Putting Altar Rails back into a Church

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pilots13 said:
I don’t see why you’d want them back in. Very few parishes ever use them any more, and even the old buildings that have them, they are rarely used (except in the most traditional churches that want to pretend Vatican II didn’t change the Mass around). Even the Cathedral here in town doesn’t use their communion rail for anything other than a security system (like literally horns and buzzers. They even have a sign saying an alarm will go off of you open the rail and enter the sanctuary). I don’t think parishes will ever go back to using the communion rail again. We’re 2 generations removed from it’s use. Plus, the way modern churches are built, there’s no way you’d be able to realistically re-install them in a new building.
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What a snippy little post. “Want to pretend”? Polemics at work.
 
PrayForMeStJude said:
And some people want to pretend Vatican II changed everything.:rolleyes:
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Well, didn’t Vatican II change the Mass from priest with his back to the people & in Latin to priest & Altar forward and Mass in the vernacular? I know it’s not against the Church rules to celebrate Mass the old style, but in my opinion, the places that do it are very traditional and ignore many of the changes (sign of peace for example) that were added during V2. Thus the “pretend V2 didn’t happen” comment.
 
pilots13 said:
Well, didn’t Vatican II change the Mass from priest with his back to the people & in Latin to priest & Altar forward and Mass in the vernacular? I know it’s not against the Church rules to celebrate Mass the old style, but in my opinion, the places that do it are very traditional and ignore many of the changes (sign of peace for example) that were added during V2. Thus the “pretend V2 didn’t happen” comment.
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No. Vatican II allowed the celebrant to face the people; Vatican II allowed the limited use of the vernacular; after it became an erroneous practice in the US the Vatican begrudgingly allowed communion in the hand; Vatican II allowed the use of EMHC where absolutely necessary; Vatican II did not require the removal of altar rails not did ti require the removal of the traditional High Altar and most importantly Vatican II did not abrogate the TLM. Don’t assume that because certain practices are allowed, tolerated might be better, that they are truely correct and properly reverent.
 
pilots13 said:
Well, didn’t Vatican II change the Mass from priest with his back to the people & in Latin to priest & Altar forward and Mass in the vernacular? I know it’s not against the Church rules to celebrate Mass the old style, but in my opinion, the places that do it are very traditional and ignore many of the changes (sign of peace for example) that were added during V2. Thus the “pretend V2 didn’t happen” comment.
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No, in fact, Vatican II itself didn’t make those changes. The new form of the liturgy was compiled after Vatican II had concluded. Vatican II called, for instance, for a continued emphasis on Latin and Gregorian Chant. Following VII, permission was given for some use of the vernacular and celebration of Mass facing the people, but these were seen as, and technically still are seen as, breaks from the norm.

After Vatican II and before the Novus Ordo was promulgated Mass was essentially the Tridentine mass in the vernacular with some small changes. It wasn’t until a few years after Vatican II that the new mass was crafted and innovations began to creep in. Still, even in the new mass, Latin, back to the people, and chant is the legal norm. Everything else is either an allowed exception or an illegal innovation.

In reality, those of us you might think are “pretending VII never happened” are the ones who know it DID happen and know what it really said. That’s why we still want Latin, chant, and other things it never said to abandon, like altar rails.

It is the other side, in truth, which wants to ignore the reality of Vatican II and pretend it means that everything is now different.
 
pilots13 said:
Well, didn’t Vatican II change the Mass from priest with his back to the people & in Latin to priest & Altar forward and Mass in the vernacular? I know it’s not against the Church rules to celebrate Mass the old style, but in my opinion, the places that do it are very traditional and ignore many of the changes (sign of peace for example) that were added during V2. Thus the “pretend V2 didn’t happen” comment.
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Okay. Vatican II did not order the “new mass” to be promulgated, nor did it effect its being. It came into being after Vatican II ended, and the project wasn’t even overseen by the Council at all. The huge disconnect and the thing that many “traditionalist” viewpoints ultimately go back to and stem from is that the people who made up the Council (the world’s bishops) weren’t the people who came up with the “new mass.” Two different situations completely. VII did not promulgate, order, or even suggest the “new mass.”

