Communion/altar rails

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junostarlighter

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Okay, so I need the basic low-down…

Communion rails, were they supposed to be taken out after Vatican II? I’ve read all of Sanctosanctum Concilium (sp?) and I can’t find anything. I ask this because a priest at my local parish brought up the topic in this past Sunday’s homily (I have no idea what communion rails have to do with 2 Sm 7, Rom 16, or Lk 1) and seemed to be at odds with some of the Cardinals who are calling for putting the rails back in. His rationale: you can’t contain God within rails and separate the congregation from God…

you ask me, his rationale sounds WEAK.
 
No, communion rails were not banned by Vatican II and many believe that the more fortunate parishes left them in.

The presence or absence of rails is irrelevant to your priest’s argument because you can not contain God with anything physical. God trandscends any type of physical laws you might try to apply to Him. And, as He is present everywhere, communion rails would not hinder Him.

You could separate, in a sense, the Priest from his congregation I suppose.

David
 
junostarlighter said:
Okay, so I need the basic low-down…

Communion rails, were they supposed to be taken out after Vatican II? I’ve read all of Sanctosanctum Concilium (sp?) and I can’t find anything. I ask this because a priest at my local parish brought up the topic in this past Sunday’s homily (I have no idea what communion rails have to do with 2 Sm 7, Rom 16, or Lk 1) and seemed to be at odds with some of the Cardinals who are calling for putting the rails back in. His rationale: you can’t contain God within rails and separate the congregation from God…

you ask me, his rationale sounds WEAK.
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No Communion rails were not required to be removed and should never have been in my opinion.
 
Br.Rich_SFO said:
No Communion rails were not required to be removed and should never have been in my opinion.
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I so agree!

I was fortunate enough to be at Mass at a church this past summer while on vacation with three of my children, two of the three churches we attended did not have rails and we received the sacrament the same way as here in the US; however, one did have rails and USED them!

My three youngest (20, 15, 13) looked at me, like…now what…I showed them when to kneel (as a group) and to get up (as a group), they thought it was pretty cool.

The only churches in my area that still have rails are the bigger more ornate churches, but they don’t use them.
 
The change was that they were no longer required. They were never disallowed.
 
junostarlighter said:
Okay, so I need the basic low-down…

Communion rails, were they supposed to be taken out after Vatican II? I’ve read all of Sanctosanctum Concilium (sp?) and I can’t find anything.
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Pope Paul VI said that Vatican II was purely a pastoral council, and the bishops of the council specifically chose not to exercise infallibility. That being the case, Vatican II should always be interpreted in the CONTEXT of Church tradition during and prior to Vatican II.

Too many people after the council were swept up in the so-called “spirit of Vatican II” which led to the false notion that Vatican II was a watershed. They sought to change the Church entirely. So out went the alter rails. Out went kneeling and receiving communion on the tongue, and so on. Vatican II never called for any of these things. The bishops of Vatican II could have never foreseen how the Council would be misinterpreted, and just how far some would take the Church away from it’s historic tradition. It was a pastoral ecumenical council designed to be interpreted in the context of the Church’s historic tradition. Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI have been trying to steer Catholics back toward a proper understanding of Vatican II.
 
I was taught (as a kid) that the altar rail represented the table of the Lord, not a barrier.
 
quiet52 said:
I was taught (as a kid) that the altar rail represented the table of the Lord, not a barrier.
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Altar rails taken out, confessionals taken out, what next, altar rails were awesome & reverent, Them were the days when Only the priest could touch the Host,a lot has changed in the church some for good but some for not so good.
 
quiet52 said:
I was taught (as a kid) that the altar rail represented the table of the Lord, not a barrier.
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I’d always thought it rather ironic that those who advocated the removal of the rails often claimed that it was a barrier to the altar, and that since the Mass was primarily a meal, that we should be able to gather around the “table.” By removing the rail, they unwittingly shot down their own argument by their lack of historical understanding.

The rail was also symbolic of the curtain in the Temple. Just as the curtain separated the Holy of Holies from the common area, the altar rail separated the sanctuary from the nave as an area set apart for sacred liturgical activities. In this age of constant chatter before and after Mass and ignorance of the Blessed Sacrament (in churches where one can still find it), there is a great need for anything that emphasizes the sacred. Perhaps that is why a beautiful brass communion rail was installed in Holy Rosary Cathedral in Vancouver, BC, after a renovation in the 1990’s. They use it too.
 
Maybe some of you guys know…
When it comes to this post V-II stripping of the churches phenomena - was this primarily an American or North American phenomena or were churches ‘minimalized’ or gutted like this world wide. Did this same thing occur, lets say, in Argentina?

I remember as a kid the Msgr of our parish just announced in Mass that this is what was going to happen - andit did with the approval of the Bishop - a Bishop who would have been at V-II.

