Cardinal Raymond Burke has warned that the Church has alienated men by feminising the liturgy, ignoring their needs and allowing women altar servers.
In an interview with a blog for male Catholics, The New Emangelization Cardinal Burke said radicalised and self-focused feminism had “assaulted the Church and society” since the 1960s.
As a result the Church had “constantly” addressed women’s issues at the expense of men’s.
“This is despite the fact that it was a long tradition in the Church to stress the manly character of the man who sacrifices his life for the sake of the home, who prepares with chivalry to defend his wife and his children and who works to provide the livelihood for the family,” he said.
This “sad confusion of men in the culture” led many who were poorly formed to pornography, alcohol and drugs, among other addictions, he said.
The American cardinal is widely considered as a leading light for traditionalist Catholics and was highly critical of moves at Synod of Bishops on the Family to open up communion for divorced and remarried Catholics.
He was, however, effectively demoted when Pope Francis moved him from being Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, the Church's Supreme Court to Patron of the Order of Malta - an ancient chivalric order which operates charitable works across the world.
Within the Church the cardinal blamed a feminised environment for driving many men to “opt-out” completely. He criticised “the rampant liturgical experimentation after Vatican II” and in particular the admission of women as altar servers, which he said discouraged boys from serving and deprived them of an opportunity to explore a vocation to the priesthood.
“Apart from the priest, the sanctuary has become full of women,” he said. “Young boys don’t want to do things with girls. It’s just natural.”
While he said that girls were also very good at altar serving, he went on: “It requires a certain manly discipline to serve as an altar boy in service at the side of priest, and most priests have their first deep experiences of the liturgy as altar boys. If we are not training young men as altar boys, giving them an experience of serving God in the liturgy, we should not be surprised that vocations have fallen dramatically,” he said.
He also warned that men were put off by priest-centred Masses.
“Men are drawn to the mystery of Christ’s sacrifice but tune out when the Mass becomes a “priest show” or trite.”
He said he was struck by the number of young men who were attracted to Mass in the Extraordinary Form, which he attributed to it demanding “a man’s attention to what’s happening”.
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