FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: August 22, 2011

Contact: Erin Saiz Hanna, 202 675-1006, woc@womensordination.org

Women's Ordination Conference Decries Ban on Altar Girls in Pheonix Diocese

WASHINGTON, DC – August 22, 2011 – Girls will no longer be allowed to serve as altar servers during Mass at the cathedral of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix, SS. Simon and Jude. In response, Women’s Ordination Conference has issued an action alert calling on the Diocese to immediately reinstate female altar servers in that parish.

“If young women in the Phoenix diocese want to grow up to work for the Church – or even aspire to the priesthood – I, and the vast majority of U.S. Catholics, don’t see the harm in that, said Erin Saiz Hanna, executive director of the Women’s Ordination Conference. “Around the country, young women have been lawfully serving at the altar for well over a decade.”

Reportedly, Rev. Lankeit banned girls from the altar because he wants only boys to prepare for priesthood in this way. Since 1994, the Vatican and the U.S. Bishops have allowed female altar servers. There is no restriction in Canon Law for women to help at the altar during the liturgy.

“This is not only disgraceful, it is impractical. Women comprise at least 80 per cent of church lay ministers, and they are backbone of most parishes around the world,” continued Hanna.

“The Vatican’s stance on the ordination of women is based on arguments that have been refuted time and again.  In 1976, the Vatican’s own Pontifical Biblical Commission determined that there is no scriptural reason to prohibit women’s ordination.  Jesus included women as full and equal partners in his ministry, and the hierarchy would do well to follow suit,” Hanna concluded.

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Founded in 1975, the Women’s Ordination Conference is the oldest and largest national organization that works to ordain women as priests, deacons and bishops into an inclusive and accountable Catholic church. WOC represents the 63-70 percent of US Catholics that support women’s ordination. WOC also promotes new perspectives on ordination that call for more accountability and less separation between the clergy and laity.