Mollie Wilson O’Reilly at Commonweal has an excellent essay on the problems opened up by prohibiting female servers at the “extraordinary” (i.e. preconciliar) form of Mass, as the Vatican has recently done. She concludes:
“When Benedict issued Summorum pontificum, he explained that the decision was ‘a matter of coming to an interior reconciliation in the heart of the Church.’
Let us generously open our hearts and make room for everything that the faith itself allows.
There is no contradiction between the two editions of the Roman Missal. In the history of the liturgy there is growth and progress, but no rupture. What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful.
“The question I think Ecclesia Dei ought to answer is, Does that work both ways? If the faith itself allows women to enter the sanctuary and serve the priest at Mass, can that be considered always harmful in certain contexts? Why shouldn’t local communities celebrating the EF be able to decide for themselves how much of what the faith allows they can make room for in their hearts — or on their altars?”
Read the whole thing, and join the conversation, here.