SPLIT: How can Catholic churches not have kneelers?

[JimG]

How is that even a liturgical innovation? Pews, yes. But pads for comfort on already existing kneelers? I don’t see it.

Well, it was an innovation for my knees, and I mean that in a good way. Even as a teenager, the first time I sank my knees into a padded kneeler, I thought I was nearly in heaven.

 

[FrancescaMaria]

The previous bishop told our previous pastor that our lack of kneelers was a sufficient reason not to kneel and apparently that understanding continues.

I think it must be only in America, that people think they need kneelers to kneel, while the rest of the Catholic world usually kneels on hard wood or stone (even the Holy Father at his age as I have seen in pictures and videos of his Confession!) There is nothing wrong with feeling a little discomfort when thinking of the Lord’s sacrifice. Also, it motivates people to dress so that their knees are not exposed. )

 

[otjm]

No kneelers was quite the rage in some circles 30 to 40 years ago. Some of those parishes have come into compliance, and some have not.

 

[Phemie]

No kneelers was quite the rage in some circles 30 to 40 years ago. Some of those parishes have come into compliance, and some have not.

We’ve always had kneelers but we were told by our Pastor not to kneel in 2000 and, other than a handful who didn’t obey, we never knelt again until about 18 months ago.

What changed? After being in the parish about a year and a half, our recently deceased Pastor, puzzled and distressed by what he was seeing, asked in a Parish Council meeting, “Why aren’t people kneeling at Consecration? I’ve never seen that in all my years as a priest. What do I have to do to get people to kneel?”

“Father, back in 2000, and we can all remember the Sunday vividly, our then-Pastor ordered us not to kneel so we haven’t knelt since. If you want people to kneel, just ask them to kneel. They’ll be happy to obey.”

So, the next Sunday he asked us to start kneeling for the entire Eucharistic Prayer and everyone has happily complied.

You had to feel sorry for our late Pastor. He spent more time asking, “My God, what kind of parish is this and how has this (whatever it was at the moment) been allowed to go on for so long??”

 

[Reuben_J]

I went all through elementary school attending almost daily Mass at the parish church and kneeling on bare wooden kneelers, which is not much different than kneeling on the floor. To me, the greatest liturgical innovation of all time was the advent of padded kneelers.

Agreed whole-heartedly. As kids studying in a Catholic school, our chapel was very basic and rudimentary, there were no kneelers. It was kneeling on the wooden floor. The pews were just benches. As altar servers, there were small cushions for us to kneel in the sanctuary. Sometimes extra cushions were not used, and when we were with the congregation when not on duty, getting the extra cushions was heaven indeed.

 

[MSSheBear]

In the diocese where I am I find that in a lot of parishes the Mass attenders don’t kneel during the Eucharistic Prayer. Some of these parishes do have kneelers. The parish I attend currently does not. We have a lot of elderly people and expecting them to kneel on the floor is a bit silly.

I find that I need to pew for support in order get back up and in order to genuflect. Otherwise I make a bow toward the Tabernacle if I can find it.

 

[JimG]

Agreed whole-heartedly. As kids studying in a Catholic school, our chapel was very basic and rudimentary, there were no kneelers. It was kneeling on the wooden floor. The pews were just benches. As altar servers, there were small cushions for us to kneel in the sanctuary. Sometimes extra cushions were not used, and when we were with the congregation when not on duty, getting the extra cushions was heaven indeed.

Our parish did not have cushion kneelers for the altar boys. We knelt on the marble floor of the sanctuary, which to me seemed softer than the wooden kneelers in the main church. Mass seemed to take a long time when I was that age and we were on our knees a lot! I can remember getting up from the kneeler after Mass with knees which seemed frozen in position. I can’t imagine how the older folks managed.

 

[Phemie]

No kneelers was quite the rage in some circles 30 to 40 years ago. Some of those parishes have come into compliance, and some have not.

We had a couple of “liturgists” in our parish who wanted to remove the kneelers from our pews (this was after they had talked the priest into announcing that we would no longer kneel). I knew people would be outraged by this but I was an employee and didn’t want to make waves so I suggested that to be fair they should do a survey in the bulletin.

Introducing the survey they quoted from the Council of Nicea (I’ll admit I fell for that) and then, using the pretext of preventing damage to the new carpet that was going to be installed, asked what people thought. I think 6 people said “Yes, go ahead.” The rest of the responses were totally against the idea so the kneelers stayed. One classic answer was “If the carpet will be damaged by the kneelers get better carpet.”