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While working a summer job in high school, one of my Catholic, male co-workers and I were leaving a building. I was ahead of him, so opened the door and stepped aside so he could pass. “Oh no!” He cried sarcastically, “You just emasculated me!” We then joked that a woman’s real role was obviously to be in the kitchen, and after a good laugh we went our separate ways. Our changing attitudes towards gender roles don’t stop at held doors and pulled out chairs. Obviously, if feminism is to have any value at all, and if Catholicism has any...

Vatican may prohibit female alter (sic) service By Michaels, Amanda Published: Tuesday, October 14, 2003Updated: Wednesday, September 12, 2012 11:09   Only nine years after the Vatican gave women permission to serve beside their male counterparts at the altar, a new proposal threatens to force them back into the crowd. On Sept. 23, the Italian Catholic monthly, "Jesus," released advanced text of an article featuring excerpts from a draft document, or directive, written by the Vatican congregations for Divine Worship and the Sacraments and for the Doctrine of the Faith. Distributed on June 5, the document was an expansion on the papal...

Vilshofen: Ministrantinnen prügeln sich ums Weihrauchfass - Bayern - Aktuelles - tz-online.de Things are not what they used to be Altar girls fight in front of the sacristy Vilshofen - charity is actually the great commandment in Christianity. Well yes! But in reality in Vilshofen two altar girls currently show each other anything but love. Who is allowed to swing the censer? This vexed question has made for a storm of trouble with two altar girls who are between the ages of 19 and 20 years Oh no, the two fight! What is it all about? The censer used in worship....

For all it's been going on for years now, not everyone agrees with me that using girls (and young women) as altar servers might be worth keeping in the future.

Arlington, Va. (AP) - Some big changes are coming for Roman Catholics in Northern Virginia. Arlington Bishop Paul Loverde said girls and women will now be allowed to serve at the altar in parishes. For years, that's been the case everywhere in the country except for two locations: Lincoln, Nebraska, and Arlington. The Arlington Diocese only allowed females to serve in places like hospitals, nursing homes and colleges, but some parishes now want that option, Loverde added. Also, the bishop said two churches, including Saint Lawrence in Alexandria, will be allowed to celebrate the 1962 Latin Mass. Loverde is the...

NPR.org, April 2, 2005 · "Tip O'Neill was correct," says Father Tom Reese, editor in chief of America, the Catholic weekly magazine. "All politics is local... even in the Catholic Church." Reese suggests that instead of focusing on the possible papal candidates as a bookie would look at horses in the starting gate, try to think about the election from the point of view of the electors, the cardinals who cast the votes. "Each cardinal is thinking, how will this candidate go over in my diocese?" Reese says. "If you're from the Third World, you're concerned with people who are...

(This is a revised version of an address given at Fort Lee, New Jersey, on 20 May 1995, to a one-day seminar on liturgical issues sponsored by the "Christifideles" group. The address was published in abbreviated form as "The New Feminist Face of the Roman Liturgy," Living Tradition, No. 58, May 1995, and again as "Fluctuationes Rhythmicæ: The New Feminist Face of the Roman Liturgy" in The Latin Mass, Fall 1995, pp. 42-49. The original talk is distributed on audio-cassette by "Keep The Faith" [PO Box 277, Ramsey, New Jersey 07446, USA]. This revised version was originally delivered as a...

A heated battle has been joined in the Vatican between moderates and conservatives over a directive, called for by the Pope, that would bar altar girls and stop millions of Roman Catholics around the world dancing, or even clapping, in their churches. _________________ Anger at Vatican plan to ban altar girls John Hooper in Rome Wednesday September 24, 2003 The Guardian A heated battle has been joined in the Vatican between moderates and conservatives over a directive, called for by the Pope, that would bar altar girls and stop millions of Roman Catholics around the world dancing, or even clapping,...

Perhaps I would not go as far as Lucius Cary, the Viscount Falkland, the 17th century Tory leader, who insisted that "when it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change" — but I know what he was getting at. (The change England got in his time was Oliver Cromwell.) The decision to permit girls to become altar servers could serve as a case in point. I do not want to seem peevish about girls serving Mass. I have nieces who serve. I am proud of them. They serve in a dignified and pious manner. But there...