So I guess some of the V-II participants actually saw this church stripping as flowing out of V-II?

I just really don’t know what they expected to accomplish by it all. Less is more?

I write it off to the ills of rationalism and modernism.

Peter
 
The “stripping” of altar rails parallels several eastern churches pre-V II removal of the Iconostasi and/or curtains.

The Byzantine Rite and Coptic Rite both use Iconostasi (Icon Screens), a wall-like barrier between the sanctuary (altar) and the nave (where the people are), with 3 doorways (Deacon Door, the twin Royal Doors, and the other Deacon Door). in the 1940’s and later, several Byzantine Churchs in union with Rome started removing these iconostasi so the “the people may see the actions of the priest.” Some Byzantine Churches had a curtain lowered right behind the Doorway of the Royal Doors during the consecration; it too, often disappeared.

The Syriac Rites often close a curtain during the consecration, hiding the altar from the people. The same rationale was used as for the Byzantines: Leave it open or even remove it so that the people might see the sacrifice.

The removal of the Altar Rail, or the Iconostas, or the non-use of the curtain all remove a visible marker of the distinction between the nave and the altar; between the symbols of heaven and earth.

Removal/reduction of that visible distinction was a trend pre-V II; it was not a good one for any Catholic church.

Note that most of the Eastern Churches are restoring their screens and/or curtains. Likewise, some Roman parishes now are replacing their altar rails.
 
Churches in many European countries were protected from destruction by state architectural protection laws, but other countries like Ireland suffered from modernistic renovation attempts. Much of the trouble in America can be traced to a 1978 document created by the (American) Bishops’ Conference on the Liturgy called Environment and Art in Catholic Worship. This non-binding document was never approved by the whole USCCB, but was nevertheless adopted by many bishops and pastors and put into practice. It was specifically abrogated by the release of Built of Living Stones in 2000, but is still used by the likes of Fr. Richard Vosko, a priest/architect from Albany, New York, who travels around to America’s more ornate cathedrals and parishes to try to sell his bizarre, New Age architectural theology for a healthy fee.
 
Funny thing- Around here, the one parish that could be truly called Gothic were the altar rails removed. The very Germanic architecture parish had them removed, but none of the other fine handcarved wood, including the the reredos. The Vatican II parish never had an altar rail. But there are a couple parishes with 1950s/ early 1960s architecture, and they kept their altar rails. And one parish was not allowed to reinstall altar rails, so they just have kneeling pads.
 
I’ll have to dig around to find the actual document, but my recollection is that there was a point after which new churches being built could not include altar rails nor could they be added to a church that did not already have them.

There was never a requirement to remove them however that I am aware of, though many parishes chose to do so.

Either way, what did happen was from later requirements and not directly mandated by Vatican II.
 
“If you can find any document from Rome saying ‘remove the altar rails’, I will give you a turkey.” - Francis Cardinal Arinze, Former Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation of Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.
 
junostarlighter said:
Okay, so I need the basic low-down…

Communion rails, were they supposed to be taken out after Vatican II? I’ve read all of Sanctosanctum Concilium (sp?) and I can’t find anything. I ask this because a priest at my local parish brought up the topic in this past Sunday’s homily (I have no idea what communion rails have to do with 2 Sm 7, Rom 16, or Lk 1) and seemed to be at odds with some of the Cardinals who are calling for putting the rails back in. His rationale: you can’t contain God within rails and separate the congregation from God…

you ask me, his rationale sounds WEAK.
Click to expand...
Which Cardinals are calling for them to be put back in?
 
Cavaille-Coll said:
quiet52;4584377:
I was taught (as a kid) that the altar rail represented the table of the Lord, not a barrier.
Click to expand...
I’d always thought it rather ironic that those who advocated the removal of the rails often claimed that it was a barrier to the altar, and that since the Mass was primarily a meal, that we should be able to gather around the “table.” By removing the rail, they unwittingly shot down their own argument by their lack of historical understanding.
Click to expand...
Great point. It would be funny if it didn’t hurt so much.
 
The LUTERAN church in my town has an altar rail that communicants kneel at to revieve.
Its really sad that even those receiving fake communion are doing the gesture better than most Catholic churches.

With that in mind I do not believe any of the Vatican II documents mentioin anything about the specifics of the liturgy. [Edited]
 
Dicerning said:
The LUTERAN church in my town has an altar rail that communicants kneel at to revieve.
Its really sad that even those receiving fake communion are doing the gesture better than most Catholic churches.
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Yes, I always found that interesting. The Lutheran church I sometimes have worked in as musician, will have all of the congregants kneel to receive. The same with many of the Anglican and Episcopal churches in my city. They take their time receiving and don’t seem to care that their mass/service might take a few minutes longer. Some actually can’t understand why we, as Catholics, wouldn’t want to receive the Lord kneeling.
 
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