The Vatican's Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments has indicted that there is to be no change where altar girls or the use of liturgical dance at Mass is concerned.
Speaking to The Irish Times yesterday, Father Allen Morris said that, at a meeting on Wednesday with the Bishops of England and Wales, Cardinal Francis Arinze, prefect of the Congregation, told them there were no plans to end the practice of girls serving Mass or that dance/movement indigenous to a local culture was to stop.
Father Morris, secretary to the Bishops' Conference (of England and Wales) Department for Christian Life and Worship, said that "it is clear that bishops \ remain free to authorise the ministry of altar girls."
He also said "liturgical dance or perhaps more accurately 'rhythmic movement' such as is indigenous to a local culture... remains authorised."
However, he added that his understanding was that "the practice of interpolating dance and other 'entertainments' into the liturgy... continues to be considered inappropriate."
Leaks to media in Rome last month indicated that a ban on altar girls at Mass was among proposals under consideration.
