From: bdboyle@erenj.com (Bryan D. Boyle)
Subject: Re: Altar Girls Documentation
Organization: Exxon Research and Engineering Co., NJ
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 13:24:28 GMT

In article <6035@mccuts.uts.mcc.ac.uk> mfulsmb@uts.mcc.ac.uk (Martin Barry) writes:
>In article <1992Nov9.152451.29288@erenj.com> bdboyle@erenj.com (Bryan D. Boyle) writes:
>> This
>> egregarious abuse of both the rite of the eucharist and the rubrics
>> of the Catholic Church is, in my estimation a grave matter.  That is
>> why I seperate the Roman Catholics from the American Catholic churches.
>
>In my opinion this is a highly regrettable view to hold, and shows little
>sense of proportion as to what issues can or should endanger the unity of
>the Church. Excommunicating (or, as here, deeming to have
>excommunicated itself) that part of the Church which flouts a minor liturgical
>rubric doesn't look much to me like a proper understanding of the importance
>of the organic unity of the Body of Christ.

If you take a look at the events of the past 20 years since Vatican II,
it is pretty clear that the american hierarchy (as witnessed by the 
extensive and clear chastisement by the Holy Father in 1979 in Chicago,
and at other times in the past 13 years, for "doctrinal abberations" )
is excommunicating itself from the church, not the other way around.
OUR OWN BISHOPS feel free to ignore, or even worse, publically ridicule
the Pope and their lawfully-appointed superiors, to whom they pledge
obedience.  Our theologians mount a campaign to discredit a catechism
(Catechisms and Controversies, Msgr. Michael Wrenn, Ignatius Press,
1992) that isn't even published yet because it does not adhere to their
humanistic view of theology.  And nominally Catholic edifices of higher
learning proudly state that "we have removed the vestiges of Catholicism
from our classroom" (President of Fordham University, Commencement
address, 1989).  How can you say there is organic unity when our own
hierarchy, with some exceptions, act as a seperate institution?


 Nor is it the way the Church has
>ever worked. There were, doubtless, vast hordes of (well, at least two) Bryan
>Boyle soundalikes in the middle of the nineteenth century trying to uphold
>the papal ban on rail travel (on the grounds, I seem to remember, that easy
>travel was an aid to promiscuity), but common sense eventually prevailed,
>even in the Vatican.


And common sense will prevail here.  I am not a hidebound
traditionalist, pining away for the smells and bells of 1950's
Catholicism.  There is a difference, however, between train travel and
the essence of the Eucharist or sacerdotal priviledge.  AT THIS POINT IN
TIME, altar servers are defined as males.  I don't care which reference
books you look at to find the statement (I have a few annotated, if you
wish...), there it is.  Now, telling a child that they can do whatever
they want, i.e. "yes, little girl, you can be an altar server...ignore
what the Pope says, since _I_ know better, and those rules and stuff are
sooo inconvenient..." to me is a vicious abuse of the responsibililty
we are given as adults.  And, because of the immaturity of our charges,
using them to establish a precident or to provide an ex post facto
reason to do something, to me is exploitation of the highest degree.
Why?  Because we as adults with a political agenda are shielding
ourselves behind the children.  And that to me is reprehensible.

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