(RNS) — Sri Lankan Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith has taken the lead in keeping women away from the altar. Last October, he decreed that there would be no female altar servers in his archdiocese. No matter ...

The most important news story in the past year for the U.S. Catholic Church has probably been the infighting among U.S. bishops about whether or not pro-choice politicians, like President Joe Biden, ...

ARLINGTON, Va., March 22 (UPI) -- Female altar servers are now allowed in Arlington, Va., leaving Lincoln, Neb., as the only U.S. Roman Catholic archdiocese to still ban them, a report said. Under ...

Everyone has seen the signs written in a child’s colorful scrawl and posted on a door or homemade fort: “Boys ONLY, No Girls Allowed.” Parents shrug off such behavior, knowing a boyhood dislike of ...

From left, Thea Rossi Barron, Emily Zickel and Michael Piehler join a Nov. 20 vigil to protest the exclusion of girl altar servers in many parishes of the Arlington, Va., diocese. (Ted Majdosz) ...

It’s hard for girls who are altar servers to understand that there was a time, not so long ago, when only boys could play that role in the Catholic Church. “I always thought it was kind of weird when ...

On Sept. 29, when 10-year-old Amy Loughney slips on a white alb, ties a cincture and stands at the altar in St. Thomas More Catholic Church for the first time, the fifth-grader will be following a ...

Local Catholic priests can now allow women and girls beside men and boys at the altar during worship services. Permission to allow women altar servers comes from J. Keith Symons, the bishop of Palm ...

Priests in the Catholic Diocese of Orlando will get the official go-ahead this week to use girls as altar servers in Central Florida churches. The decision by Bishop Norbert Dorsey to allow altar ...

PENFIELD, N.Y. — As a child, Barbara Decker dreamed of being an altar server like her older brother, John. Under the rules of the Roman Catholic Church, only boys could serve — but that didn’t keep ...