Inaestimabile Donum, confirmed by Pope John Paul II in 1980, acknowledged that certain innovations were taking place in the Liturgy, and that no one (even if he is a priest) has the right to tamper with the Church’s Mass. Here is an excerpt from the foreward: (my emphasis added)
The faithful have a right to a true Liturgy, which means the Liturgy desired and laid down by the Church, which has in fact indicated where adaptations may be made as called for by pastoral requirements in different places or by different groups of people. Undue experimentation, changes and creativity bewilder the faithful. The use of unauthorized texts means a loss of the necessary connection between the lex orandi and the lex credendi. The Second Vatican Council’s admonition in this regard must be remembered: “No person, even if he be a priest, may add, remove or change anything in the Liturgy on his own authority.” And Paul VI of venerable memory stated that: “Anyone who takes advantage of the reform to indulge in arbitrary experiments is wasting energy and offending the ecclesial sense.”
That’s enough for me. The Church hasn’t instituted hand holding during the Lord’s Prayer. Individual people have. It’s an innovation. It doesn’t flow with the Mass, it creates a counter-current. Doesn’t matter how this or that individual “feels” about hand-holding; it is inappropriate to tamper with the rubrics of the Mass, it offends the ecclesial sense.
Those presumably well-intentioned, warm fuzzy people doing the tampering are at fault, not those who refuse to hold hands.
We may be judged as cold pricklies as a result, but truly, if we are to render to God what is God’s, and render to our neighbor what is our neighbor’s, then we give our attention, body and soul, to God during the Lord’s Prayer. We can greet/reconcile with our neighbor at the Sign of Peace!
