By CatholicVote | Created at 2024-12-18 20:31:08 | Updated at 2024-12-19 01:10:02
4 hours ago
CV NEWS FEED // Cardinal Malcom Ranjith’s October letter prohibiting girls from altar serving recently made rounds on X, two months after he originally sent it out in his diocese.
The Cardinal, who is the Archbishop of Colombo, Sri Lanka, wrote, “I wish to reiterate, what I stated at the Presbyteral meeting held on 21st October 2024, that no girls should be invited to serve at the altar, as altar servers, in the Archdiocese. It should always be boys, because this is one of the main sources of vocations to the priesthood in Sri Lanka.”
The Cardinal added later, “This cannot be changed at your discretion. Please carry this out as faithfully as possible and do not think that it is in your faculty to grant that.”
The letter has sparked various comments from Catholic journalists. Eric Sammons, the editor-in-chief of Crisis Magazine, wrote on his X account, “Cardinal Ranjith just jumped to the top of my papabile index.”
According to UCA News, Pope Benedict XVI appointed then-Bishop Ranjith as the Archbishop of Colombo in 2009. The same pope appointed him as Cardinal in 2010.
Thomas Aquinas College in California awarded Cardinal Ranjith the Thomas Aquinas Medallion in 2007 for his efforts in religious education.
He has served multiple roles in the Vatican, including the Secretary General of the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, (2005-2009), and the Adjunct Secretary of the Congregation for Evangelization of Peoples (2001-2004).
