The Pope welcomed a gathering of altar servers in Rome. As John Allen notes:
First, for the first time this year, the female altar servers in attendance outnumbered the males. According to organizers, the balance was roughly 60-40 in favor of females. The official Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, pointed to the turnout as a symbol of “the massive entry in recent decades of girls and young women into a role once reserved exclusively to males.”
This predominance of girls was predictable (anyway I predicted it in my book The Church Impotent: The Feminization of Christianity). Western Christianity has for a long time been regarded as unmasculine. It has been difficult to keep men, especially young men, connected to a church which seems to want to lessen their masculinity.
If an activity is obviously and mistakably masculine (such as soldiering), opening it to women does not make it a part of the feminine sphere. But if a sphere is already regarded as feminine (and Western Christianity is), opening an activity within it to women will make that activity a feminine activity.
The 60-40 split in altar servers mirrors the female-male split in Catholic church attendance. As boys are busy establishing their masculinity at that age, I suspect that the proportion of boy altar servers will decline further.
In many mainline Protestant churches, including the Evangelical church in Germany, women are already the majority of seminarians, and the clergy is being converted into a feminine occupation, like nursing. There are male nurses, but they are rare, and someday we willl have to say male minister, as we now say male nurse.
To further increase men’s suspicions about Christianity, in some denominations, such as the Episcopal, the remaining men are often homosexual. The heterosexual, male minister will be a rara avis in the not too distant future in the more liberal denominations.
The % split only matters if the number of servers (at the pilgrimage but also worldwide) has remained the same or declined. If the number of servers worldwide doubled then the drop in boys/young men serving is not as dramatic.
By the way I love the photo. That is Archbishop Dermot Clifford in his cathedral. There used to be a seminary across the street from the cathedral but has been closed for a few years now. I could tell stories about that place and feminization.
In my parish i have counted for every one male there are four females, the priest don’t care that males are not present.
If u visited any local park in Queens, u can see is full of males latinos playing soccer on sunday while the women are in church.
I aks:
What is done to bring back those men to the church?
Nothing, absolutly nothing!
Our parish has only altar boys. All our Masses are well-staffed, with the Sunday solemn Mass having around a dozen well-trained servers. The parish in the last 5 years has produced two young priests, and has another in the pipeline.
More than coincidence?
Leon, you talk about Western Christianity being seen as feminine or feminizing. What about Eastern Christianity, particularly Orthodoxy? Do you see conservative evangelical Protestants going down the same road? What role do you think the veneration of Mary has on this trend?
So the argument is that if women are not allowed to do something, the men will step up to the plate?
As in the above entry.
What if nobody steps up to the plate?
Does your book propose a solution to this problem?
I am inferring that you view this as a problem.
Sorry to say it – I get the impression that not only am I a complete failure at understanding why behavior characteristics carry more weight than biological fact in a male outlook, but I also think that while there is some sort of demotion of the male state if women take up the same privledges and responsibilities, the women are not making big gains.
We seem to by our very state be impoverishing these new roles by attempting and even excelling at them. Wonderful.
Re: Kathryn:
The consequences of sexual dimorpism are unconcerned with modern gender sentiments. Women undermine social discipline when admitted to institutions responsible for providing leadership and maintaining order. Men submitting to women never ends well.
(From an alternate source regarding female entryism)
“Men unaccustomed to having women in their midst generally react in two ways; According to their proper feminized conditioning, they embrace the opportunity to impress these ‘trailblazing’ women…with their enthusiastic acceptance of, and identification with, their feminine overseer(s), or they become easy foils of an “out moded” way of thinking that the new ‘in-group’ happily labels them with.
“Once the feminine-primary in-group dynamic is established a ‘feminine correct’ social frame follows. This feminine correction restructures the priorities of goals, and validates any accomplishments, in terms of how they reflect upon the feminine as a whole. Thus any in-group success is perceived as a feminine success in male space [as your comment suggests], while in-group failures or simple mediocrity is either dismissed entirely or blamed on out-group men’s failure to comply with, or the rejection of, the Feminine Imperative’s ‘correcting’ influence on the in-group.”
Female entryism also is a marker of civilization decline. from Glubb’s “The Fate of Empires”:
An increase in the influence of women in
public life has often been associated with national
decline. The later Romans complained
that, although Rome ruled the world, women
ruled Rome. In the tenth century, a similar
tendency was observable in the Arab Empire,
the women demanding admission to the
professions hitherto monopolised by men.
‘What,’ wrote the contemporary historian,
Ibn Bessam, ‘have the professions of clerk,
tax-collector or preacher to do with women?
These occupations have always been limited
to men alone.’ Many women practised law,
while others obtained posts as university
professors. There was an agitation for the
appointment of female judges, which,
however, does not appear to have succeeded.
Soon after this period, government and
public order collapsed, and foreign invaders
overran the country. The resulting increase
in confusion and violence made it unsafe for
women to move unescorted in the streets,
with the result that this feminist movement
collapsed.
Re: “Female entryism”
Frankly, what a load of rubbish. If men and women can serve together in battle, work together to run businesses, and travel together to outer space, surely boys and girls can both be altar servers together.