Expert: Fr. Michael - 12/16/2008

Question
I was wondering about masses where the 'altar boys' are girls, and the host is given in the hand by lay people.  Is Jesus sometimes/always present.  If this is the only mass available - does it count towards keeping Sunday holy? Is it OK for women to give the readings?  What about masses that are half modern and half traditional ie some things in Latin but modern mass form - where some receive the host on the tongue and others in the hand (and women reading from the bible).  I feel that Jesus is more present here, than in the first mass I mention - but, I was wondering.

Answer
What you are describing is the invalid Novus Ordo service.  The true Mass of the Roman Catholic Church, the Traditional Latin Mass, would never countenance such abominations.  Receiving the Novus Ordo cookie in the hand and having women performing the duties of clergy have been condemned by pope after pope since the second century.

Since the Novus Ordo service is not a Mass, but (as even the current pope had to admit was "fabricated and "manufactured") fails the criteria for a valid Mass that were stated by Pope Leo XIII, among other authorities; it counts for nothing.  In fact, it is an invalid sacrilege.

A little Latin or "half" traditionality (whatever that means) does not make the invalid Novus Ordo service valid.  These techniques are often used by Modernists to confuse people, some of whom are so badly educated in the Catholic Faith that they are deceived by such hoaxes.

Catholic theology is clear.  When it comes to the Sacraments, half is not good enough.  Only complete conformity to the valid forms is aceeptable.  Anything else is sacrilege.  And the only forms we know to be valid are those that come to us from Tradition.