Female Servers?
I can't help feeling that having girls or women serving, apart from being a significant break with tradition, is a first step towards women clergy, 'stealth priestesses'. The function of a server is obviously to assist the priest, a good server will ensure the priest follows the rubrics correctly and enable the priest to be recollected, and if necessary remind him if he forgets anything, like the consecration or the final blessing. No priest should be trusted to go the altar alone. Ideally the server and especially the Master of Ceremonies should have thorough understanding not just of rubrics but of the liturgy itself.
In the Ordinary Form there is no restriction on the number of servers, and although the server doesn't answer on behalf of the congregation, his role is to assist the priest but also to lead the congregation in prayer. He should at least be an example of prayerful deportment and reverence. He should have a deep prayer life and be devout, otherwise what he does is a sham, just play acting.
I understand that many priests, even though they have gut instinct against it, feel in a spirit of equality obliged to go along with inclusivity and have both male and female servers but there seems to be a denial of an important element of the faith: men and women are equal, yes, but different.
Fr. Ray Blake
In the Ordinary Form there is no restriction on the number of servers, and although the server doesn't answer on behalf of the congregation, his role is to assist the priest but also to lead the congregation in prayer. He should at least be an example of prayerful deportment and reverence. He should have a deep prayer life and be devout, otherwise what he does is a sham, just play acting.
I understand that many priests, even though they have gut instinct against it, feel in a spirit of equality obliged to go along with inclusivity and have both male and female servers but there seems to be a denial of an important element of the faith: men and women are equal, yes, but different.
Fr. Ray Blake