Communion Rails

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Why were communion rails (for people to kneel in a line, horizontal to the aisle, and receive communion) removed from churches? Can anyone point to a single document from Vatican II or since, that says that these should be removed, or, where present, not used?

Does anyone go to a church, other than the EF of the liturgy, where people still receive Holy Communion in this way?
 
DL82 said:
Why were communion rails (for people to kneel in a line, horizontal to the aisle, and receive communion) removed from churches? Can anyone point to a single document from Vatican II or since, that says that these should be removed, or, where present, not used?

Does anyone go to a church, other than the EF of the liturgy, where people still receive Holy Communion in this way?
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At my parish ( an NO parish), the large majority of people receive Communion at the Communion rail.
 
I would bet those people who advocated their removal used SC article 128 as their justification, even though it doesn’t apply to them.
[T]here is to be an early revision of the canons and ecclesiastical statutes which govern the provision of material things involved in sacred worship. These laws refer especially to the worthy and well planned construction of sacred buildings, the shape and construction of altars, the nobility, placing, and safety of the eucharistic tabernacle, the dignity and suitability of the baptistery, the proper ordering of sacred images, embellishments, and vestments. Laws which seem less suited to the reformed liturgy are to be brought into harmony with it, or else abolished; and any which are helpful are to be retained if already in use, or introduced where they are lacking.
GIRM 295 says that the sanctuary “should suitably be marked off from the body of the church either by its being somewhat elevated or by a particular structure and ornamentation.” (It refers back to Inter Oecumenici, n. 91, here.)

But I have seen nothing that ever mentions a change in the necessity/use of altar rails. Perhaps with the general permission to receive standing, they were seen as superfluous (by those with a modernist, functionalist mindset).
 
There was nothing in Vatican II that mandated removal of communion rails any more than there was anything mandating the smashing of beautiful marble high altars and general destruction of the sancturies of decades or centuries-old churches yet both happened. This was due to few actually reading the documents and going with a warped vision of what Vatican II actually expected. It’s sad, really.

I haven’t been in a church in decades where communion was at the rail. I’ve noticed the military chapel on the local Base has a portable communion rail. I suspect that that was common in US military chapels where Catholics & Protestants shared the space. The sanctuary cross is also movable: bare cross for Protestant services is cranked out of sight behind a curtain and the cross bearing a corpus moved into view for Catholic worship. Canadian military bases generally have 2 chapels rather than shared space.
 
We have communion rails and use them in the NO mass. We are also in the process of restoring our Church and restoring the high alter.
 
Our church in NW suburban Chicago uses communion rails and I beleive there are a couple downtown also.

Attended Mass at a church near Sunnyvale,CA last month that used communion rails.
 
Schluns said:
We have communion rails and use them in the NO mass. We are also in the process of restoring our Church and restoring the high alter.
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My God bless your parish for this!!! It is truly a beautiful thing to receive kneeling at the rail. It is one of the main reasons we belong to the parish we drive out of our way for.

~Liza
 
I’m starting to see some of the benefits of the Pope’s preference for people kneeling and receiving on the tongue at communion.

In fact, I’m leaning toward favoring him making it the directive, but I prefer to see us untied in one way of receiving, rather than having two different ways and the division that this seems to invoke.

If that should come, I would think putting up the altar rail would be more logical, than having to place two kneeler’s in front of the minister of Holy Communion, and then having to remove them afterwards.

Jim
 
JimR-OCDS said:
… I would think putting up the altar rail would be more logical, than having to place two kneeler’s in front of the minister of Holy Communion, and then having to remove them afterwards.

Jim
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There is a parish DH and I go to once in awhile because they have late evening Sunday Masses that are often convenient. They just totally rebuilt their Church and chose not to install an altar rail, even though every single Mass has Holy Communion distributed to kneeling parishoners. Instead, they have matching kneelers around the outside edge of the sanctuary that are never moved. I think it is a nice option for a parish that can not afford to install a rail but still wishes to kneel.

HERE you can sorta see in the third photo down the inside of this Church and how the kneelers are arranged.

~Liza
 
The Church of St. Agnes in St. Paul, Minnesota distributes Communion at the rail for its OF masses.
 
If you have the altar rails, people will start to think that the sanctuary is more special than the nave, and that the priest is special? Wouldn’t it also imply that “we aren’t worthy to receive the Almighty God in HC”? Also, how are all the troops of EMHC’s supposed to squeeze through that narrow opening in the middle of the altar rails? And won’t it look strange having to reach over the rail to receive HC in the hand? Don’t forget about our dignity as Christians - we shouldn’t have to kneel before anyone, much less Jesus who is our buddy. You’d think He was going to judge us at our death. Finally, this is a new era in the Church, and we should get rid of any semblance of continuity with ages past. Altar rails are soooooooooo medieval.

