No Altar Girls at Phoenix Cathedral

Boys who are uncomfortable around girls will be inclined to see being an altar boy as a chance to escape their uncomfortability. I would submit that this is not necessarily a good thing to discern, still less to cultivate, in future clerics.

Amen! Many of us contend that the abuse crisis has at its core not homosexuality but a psychosexual immaturity that is played out in
inappropriate avoidance behavior.

This is when you let primary principles and beliefs (all baptized; no difference by gender, race, nation; equality as a gospel goal; ministry as a gospel goal) become secondary based upon a limited historical anomaly; a mis-read of what is valued by the gospels, etc.

Sorry, to say that Olmsted is not involved - give me a break.

I have noticed that many Trads do not want girls as altar servers, women as lectors or Eucharistic Ministers, basically no role at all for women in the Mass. The apparent desire to exclude women from any role in the Mass is usually based on some "tradition" that "can never be changed" according to the Trads. If you scratch a little deeper with some Trads, they seem to think that women should not be theologians either or hold any responsible position within the Church.

This retreat to the middle ages is not going to work. The laity, especially women are not going to put up with it. A lot of the Trads appear to want to turn the Catholic Church into some sort of SSPX cult. This is not going to work either. Those of us who do not want to return to the middle ages are not going to shut up and we are not leaving. if you want to return to the middle ages, join SSPX.

What does this teach boys about the holiness of girls? Or girls about themselves?

This strikes me as being completely consistent with recent moves toward a "deeper meaning" in our liturgy. We will go back to Latin, Requiem mass - complete with black vestments, kneeling to receive holy communion (on the tongue), the celebrant "facing God in the tabernacle," and an end to the vernacular language as we know it. Those of us who rejoiced at the changes that Vatican II brought will now know what our elderly parishioners felt when the windows were opened by Pope John XXIII. They decried all the fresh air that we celebrated, now those days will be history I fear.

Your assertion that this will create a boys club is just preposterous. Apparently, altar boys will no longer have lives outside of Church like most normal adolescents; they will simply live at Church and in the rectory with no connection to outside family or friends. This is akin to saying that all Boy Scouts will grow up thinking that there is no place for women in the outdoors and, therefore, they will never be able to connect with a woman who expresses such an interest.

Please see my series of photos of the altar girl at the Cathedral in Ciudad Juarez over at flickr.com/photos/charlesjscanlon

This is so unfair and as usual he will get away with it, they wont be happy until they run every woman out of the church.

There never should have been altar girls in the first place! This was an instance of the cowardice of JPII. Why did he assure MT that there never would be altar girls & then allow them? One cannot find any ruling from Rome that allowed them. There was some talk of the interpretation of legislative texts that required them since in the laity there is not supposed to be discrimination between males & females.

The answer to this is that first of all the non-discrimination applies to adults not children & second of all even if the non-discrimination applied to children which it should not, then an exception could have been made for altar servers. JPII could have ordered a clarification or revision of canon law on this issue but chose not to? Why?

This experiment has been a failure since a ghettoization of altar servers has taken place with girls in the majority now.

Another brave and insightful priest has done the right thing and recognized the historical connection between a boy serving Mass and also beginning to recognize and discern a vocation to the priesthood.

Beyond that, there is, in the mind of many folks, this misconception that boys should not hang out with or engage in activities strictly with other boys. This belief stems from the feminist ideology that says when boys only hang around with other boys, it "helps create the wrong kind of gender differentiation, the kind that leads adolescents to grow up to be uncomfortable with women". These folks fear a return of an "old boys club" that seeks to exclude women.

The reality, however, is that ample research shows that boys need time away from girls and that such differentiation is healthy. In a society where Title 9 means that girls can play on boys' teams, that girls are everywhere that boys are and are involved in the same activities that boys are involved in, there needs to be some opportunity for boys to be with other boys, to be themselves. Every priest that I know has said the same thing, that they have seen a decline in the number of boys wanting to serve and these priests all attribute that to the presence of girls; boys, particularly during the "tween" years, look for opportunities to do things that girls are not doing.

Allowing altar boys to bond with each other is not a bad thing. Rather, it is healthy for boys. To believe that, because boys serve Mass with other boys, this will lead to men being uncomfortable with women is absurd. What it will do is to provide opportunities for boys to get to know the priests, deacons and bishop better, to have the opportunity to begin to discern a vocation away from the distractions of girls.

Not every activity has to be Title 9 approved. Not every activity, organization or club, not every ministry in the Church, needs to be open to both boys and girls.

Well said. Either we have universal standards or we don't. Girl alter servers and married deacons have been discriminated against by the priestly caste for decades. Even though the church has authorized both, they aren't allowed in some priests\bishops' fiefdoms.

I totally agree that there is a link between being an Altar Server and being a priest, which is why I favor femaler Altar Servers.

