From: creps@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Steve Creps)
Subject: Re:      Re: Altar Girls Documentation
Organization: Indiana University
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 16:19:05 GMT

In article <9211070203.AA22416@alsvid.cs.cornell.edu> "William E. Aitken" <aitken@CS.CORNELL.EDU> writes:
>> Women are forbidden to be in the sanctuary during liturgy, period.  It's
>> hard to act even as a modern altar server if you cannot be present in
>> the sanctuary.
>
>	Could you please give us some evidence of this.  Perhaps
>citing current, definitive Church documents.  Pay special attention to
>explaining how this doesn't contradict the Canon which provides for
>qualified lay persons (of either sex) to assist infirm and blind
>priests, the Liturgical Law which allows Conferences of Bishops to
>specify where female readers are to read (and the decision of both the
>American and the English Bishops (among others) that it be the same
>place as where men do, even if in the sanctuary), and so on.

>Re-read the statement to which I was responding.  Eric calimed
>[IMHO wrongly] that ``Women are forbidden to be in the sanctuary
>during liturgy, period.''   None of your citations support this claim,
>or answer my counter-claims.  Thanks for trying though.

   I hope the _General Instruction on the Roman Missal_ is good enough
(Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship, _Cenam paschalem_, March 26,
1970):

	"70. All the ministries below those proper to the deacon may
	be performed by laymen, whether they have been commissioned
	for any office or not.  Those ministries WHICH ARE PERFORMED
	OUTSIDE THE SANCTUARY MAY BE ENTRUSTED TO WOMEN if this be
	judged prudent by the priest in charge of the church.  The
	conference of bishops may permit a qualified woman to proclaim
	the readings before the gospel and the intentions of the
	Prayers of the Faithful.  The conference may also decide from
	where it would be suitable for her to proclaim the word of God
	in the liturgical assembly" [ emphasis mine ].

   This says that women may perform lay ministries outside the
sanctuary.  It is obvious that this is meant to imply that women
cannot perform ministries _inside_ the sanctuary, or it wouldn't have
been qualified with "outside the sanctuary."  I don't have the
original Latin available, but I would venture to guess that "laymen"
is translated from "viri laici," which would indeed indicate males.
This prohibition is directly related to the priestly nature of serving
in the sanctuary.

   Further note that this is also saying that it is not the norm for
women to perform these ministries, as it is qualified by "if.. judged
prudent..."  My personal opinion is that there is in general no reason
that they should not perform these ministries.

   Also the qualification of the readings and the Prayers of the
Faithful, "the conference of bishops may permit...," tells us that
women are not the norm for the universal Church for these ministries.
However, I believe the U.S. bishops have in fact voted to permit this,
and again, I see no reason why they should not.

   Lastly note the final sentence, "... from where it would be
suitable for her..."  This implies that women should give the readings
from somewhere different than the usual place, i.e. the sanctuary.

   A final comment: all this is Church discipline, not doctrine, and
can be changed if the Magisterium so decides.  However, it belongs to
the Magisterium, not individuals, to make this decision, no matter
what one's theological motivations may be in wanting to change it on
one's own.  There are in fact reasonable (even if you don't think
good) reasons for why these rules exist.  As I said above, they are
related to the priestly nature of serving at the altar, which in turn
is related to the male-only priesthood (this part _is_ doctrine).

-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Steve Creps, Indiana University
creps@silver.ucs.indiana.edu
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.catholic