Altar girls

Last week when I went to St John the Baptist Church I saw a girl serving mass but I told myself ..cannot be...as a catholic for the last 37 years I have never ever seen an altar server that is a girl hence I was thinking that he must be a boy with long hair.

This morning when I was there, after seeing a bigger girl serving mass, it is confirmed that in UK they do have altar girls in the catholic church which is a BIG BIG surprise to suaku like me!!


I have read long long time ago that Pope has banned altar girls but has later approved altar girls
.
While having boys serve at the altar is a long-standing ecclesiastical tradition it is nonetheless a human institution, NOT divine, and therefore capable of change for sufficient reason.

What MIGHT have been those reasons? Since the Church had already opened other non-ordained offices to women (Reader, Extraordinary Eucharistic Minister, chancellor, marriage tribunal official and so on), all of which were previously excluded to women, and in some cases lay men also), the exclusion of girls from the unofficial office of "altar server" was something of an anomaly.

In granting the permission the Pope gave to each bishop the full authority to decide whether pastoral circumstances in his diocese necessitated the authorization of altar girls.