I want to get a discussion going about the CAF "Expert's" curt dismissal of the words of Benedict XIV who was echoing his predecessors on girl altar boys.
Q:“ I saw a quote from Pope Benedict XIV condemning women serving at the altar as an "evil practice" and citing Pope Gelasius and Pope Innocent IV in support of this (cf. Benedict's encyclical Allatae Sunt). Should the modern Church really be allowing women to serve as altar servers and other liturgical roles when these past popes have condemned it?
”A: There are two kinds of evil acts: those that are intrinsically evil, meaning they are evil always and everywhere, and those that are extrinsically evil, meaning that they are evil under particular circuмstances, due to evil effects that would result under those circuмstances, but would not be evil under other circuмstances.
For women serving at the altar to be to be intrinsically evil, it would effectively have to be a matter of divine institution, a point of faith handed down from the apostles. However, there is no reason to think that the gender of altar servers—or even the existence of altar servers—has been passed down from the apostles as a matter of faith.
Was abortion being a mortal sin passed down from the apostles as a matter of faith? Something doesn't have to be "a matter of faith" to be intrinsically evil does it? The rule against abortion has nothing to do with "faith", yet it was an authoritative moral rule passed down from the apostles that does not change.
Therefore, it falls under the Church’s legislative power, meaning that the pope can establish or reconfigure the rules on it according to what he thinks is best suited to the present.
"The Church" has no power to create rules deleterious to the Faith.
Based on the citation in the encyclical you mention, it is quite possible to understand Pope Benedict to be describing the practice of women altar servers as "evil" in the extrinsic sense. At the time that Benedict wrote, the practice was regarded as evil either because of social considerations, or else simply because it was contrary to Church law, or a combination of the two. But none of the popes suggests that this is a matter of divinely instituted practice. In fact, Benedict says that he "forbids" the practice, apparently implying that it falls within the Church’s legislative power.
This is crazy! The Pope also "forbids" women to be ordained. Does this mean that it is within the Church's legislative power to ordain women if She so desires?
It was regarded as evil due to "social considerations"? What social considerations? Did any of the Popes mention social considerations as the primary reason why the practice of girl altar boys was evil?
Just because something is "contrary to Church law" doesn't mean it is "evil". He implies that it was evil THEN simply because Church law forbade it, as if the act of girl altar boys itself is completely morally neutral. If all the Pope meant by saying the practice was "evil" is that the practice was forbidden, he'd be stating a redundancy. Obviously he was forbidding the practice because it was evil, he says so! He wasn't calling the practice evil BECAUSE it was forbidden!
In the judgment of the present pontiff, this practice is not only not intrinsically evil, but in our day is no longer necessarily extrinsically evil either. Because he has lifted the Church’s ban on the practice, it is no longer extrinsically evil for juridical reasons, and in his judgment whatever social factors would have made it extrinsically evil in previous centuries no longer apply today.
The "present Pontiff" cannot turn evil into good by lifting the Church's legislative prohibition of it.
And I wonder what has changed since the time of Benedict XIV that has made prohibtion of the practice justified then, but not today? So is he saying the denial of girl altar boys on the basis of mere social factors was justified in the past? Is the standard of Church law now social factors? This is absurd!
Catholics are not bound in conscience to agree with the wisdom of the legislative changes a pope makes (though they are required to obey them),
False. Unjust laws are no laws at all and one is bound, in conscience, to follow the perennial Magisterium and Tradition of the Church and refuse to accept or participate in Masses where evil practices are approved of.
so one is free to think that perhaps it would be better if today we did not have female altar servers. That doesn’t affect the pope’s authority to extend permission for this practice.
So it all comes down to simple personal preference. The rules prohibiting girl altar boys were purely arbitrary for 1990 years until JPII decided to change it? Smoehow I seriously doubt the 2 Pontiffs who preached the practice was evil would agree that it was arbitrarily evil.
Topic: CAF Defends Girl Altar Boys (Read 4458 times)