Vatican II did not change ad orientem (facing East, facing God) worship to versus populum (facing each other) worship. The fact is that both positions existed in the Church before Vatican II, and versus populum worship was employed in those religious orders (such as the Franciscans) where brotherhood was stressed as a major part of their charism; in other words, the priest facing the people was something unique to their orders for very specific and very good reasons. In nearly all other cases (perhaps in absolutely all other cases), ad orientem worship was used exclusively in the Latin liturgical tradition–that is to say, in the Western Church. (We still are part of the Latin liturgical tradition, even with the “new mass.”)

Similarly, Vatican II didn’t change anything about altars.

Similarly, Vatican II didn’t change anything about Latin. I quote directly from the Vatican II document Sacrosanctum Concilium:

36. 1. Particular law remaining in force, the use of the Latin language is to be preserved in the Latin rites.
  1. But since the use of the mother tongue, whether in the Mass, the administration of the sacraments, or other parts of the liturgy, frequently may be of great advantage to the people, the limits of its employment may be extended. This will apply in the first place to the readings and directives, and to some of the prayers and chants, according to the regulations on this matter to be laid down separately in subsequent chapters.
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That means Latin must be retained. Funny considering it has effectively been relegated to a status of nothingness, which is contrary to what Vatican II itself said. I included paragraph 2 as well, because if I didn’t, someone would certainly have bashed my post.

The document in full: vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19631204_sacrosanctum-concilium_en.html

Vatican II didn’t “add” the Sign of Peace. The Kiss of Peace (as it was called, which is basically the same thing) has been part of the liturgy for ages, and was part of it even before Vatican II.
 
YoungTradCath said:
Similarly, Vatican II didn’t change anything about altars.
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This is true as written, but I think misleading. As I detailed here in posts 8 and 9 (and see post 12), it appears to have been well-understood even while the Council was still going on that churches would have to be refitted and versus populum altars constructed.
Similarly, Vatican II didn’t change anything about Latin.
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And this is false as written, since Vatican II definitely did change something about Latin, as paragraph 36 § 2 of SC, which you quoted above, shows.
 
YoungTradCath said:
That means Latin must be retained. Funny considering it has effectively been relegated to a status of nothingness, which is contrary to what Vatican II itself said. I included paragraph 2 as well, because if I didn’t, someone would certainly have bashed my post.
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Pope John XXIII effectively banned the vernacular in his Veterum Sapientia, several months before he convened Vatican II. The encyclical was met with wide acceptance. It is of note that Pope John signed not a single document of Vatican II. It is also of note that right after he died (June '63), the ICEL first met to discuss vernacular texts (Oct '63), despite Veterum Sapientia.

adoremus.org/0796TranslationICEL.html

The rest is history. However Veterum Sapientia is supposedly still in effect as is Canon 249 which requires seminarians to study Latin.
 
MarkThompson said:
Yeah! With Holy Communion distributed only after the Sacrifice of the Mass, if at all!
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Don’t they open the gates or something to distribute Communion? I would think this should work somewhat like an Iconostasis.
 
ConstantineTG said:
Don’t they open the gates or something to distribute Communion? I would think this should work somewhat like an Iconostasis.
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Back when those were built, distributing Communion was uncommon, and distributing it during Mass was very rare. It remained rare in many places up until the 20th century. In some places, it was more common to distribute Communion before Mass, so that people could make a thanksgiving during the liturgy itself. Fixing this was one of the great reforms of the Liturgical Movement and an important component of the Eucharistic reforms of Pius X.
 
ProVobis said:
Pope John XXIII effectively banned the vernacular in his Veterum Sapientia, several months before he convened Vatican II. The encyclical was met with wide acceptance. It is of note that Pope John signed not a single document of Vatican II. It is also of note that right after he died (June '63), the ICEL first met to discuss vernacular texts (Oct '63), despite Veterum Sapientia.

adoremus.org/0796TranslationICEL.html

The rest is history. However Veterum Sapientia is supposedly still in effect as is Canon 249 which requires seminarians to study Latin.
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Yes, supposedly being the key word.
 
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