The Altar Rails Came Back

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netmil(name removed by moderator) said:
Aw, ya made me spew coffee on my monitor!
I’m sure we can arrange an honorary Post-it note for your donation!

(I love you!!!)
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:twocents: :twocents: :twocents: :twocents:

And here’s some paper towels to wipe your monitor clean. Sorry 'bout that. :o

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At those prices, we should probably stick to kneelers!
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That’s why we should have never took them out in the first place.

A rhetorical question but, has anyone ever wondered why there was a veritable orgy of distruction of altar rails, high altars, and church architecture in general when nothing ever called for it? Merely from common sense, why would it be smart to destroy expensive parts of your church to replace them with minimalism especially since the new order of Mass does not “need” any major changes and you could utilize or work around the old things?

Obviously, certain “experts” knew that in order to make that drastic break with the past, you need to go in and bust things. If anyone ever wants to bring back the old things, you’ll play hell trying to get it done when you would have to drop major $$$ on something you don’t “need”.
 
Kielbasi said:
I haven’t priced it, but yes, I’d say that altar rails are pretty expensive. Furniture is pretty expensive and altar rails have to be built to size as every church is a different size.

Sure, it is possible to build them yourself, but you’d need highly skilled people to do the work and premium lumber and materials. I don’t think this is anything that you’d want to just throw together as some kind of do-it-yourself product.
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I didn’t mean to imply a really bad do-it-yourself job, but I didn’t realize they were particularly expensive. I’d seen pictures of antique altar rails that had looked to be nothing more than short banisters and assumed that one could fashion one in a similar manner with similar materials.

I think removing altar rails was a horrible idea - placing a needless financial and emotional burden upon future generations. That tends to be how I view a lot of church remodelling - my first reaction is usually “That’s going to cost a fortune to undo.”
 
Rabbititus said:
. I’d seen pictures of antique altar rails that had looked to be nothing more than short banisters and assumed that one could fashion one in a similar manner with similar materials.

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That kind of short altar rail that you’ve described might work architecturally in some churches, maybe in a broader flatter church. But if the church is built in a more vertical mode, more Gothic, you’d want to have something taller and ornate, maybe of marble as well.

The choice and the expense of such an update I’m sure would vary on many factors, whatever the choice was it has to be adopted to the particular venue both in style and construction. But even the cheapest, shortest altar rail would cost thousands to retrofit into a church .
 
Altar rails were installed once—they can be installed again. I personally—would contribute to the construction of new Altar rails.
 
While some dioceses may de facto ban installation of new altar rails, it certainly is not somthing that is banned in the church as a whole. In Eastren European countries, new parishes are still built with altar rails(in the case of Latvia, some new parishes have altars against the wall even). Even in the US, the EWTN shrine and the chapel at Ave Maria University in FL have been built with altar rails, and they do not host the TLM.
ncjohn said:
I’d have to go back and re-check my sources, but I believe that there is also a prohibition against adding altar rails to newer churches to which they were not original equipment.

I’m sure that could also be (and probably would be) easily lifted though, especially if a universal indult were granted.
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Kielbasi said:
That kind of short altar rail that you’ve described might work architecturally in some churches, maybe in a broader flatter church. But if the church is built in a more vertical mode, more Gothic, you’d want to have something taller and ornate, maybe of marble as well.

The choice and the expense of such an update I’m sure would vary on many factors, whatever the choice was it has to be adopted to the particular venue both in style and construction. But even the cheapest, shortest altar rail would cost thousands to retrofit into a church .
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Sorry, I assumed all altar rails were shorter than your standard hand rail (I’ve only ever seen one altar rail in person, a marble one, and as I recall it was not as tall as what you’d use around a staircase). Wouldn’t something really tall be awkward to kneel at? Do altar rails have a standard height?

But yes, I was proposing it as a more economical alternative for plainer or smaller churches. I wasn’t advocating something ugly or that would clash architecturally with the design of a grand or gothic church. I’m probably bothered more than most people by later additions to old churches that clash with the original design of the building.
 
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