No, the communion rail is at odds with much of the theological trendiness out there.
 
lizaanne said:
There is a parish DH and I go to once in awhile because they have late evening Sunday Masses that are often convenient. They just totally rebuilt their Church and chose not to install an altar rail, even though every single Mass has Holy Communion distributed to kneeling parishoners. Instead, they have matching kneelers around the outside edge of the sanctuary that are never moved. I think it is a nice option for a parish that can not afford to install a rail but still wishes to kneel.

~Liza
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Yep, that would be my parish 🙂

Altar rails were not installed when the parish was built because they were not approved by then Cardinal Dearden.

So rows of ‘prei-deu’\kneelers were used instead.

Picture #2 here shows my daughters First Holy Communion and what we do.

brendan-hla.spaces.live.com/photos/cns!D48DBDC01A7E8A7D!158/

It is felt that Cardinal Maida would have approved an altar rail (as he has distributed Communion at the ‘rail’ here on several occasions), but installing one during the parish expansion would have been cost prohibitive.

The Church wasn’t totally rebuilt, per se, the Sanctuary and most of the Nave was left intact. But the Nave was expanded outwards to almost twice the size ( we’re growing by leaps and bounds 🙂 ) Aa new parish hall and a perpetual adoration chaple was built ( the latter was an overall better use of funds, IMHO, than replacing our wood ‘rail’ with a stone one 😉 ).
 
One of the local downtown churches uses a communion rail - someone told me they had to “fight” to keep it and receive special permission to use it (not sure if that’s true).

One other parish has its altar rail completely intact, while another has a partial rail (the middle portion in the front of the main altar was removed) but neither one uses it.
 
Windmill said:
If you have the altar rails, people will start to think that the sanctuary is more special than the nave, and that the priest is special? Wouldn’t it also imply that “we aren’t worthy to receive the Almighty God in HC”? Also, how are all the troops of EMHC’s supposed to squeeze through that narrow opening in the middle of the altar rails? And won’t it look strange having to reach over the rail to receive HC in the hand? Don’t forget about our dignity as Christians - we shouldn’t have to kneel before anyone, much less Jesus who is our buddy. You’d think He was going to judge us at our death. Finally, this is a new era in the Church, and we should get rid of any semblance of continuity with ages past. Altar rails are soooooooooo medieval.

No, the communion rail is at odds with much of the theological trendiness out there.
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Windmill,

I started to repsond to you, not realizing your use of irony:blush: .

GREAT post!👍
 
DL82 said:
Does anyone go to a church, other than the EF of the liturgy, where people still receive Holy Communion in this way?
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Communion is received on the tongue while kneeling at the altar rail at St. Patrick in downtown Columbus, Ohio.

There are a few pictures of the inside of the Church here.

I do believe that more vocations to the priesthood and religious life come out of this parish than any other in the diocese except one.

James
 
If you want to know why communion rails and other things were destroyed, look no further than the EACW. This non-binding 1978 document cost the Church billions of dollars of damage and deprived millions of people of beauty in the name of progress. Here is a commentary on it: ewtn.com/library/CANONLAW/ENVIRART.HTM

The USCCB Document, Built of Living Stones, abrogates the EACW. It is only a guideline, whereas the GIRM contains specific instructions.

usccb.org/liturgy/livingstones.shtml
 
Cavaille-Coll said:
If you want to know why communion rails and other things were destroyed, look no further than the EACW. This non-binding 1978 document cost the Church billions of dollars of damage and deprived millions of people of beauty in the name of progress.
Click to expand...
I bought a copy of EACW a few months ago. It’s horrendous. The number of times it mentions architecture that allows the congregation to see as much of each other as possible is embarrassing. And its suggestion that an off-center altar could be helpful is totally baseless!
 
In my parish, we were told that we needed to ‘tear down the fence between God and his people’. In truth, I think it was to make it clear that receiving while kneeling would not be making a comeback.

But I wish it would: it’s much harder on both priest and recipient to recieve on the tongue while standing, which lead to receiving in the hand.

A priest in our diocese had the beautiful marble rail re-installed at his church. The bishop tried to re-assign him to a smaller, less influential parish, but priests in our diocese are appointed for 6 year terms to save them the stress of being moved more frequently. Since his time was no where near up, he respectfully declined to move.

The bishop told him his services would no longer be required, so he transferred to another diocese out of state [he was only ‘on loan’ to us, anyway].

But that same year, our bishop had to close several parishes [and assign ours a decon] due to a great shortage of priests.

Orthodoxy: the one unforgivable sin in my part of the world.
 
Cavaille-Coll said:
If you want to know why communion rails and other things were destroyed, look no further than the EACW. This non-binding 1978 document cost the Church billions of dollars of damage and deprived millions of people of beauty in the name of progress. Here is a commentary on it: ewtn.com/library/CANONLAW/ENVIRART.HTM

The USCCB Document, Built of Living Stones, abrogates the EACW. It is only a guideline, whereas the GIRM contains specific instructions.

usccb.org/liturgy/livingstones.shtml
Click to expand...
The USCCB is the authority, EWTN is not.

Humble submission to rightful authority, i.e. the Bishop, is the duty of Catholics.

Jim
 
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