Monday, November 21, 2011

Washington Post Tries To Report On The Altar Girl Issue




The Washington Post had a rather infuriating article on the whole Altar Girl issue that had a hysterical huge pull at the heartstrings staged pic.




Get Religion properly noted that the article is very on sided. See Altar girl debate minus the debate




A couple of other things would have been interesting for this writer to explore. First the Diocese of Arlington has had for years a great number of Priesthood vocations even in the very lean years that the American Catholic Church went through. Could it be that these" Traditional" practices play a part in that?




Second the article correctly notes that women are in all parts of the Church running things. In fact perhaps that might be part of the problem that the only male Altar servers is trying to address. It is common that when Alar girls come on the scene the boys drop out. Further it is a sad fact that most Catholic boys have little male interaction in the Church. The person that teaches CCD, the person that leads the youth group, the person that helps leads the retreats, etc etc is very likely to be a woman. That is all well and good but one wonders if the lack of males we often see NOT interacting with Catholic boys is creating a problem. The over feminization of Christianity perhaps is causing Catholic males to drop put after they get out of house. Having a all male Altar boy group perhaps plays a small part in stopping that.




2 comments:

rmbrennam said...

Why exclude when you can include? Why relate girls to the back of the church? Ever think Jesus would have told young girls to go away?

James H said...

I don't think anyone is talking about excluding girls to the back of the Church. As the article noted the Girls in non Altar GIrls Parishes are involed in some signiicant activities. One of the most Important and yes more important than "altar boy" being a lector.

I think strangly enought the article has warning signs from some of the people that are quoted that appear to think there is no difference in gender at all