The head of the Supreme Apostolic Signatura, the Church’s highest court, has clarified certain liturgical questions in light of Canon Law. His comments were made in the preface to a book celebrating the third anniversary of Summorum Pontificum.
Excerpts from the CNA article:
The American archbishop went on to point out that certain elements may need to be clarified in this regard. For example, he wrote, among the “rights” of the baptized, assistance by “persons of the feminine sex” at the altar is not included. Additionally, serving as a lector or as an extraordinary distribution of communion is not a right of the laity, he noted.
As such, out of respect for the integrity of the liturgical discipline within the Roman Missal of 1962, these more modern modifications are not observed in the extraordinary form.
This clarification comes just a week after L’Osservatore Romano writer Lucetta Scaraffia published an article on the altar server pilgrimage to the Vatican which drew thousands of boys and girls alike. She drew some attention as she proposed that the introduction of girls into the position of serving at the altar “meant the end of every attribution of impurity to their sex … it meant a different attention to the liturgy and an approach to the faith in bringing it near to their very hearts.”
Archbishop Burke clarified, however, that the reality of the matter is that neither the presence of girls at the altar, nor the participation of lay faithful “belong to the fundamental rights of the baptized.”
