Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Well I never!

The Archdiocese of Arlington will allow female altar servers in parishes. [And have two parishes where the Tridentine Mass will be offered every Sunday.] Well, nice to have Arlington join the practice of almost all other Diocese in the United States when it comes to serving at the altar (is it correct that the only other holdout is Lincoln, NE?). I really don't know about the argument that girls serving somehow takes away from boys being called to the priesthood ... it's a pretty well recycled trope though. Don Jim's take on this is pretty interesting, especially the role of the laity in the sanctuary in the Novus Ordo. Despite all my traditionalist leanings, I don't know that I think this is entirely bad. And I'm certainly not of the opinion that a return to the "good old days" will be a panacea.

Folks who love Latin and altar girls. Are there more out there? :-) Uhm. Let's change that verb to "support."

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Gashwin,

Diocese of Arlington is conservative. More so than some other diocese in the US. Part of this may be the appointment of a bishop near the nation's capital.

Best of luck observing the developments in your future diocesian community.

Sincerely,

Dogwood

Fr. Gaurav Shroff said...

Oh you're right about Arlington ... but proximity to DC has nothing to do with it as much as the Bishop himself. Keating (Loverde's predecessor) was the one who held the line on altar girls for the longest time, and he was as close to DC as his successor.

And this won't be my future Diocese. I will be under the jurisdiction of the Cardinal Archbishop of Washington :-)