"Protests of Va. Parish’s Move Away From Altar Girls Reflects Wider Catholic Debate/Washington Post/ Message to Girls and Women- Not Wanted on Altar

by Michele Boorstein
"...After Taylor’s announcement, Zickel and her husband and two daughters, ages 4 and 7, stopped attending Corpus Christi. Zickel continued to teach at the Sunday school through June before the family started “floating around,” driving up to 45 minutes in an effort to find a parish with altar girls.Mary Barnes choked up as she described watching her seventh-grade daughter serve during Mass in a white robe while the boys were switched to black ones. Barnes has attended Corpus Christi, in a booming area of eastern Loudoun County, for 13 years.“It’s really hard to sit in church every weekend looking at that,” said Barnes, a manager at AOL. “It’s demoralizing, understanding you’re not really wanted.”The Vatican in 1994 approved the participation of girls in altar serving, and the official Vatican newspaper has run pieces characterizing the acceptance of girls as correcting a “profound inequality...”
Bridget Mary's Reflection:
How much more can girls or women take of this blatent sexism in our institutional church?  The Vatican cannot continue to discriminate against women and blame God for it. Women are created equal by divine design and are desperately needed to take their rightful place as equals in all areas of church life including service at the altar as servers, deacons, priests and bishops. The good news is that more and more women are becoming Roman Catholic Women Priests and girls are welcome to serve at our altars everywhere. One day, we will be ordaining you too!
http://associationofromancatholicwomenpriests.org/
Bridget Mary Meehan, Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests