Is laying on hands on the head of a person for prayer forbidden?

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Hi and Blessings,

I was with a priest from Africa at a prayer service for a woman who needed prayer. While there he ask all of us to gather round the woman and pray for her.

One of the people put their hands on the head of the woman and the priest directed her to stop.

After the prayer service he said that the Catholic Church forbids laying of hands on the head of people as this is the spiritual center and can cause harm?

I have never heard of this. Is there a rule or canon law that says this. If so, can you tell me where I can look this up.

Thanks
 
pick said:
Hi and Blessings,

I was with a priest from Africa at a prayer service for a woman who needed prayer. While there he ask all of us to gather round the woman and pray for her.

One of the people put their hands on the head of the woman and the priest directed her to stop.

After the prayer service he said that the Catholic Church forbids laying of hands on the head of people as this is the spiritual center and can cause harm?

I have never heard of this. Is there a rule or canon law that says this. If so, can you tell me where I can look this up.

Thanks
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Doesn’t the bishop lay hands on the priest and on us at confirmation?
 
pat_mc said:
Doesn’t the bishop lay hands on the priest and on us at confirmation?
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the priest’s direction seems to be aimed at lay persons praying in this fashion. No I know of no such directive, but if there is one, it would seem to relate to what you say, that laying on of hands is reserved to the priest or bishop in conferring sacraments. Without a source I cannot say.

It may be that in Africa there are special concerns connected to other pagan religions that have caused African bishops to discourage the practice, so without a source we are just speculating.
 
You could just ask the Priest where you could find that in the Church’s doctrine. You don’t have to accuse him of anything, just mention that you’ve never personally heard of that before and that you’d love to read more about it to see why the Church teaches that.
 
pick said:
After the prayer service he said that the Catholic Church forbids laying of hands on the head of people as this is the spiritual center and can cause harm?
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This statement is not true.
 
pick said:
After the prayer service he said that the Catholic Church forbids laying of hands on the head of people as this is the spiritual center and can cause harm?
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Sounds like a cultural anomaly to me, as I don’t think the Church says anything at all about a “spiritual center.” This might be a belief so common in his culture that his Bishop would support his statement. Come to think of it, if the Church ever did say such a thing, I would think that spiritual center would be in the chest, what with all the Sacred Heart images. But it sounds like everyone did the right thing respecting his direction at the time.
 
AIUI (and I am not a philosopher) there is no spiritual center, as one’s soul fills the entire human body.

The Sacred Heart image comes from the notion of the human heart as center of love and pain, two vital factors in HIS life. But heart is not the spiritual center either. After all, human beings do not change their psyche after a heart transplant, or change spiritually after a bypass.

Scripture never uses the word “head” (Hebrew Rosh, Greek Kephalen) to refer to our spiritual functioning. No doubt this is because our head’s functions were not understood then. The Bible is not a text on human anatomy.

ISTM that the whole idea of a spiritual center is flawed. At one time, the human soul was thought to reside in the big toes!🙂

God Bless, ICXC NIKA
 
GEddie said:
AIUI ISTM that the whole idea of a spiritual center is flawed. At one time, the human soul was thought to reside in the big toes!🙂
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lol, I’ve never heard that before, do you have a link I could look at for giggles? Was it a Christian line of thought or from another religion?
 
1ke said:
This statement is not true.
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1ke, while this may be so, you offer no proof or direction to proof of your statement, either. Can you show us where and how this is an untrue statement, therebuy giving your statement more creedence than just another opinion?
 
cemiller said:
lol, I’ve never heard that before, do you have a link I could look at for giggles? Was it a Christian line of thought or from another religion?
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Not a link; I saw this in a book about toe surgery that, however, is not in my possession.

The sesamoid bones in your big toes, because of their appearance like seeds, were in Jewish antiquity thought to house the human soul and to become the “seed” of the spiritual body after death. I’ll see what I can find online about this.

ICXC NIKA!
 
Julia_Mae said:
Sounds like a cultural anomaly to me, as I don’t think the Church says anything at all about a “spiritual center.” This might be a belief so common in his culture that his Bishop would support his statement. Come to think of it, if the Church ever did say such a thing, I would think that spiritual center would be in the chest, what with all the Sacred Heart images. But it sounds like everyone did the right thing respecting his direction at the time.
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I was thinking something similar. Perhaps the priest feared that some individual may try to “cast a spell” on the person being prayed for so he was just trying to be careful in not allowing any lay person to lay hands on the one being prayed for.
 
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