Does your church have altar rails?

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RosslynV

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Mine doesn’t.

The last time I was in a church with altar rails was at an old church in Europe.
 
Both my old parish and the current traditional oratory I attend have alter rails.
 
My Latin parish? nope. but my local shrine to St Jude deoes…strangely, the shrine is circular but also has kneelers to accommodate the local ethnic populations. It is my understanding that the Archbishop ordered / approved the removal of all altar rails in the archdiocese several years ago.
 
No. It doesn’t.

They weren’t taken out. The building was built without them.
 
Yes, but they’re hardly ever used for distributing communion - just twice a year when there’s an EF Mass. They were reinstalled about 10 years ago, and are made from beautifully carved wood.
 
My church did have them from what I have been told. But when the original building burned down (one year after being consecrated), they opted to not have them.

I have only been in one church with them, and it was an older church. I am not sure they are that needed, though I do think people could show more reverence when approaching the altar than many do now.
 
My parish church and the two other Catholic churches in our town do not.
Across the river at least one church does.
 
Neofight said:
Mine does…but it was built in 1792, so I guess that it should be of no surprise.
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You go to church at one of the missions? 🙂

None of the churches close to me have them anymore but one, and it is in an area too poor to have them removed when everyone else did.
 
A lot of the older churches in Philadelphia still have them and I attend daily mass at the Cathedral Basilica, which has them in both the Chapel and main Basilica. The Basilica still has the kneelers on the Altar rail and many people kneel there are pray during Adoration or during the day.

My geographic parish is in the Suburbs and burned down Christmas Eve 2004 (before I started attending). The new Church building does not have them, but part of the original was built behind the Sanctuary to separate where the lectors sits during mass from the Sanctuary. The Lector actually kneels at it during the Eucharistic prayers. It was also built in a way which would be very easy to add them in if the parish chooses to do so.

I believe the original Church never had them taken out.

Now, church where I was baptized & confirmed (different diocese) at had taken them out in the early 1980s during a renovation. I was born in 1977, but I believe I remember the altar rails being up. Today, that Church is now the parish’s school’s auditorium and they built a new Church with wrap around seats and no altar rail. So when they have EF mass once a month, they place a kneeler in the middle and many other people simply kneel on the floor.
 
Yep! We have a full altar rail! 🙂 (We also have a mini one at the parish’s school Chapel.)
 
I thought I might share this: I just recently visited a parish I have been to many times. The architecture is very reminiscent of the 1960’s. Anyways, the Bishop has long put good orthodox priests there. I should say that there are no altar rails, and there aren’t even pews. Just chairs, and they don’t have kneelers.

Anyways, when the time came to receive the Eucharist, the priest went over and took a small 1 person kneeler, that had been hidden in a corner, and placed it where everyone normally received. So… everyone received kneeling and on the tongue.

I was rather surprised. But… if congregations felt so inclined, or if priests felt so inclined… they don’t NEED altar rails to receive kneeling. They can just improvise and do something like this.

Thought I should mention this.
 
Hello!

We had a new church built and I was told, (which please correct me if I am wrong) All new construction can not have rails. So, we don’t. I am not sure if that is true or not.

Jill
 
My home parish, St. Thomas More, does not. It would be awkward to put in a curved altar rail.

Another parish, Holy Cross, has an altar rail, from the 50s.

My Sunday parish - where I go on Sunday - St. Barnabas, an Oxford Movement-turned-Catholic parish, has rails.
 
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