In 1995, the Bishops Committee on the Liturgy (BCL), then chaired by Bishop Donald Trautman of Erie, proposed certain amendments to the proposed revision. Among these, the BCL recommended specifying the
orans posture for the people during the Our Father. The rationale was that the
orans gesture was used in the “early Church”, and that this posture should replace hand-holding during the Our Father, a practice that was becoming increasingly common.
Several bishops objected to adopting the
orans for the people (by custom a priestly gesture), and strongly opposed making this a rule.
But eventually the bishops compromised, at this 1995 session, and voted to make the
orans a permissible option for the congregation during the Our Father.
It is important to note that the bishops’ debate and vote on the
orans posture for the people involved the
ICEL Sacramentary, not the new Roman Missal.
One source of continuing confusion is this. When the proposed ICEL Sacramentary was sent to the Holy See for approval (after the November 1999 meeting of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops), the BCL posted on its web site a description of the
orans posture, saying that this posture would be permitted when the new Sacramentary was approved.
This 1999 BCL comment stated, in part:
No position is prescribed in the present Sacramentary for an assembly gesture during the Lord’s Prayer. While the recently approved revised Sacramentary does provide for the use of the orans gesture by members of the assembly during the Lord’s Prayer, the revised Sacramentary may not be used until it has been confirmed by the Holy See. I might also note that in the course of its discussion of … this question, the Bishops’ Committee on the Liturgy expressed a strong preference for the orans gesture over the holding of hands since the focus of the Lord’s Prayer is a prayer to the Father and not primarily an expression of community and fellowship.
The Sacramentary revision, however, was not only replaced by the new Roman Missal, but it was officially and specifically
rejected by the Holy See after the new Missal appeared.
Unfortunately, however, this outdated and misleading comment on the USCCB web site was never removed. It was still there as of October 28, 2003.
http://www.adoremus.org/1103OransPosture.html