Q: Is it ever permitted for a woman to serve as a master of ceremonies for a liturgy? Are there any rules about this in the General Instruction of the Roman Missal? I ask as I have seen laymen serve in that role. I am not in favor of the ordination of women. — Bridget, via email A. The General Instruction of the Roman Missal (2012 English edition) mentions “master of ceremonies” only once: “It is desirable, at least in cathedrals and in larger churches, to have some competent minister or master of ceremonies, to see to the appro-priate arrangement of sacred ac-tions and to their being carried out by the sacred ministers and lay faithful with decorum, order and devotion” (No. 106). While I have never seen a woman serve as the master of ceremonies in a liturgical celebration, I do not see why a female could not carry out that function insofar as what is specified in canon law and the liturgical rubrics. The MC does not need to be ordained; ergo, the MC could be a woman, just as females are allowed to function as acolytes at Mass, as well as lectors and extraordinary ministers of holy Communion. But if a woman did serve as the master of ceremonies, would we need to call her the “mistress of ceremonies”? That would be awkward, in my opinion. However, since custom is the best interpreter of the law, I think it would be rather novel to have a woman serve as the master of ceremonies simply because I have not seen that done. Novelty for the sake of novelty is not helpful. In this regard, I like to recall what my Grandmother Murphy always said: “Don’t be more Catholic, or less Catholic, than the pope.” So, until the pope has a woman acting as the master of ceremonies, I think you’re on safe ground to let the men do it. Finally, you mention that you are not in favor of the ordination of women, but you do not mention why. As Pope Francis wrote in his apostolic exhortation “The Joy of the Gospel” in 2013, “The reservation of the priesthood to males, as a sign of Christ the Spouse who gives him-self in the Eucharist, is not a question open to discussion” (No. 104). This question was settled by St. John Paul II in 1994. I think the fact that we continue to hear discussion about the ordination of women simply reveals how deeply imbedded clericalism is in our church: in my opinion, we overemphasize the importance of priests, bishops, cardinals and popes. They represent less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the faithful. The other 99.9 percent of the baptized faithful are ordinary folks. Perhaps that is what Pope Francis meant when he wrote in “The Joy of the Gospel,” “The same thing happens when we speak more about law than about grace, more about the church than about Christ, more about the pope than about God’s word” (No. 38). Since the only thing that counts is to get to heaven, and since the ordained cleric has no better chance to get to heaven than the layperson, there is nothing unfair with Jesus’ reservation of ordination to men. We need to remember that the greatest saints who served the most were not ordained: St. Francis of Assisi, Mother Theresa, St. Joseph and the Blessed Mother.