Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Two indulgences for the price of one!

Two notices will appear in the upcoming edition of the Arlington Catholic Herald:

"Bishop Paul S Loverde... has asked Fathers Christopher Mould and Edward Hathaway (pictured at right) to celebrate a weekly 1962 Latin Mass — sometimes known as a Tridentine Mass — at St Lawrence and St John Parishes, where they serve as pastors, respectively."

"Bishop Paul S Loverde has announced an expansion of the Diocese of Arlington’s policy permitting women and girls to serve at the altar during Mass..."

More as these develop -- and they probably will.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

There is a lively discussion of this over at Amy's Blog. As a member of the Arlington Diocese, I am so disappointed. This is a real blow to the dynamic altar server program that is alive and well in the diocese. More details on that here. There is no enhancement of the Church by the inclusion of girl altar servers and there is a true cost in the decreased participation by boys when girls are included. From these boys come our priests! In my opinion, any parent who pushes for his/her daughter to be an altar server does so to the detriment of the Church. This parent should be ashamed.

Nicholas D.C. Wansbutter said...

Interestingly, Bp. Loverde may have unwittingly dealt a double blow to "mainstream" Catholicism in his diocese and given a double boost to Traditonalistm by these two acts.

The indult allows for a trad community. The altar girls means that possibly more people will go to the indult Mass than would have if things stayed more conservative in the "mainstream" side. This could snowball as orthodox young men opt to go to the F.S.S.P. or I.C.R. (or even the dreaded S.S.P.X) rather than the diocesan seminary.

M. Alexander said...

Very interesting conclusion- so it's good news then all around! LOL

Dymphna said...

My husband and I have had a long standing joke that the only way Bishop Loverde would allow the Tridentine Mass would be if it were at 5 AM on the third Sunday of the third month in an unheated chapel somewhere in Gordonsville. I'm quite delighted with this turn of events.

I wasn't thrilled with the altar girls but in this diocese you gotta take what you can get.

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