Loading...
Loading...
Click here if you don’t see subscription options

Permitting girls to serve at the altar marked the end of a form of inequality in the church and allowed girls to experience the formative power of directly assisting with the mystery of the Eucharist—said the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano in an article on Aug. 7. “The exclusion of girls...has always weighed heavily and represented a deep inequality within Catholic education,” it said. Even though there may have been many parishioners who accepted the presence of girls as servers only when there were no boys to fill the role, “overcoming this barrier was very important for young women.” Pope Benedict XVI met with more than 53,000 altar servers from Europe during his weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square on Aug. 4. Organizers said most of the young pilgrims were female.

Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.

The latest from america

I use a motorized wheelchair and communication device because of my disability, cerebral palsy. Parishes were not prepared to accommodate my needs nor were they always willing to recognize my abilities.
Margaret Anne Mary MooreNovember 22, 2024
Nicole Scherzinger as ‘Norma Desmond’ and Hannah Yun Chamberlain as ‘Young Norma’ in “Sunset Blvd” on Broadway at the St. James Theatre (photo: Marc Brenner).
Age and its relationship to stardom is the animating subject of “Sunset Blvd,” “Tammy Faye” and “Death Becomes Her.”
Rob Weinert-KendtNovember 22, 2024
What separates “Bonhoeffer” from the myriad instructive Holocaust biographies and melodramas is its timing.
John AndersonNovember 22, 2024
“Wicked” arrives on a whirlwind of eager (and anxious) anticipation among fans of the musical.
John DoughertyNovember 22, 2024