained brain thought.

When you get past the outrage and talk/listen to the people with those views, it’s very interesting.

It was a convent school for girls. The nuns had just abandoned their traditional habits and wore more modern dress in the wake of Vatican II. Everything seemed to be changing.