Wednesday, June 20
Female Altar Servers, a step too far ahead?
With the Holy See's permission for female altar servers and many Catholic churches around the world hence using female altar servers, i highly doubt that having females serve at the altar is a step too far. In fact, i feel it is very natural for women to do so.
This is regarding the
"privilege of serving in an act of worship to which nobody has any inherent rights" as quoted from
http://www.ewtn.com/library/Liturgy/zlitur19.htm,
and i strongly agree that such an honour should not be a right only for the boys. This is my personal opinion and no, i'm neither a feminist nor being feministic here.
Pope Benedict XIV once condemned female altar servers with these words:
"Pope Gelasius in his ninth letter (chap. 26) to the bishops of Lucania condemned the evil practice which had been introduced of women serving the priest at the celebration of Mass. Since this abuse had spread to the Greeks, Innocent IV strictly forbade it in his letter to the bishop of Tusculum: 'Women should not dare to serve at the altar; they should be altogether refused this ministry.' We too have forbidden this practice in the same words in Our oft-repeated constitution Etsi Pastoralis, sect. 6, no. 21."en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altar_boyPreviously, only young men, among whom the Church hoped to recruit for priesthood, and seminarians who needed training, were altar servers. The Church has been conservative on females serving priests, perhaps because of tradition that from the past only men were recruited as altar servers.
Probably serving priests during Mass was considered an informal prior training to
ordination, hence introducing females at the altar to serve might give the
wrong impression of the possibility of future
female ordination. Due to the probable misconception, the Church kept to tradition.
Another concern might have been that girls would pose a
distraction to the males, one that might discourage boys from volunteering for this honourable service to God for fear of being distracted from the original purpose.

I feel that opening up on the restriction of service to God to only males is due to many factors, perhaps one being that
fewer boys are volunteering for this service to our Lord. Another could be the Church becoming more
liberal and possibly (in lay man's terms) keeping up with the times.
Our Lady, Queen of Peace Church in Arlington had their first female altar server in over a decade in March '06 and Father Leonard Tuozzolo said it was a "positive thing" after which was followed by an enthusiastic response from the congregration. The welcome the pastor and the people provided encourages and promotes having females as altar servers.
In Singapore, females have been recruited as wardens and also communion ministers. For example the Church of St Mary of the Angels has female wardens some of whom are teenagers. The Church of the Risen Christ had a commissioning of communion ministers a fortnight ago, among whom included a lady. This is a step towards including women in the service to our Father. In some sense, this can be seen as a stepping stone towards the encouragement of having women to be altar servers.
It is definitely neither of the genders' inherent privilege to be altar servers. Also, nowhere in the Bible does it state that only men are allowed to serve God.
".. there is no reason to think that the gender of altar servers—or even the existence of altar servers—has been passed down from the apostles as a matter of faith"http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/2003/0312qq.aspand continue to have predominantly males serve the priest.
female altar server pict from http://www.catholicherald.com/articles/06articles/altar%20servers.htm
pope benedict xiv pic from http://www.catholicradiodramas.com/Saints_Works_B/benedict_xiv.htm
5:07 PM /