When I male) was trained as an altar boy or acolyte, fifty years ago, I was told that we altar servers were representatives for the non-clergy congregants present at mass. Altar servers had to recite the Latin responses for the people in the pews because folks in the pews didn't know the responses in Latin. Back then and now, the folks in the pews were and are male and females (always more females than males). If one is caught up in separating the baptized by their sex, then the representatives(=altar servers) of the people in the pews should be made up of both male and female acolytes. Male-only altar servers would only represent one half(or less, in many situations) of the folks in the pews.

As an oldtimer, to be honest with you, I wonder how much longer I will see young women at mass when authorities make decisions like banning female altar servers. What will be the piece of straw that breaks the camel's back?

I go back to the time when there was a putative connection between altar boys and vocations. It was experience that (a) the few vocations that resulted were shallow and the guys dropped out after a year of minor seminary and (b) the members of the altar boy club were far less likely to be showing up in church, let alone active, twenty years down the road.

"He should step in and overturn the decision." Which, of course, he won't. Decisions made within the club are never reversed.

Good points. It is enormously frustrating to see so many steps backward by the Church. I don't understand abandoning support for breast cancer research because the wording of the mission of the Komen foundation doesn't pass some ultimate purity test. I don't understand abandoning all the good that can come from universal health care because the wording against abortion is not as strong as the Church wants - even though there are protections in the bill. I don't understand abandoning adoption services and other works of charity over being required to provide birth control in health insurance or providing coverage to gays. We abandon great works that affect the lives and health of many over points of doctrine that the majority of Catholics don't even believe in. Now, girls can no longer serve at Mass because of the "historic connection" between serving as an altar boy and a vocation to the priesthood. Jesus would not have done these things.

Bishop Olmsted is keeping this action at arms length. I cannot believe Lankeit would have taken this action without consulting with the Bishop. Which really means that Olmsted at least did not disagree with it.

First of all, I do not believe for a minute that Olmsted was not behind this atrocity and is sending a subtle message to any other priest who wants to be the future rector of the cathedral and what may come beyond that post.

I have personally witnessed the heartache of girls kicked off on an altar by a new priest due solely to their gender. Often, the parents up and leave, along with their money, to another Catholic church that is worshiping in the 21st century. But all too often, especially in rural areas, they just disappear and may or may not show up with the Lutherans or the Episcopalians. Even if they stay, the emotional scarring is significant and once they are emancipated, a large number, having seen the light, turn their backs on the Church, to the consternation of their parents who tried their best, but were sandbagged by a neotrad priest.

There is absolutely no hard data, one way or the other, that supports the notion that girls on the altar affect a boys decision to be a priest. None! The decline in vocations has a heck of a lot more to do with the disrepute of the priesthood in the eyes of non Catholics and some Catholics over the pedophile scandal as well as the required celibacy. Personally, if a boy has reached the age of 16 (the last year I served) and still has issues with serving with a girl on the altar, then I sure as heck don't want him going into the priesthood.

"The Rev. John Lankeit said the decision was his alone, not that of Bishop Thomas Olmsted."

Anyone who believes that Bishop Olmstead had nothing to do with this move also has probably bought a bridge in Brooklyn. He merely found someone else to play bad cop for him, just the same as Cardinal Ratzinger did for John Paul II.

We have come to expect the least from many of our church "leaders." All too often, that is exactly what we get.

The prebyterate in the Diocese of Phoenix do not even blow their nose without checking with Olmsted. He made the bullets and the pastor is firing them.

If you won't ordain them, don't baptize them.

In the CNS version of this story, the good reverend cited a basis in "differentiation between girls and boys" with regard to aspiring to the priesthood. How crass can these hierarchs remain?

I think this is a very noble and correct decision at the Cathedral, inkeeping with the traditions of the Holy Catholic Church.

Importantly, asserting these traditions helps to reduce the confusion of the position of women - it is not fair to allow serving but not ordination, and since the Church cannot ordain women fullstop, there should be no female servers.

Ad multos annos to the Bishop and Rector!

This is another step into the dark pit of clerical culture and another blow to the rights of the baptized to serve the people of God regardless of gender. He should apologize to every girl server in this country who has served at Mass. Put a sign on the door that says no girls allowed. I think the next logical step is for Rev. John Lankeit to only allow boys to clean the church, launder and press the altar linen, teach in the catechical program, monitor the school library, cafeteria and study room. Only men should run the finances, pay the bills, fix Father's lunch and wash his car. Women are just not good enough in Phoenix.

To continue to tolerate this nonsense is to ensure the continuation of this nonsense.

It is time for people to rise up in righteous indignation and state the obvious: Father DOES NOT always know best.

And to fund fools is self-defeating at your own expense.

I have no problem with Rev. Lankeit banning woman from active church.However carry it theough -do not accept their collection or any of theur services.I will watch and see how long his male church takes to fall.

If more girls than boys are in fact serving Mass, maybe that should tell the bishops something. Perhaps altar service should be exclusive to girls!