On Altar Girls and Hints of Change.

Our discussion appears, at first blush, to belie the sentiments of Mollie Wilson O'Reilly. Her article, Passing On the Alb, My Career As An Altar Girl, makes the claim that "it is clear enough to most U.S. Catholics that, when the church blesses altar girls, they are in turn a blessing to the church." (O'Reilly, M. 2009)

In her article she notes that it was only recently that the Vatican declared that females serving the priest at Mass was not against canon law. She points out, however, that while wording does not disallow females in this role, it was less than affirming since it didn't explicitly say it was a good thing.

Her personal history as an altar girl is clearly a source of personal joy that revealed to her the junction at which the mundane aspects of her faith, hosts in baggies in the fridge, meet the mysterious body of christ on the table in the center aisle.

Personally, the moral of this tale is an affirmation that most generalizations by definition, deny the individual. It may be slow but the Catholic church is subject to growth and change just like the rest of us.

O'Reilly, M. (2009). Passing On the Alb. Commonweal, 136(15), 12. Retrieved from MasterFILE Premier database.