Would you like altar rails to return?

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I’m indifferent. I wouldn’t mind at all having them back, but realize that not everyone will agree for reasons of preference or health.

I’m also not sure how this would work logistically for communion under both species. I haven’t been able to work out a good way for that to occur with an altar rail other than having separate lines off to the side somewhere. Maybe it would work in some churches but ours doesn’t physically have the room for both an altar rail and separate lines for the Cup.
 
My Church has Altar Rails but they are only used for the 8:00 a.m. Tridentine Mass. I would like to see them used at all Masses.
 
I have never been in a Catholic Church that did not have them. :clapping:

Kathie :bowdown:
 
There is a misnomer in the poll … the communion rails were never supposed to be removed in the first place.
 
There are really two issues here. First, should altar rails be installed in some or all churches. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, if the rails are there, should people be required and/or have the option to kneel at them.

I think it would be just fine to replace the altar rails that have been removed from churches that originally had them or to install them in some newer churches. But common sense must be used so that newer (or completely remodled) churches needn’t be forced to make further expensive renovations.

My parish church is a newer church which has never had an altar rail. It doesn’t really have a honest to goodness sanctuary. The altar is on a small raised platform with steep steps all the way around it. Unless an altar rail were placed on the floor it would not really be possible to safely stand behind it. This would mean that at least the first and perhaps the second and third rows of seats would have to be taken out.

It seems to me that it would be very difficult to have rows of people kneeling as was traditionally done while allowing others to stand to receive. A parish would have to pick one method over another, at least for a given Mass.
 
My local church has altar rails,always has!

Why don’t some churches have them?
 
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m134e5:
I would like altar rails to return. By kneeling, I, personally, am more reverent.
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Kneeling is a separate issue. Our parish has always had altar rails, but following the most recent liturgical instructions, we do stand for communion.
 
Without a doubt…we should restore altar rails and use them.

I do not buy into the idea that a change now would be overly confusing and disruptive, as some have suggested. If anything, it should *reduce *confusion as people are forced to think about *why *such a change would be worth the effort and expense.
 
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mosher:
There is a misnomer in the poll … the communion rails were never supposed to be removed in the first place.
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Exactly! Look in any document from the Vatican- any at all- from Vatican II or later- you will not find requirements- or even reccommendations- that communion rails be removed, because such statements simply do not exist.
 
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tee_eff_em:
I wonder if communion distribution time* would be remarkably different if we returned to altar-rail style? Ie the communicants lining up at the front of the sanctuary (kneelig or standing) while the priest/deacon/EMHC moves across the line distributing, rather than communicants approaching the minister one by one?

(* “Distribution time” often being one of the justifications given for the proliferation of EMsHC)

PS.
My parish stil has altar rails.

tee
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We got along just fine using altar rails for the better part of 2000 years and that was with just the priest distributing.

I wish more people would see the need to embrace the Traditions that the Church has celebrated for 2000 years instead of the new “traditions” that have come about in the last 40 years.

It just seems that some see those changes that have occurred since Vatican II as being more important and see them trumping the rest of Church History.
 
St. Patrick’s Cathredral in New York City which I visit on work days still has the entire altar rail. The guards open the door prior to Communion. Also, my church in Queens, NY is an older church, like a small St. Patrick’s, and it still has the altar rail. Thank goodness. I was flabergasted when I visited some churches and wondered what happend to them. Also, I understand some churches did away with kneelers. Don’t know if that is true. I came back to the Church and am accustomed to the older ways. MaryAnn
 
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marypar:
St. Patrick’s Cathredral in New York City which I visit on work days still has the entire altar rail. The guards open the door prior to Communion. Also, my church in Queens, NY is an older church, like a small St. Patrick’s, and it still has the altar rail. Thank goodness. I was flabergasted when I visited some churches and wondered what happend to them. Also, I understand some churches did away with kneelers. Don’t know if that is true. I came back to the Church and am accustomed to the older ways. MaryAnn
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Yep - my old parish never built any kneelers in. However, now they must build them into the parish on any new ones from what I understand. They put the pews lower to the ground so people wouldn’t have to go so far to the carpeted floor if they chose to kneel (that is, “don’t kneel” cloaked in a subtle way). Newer pastor has brought some orthodoxy back in and he followed Redemptiois Sacramentum on kneeling in the Mass.
 
I think altar rails would bring back the reverence of the altar. To many people think that the altar is just a stage where concecration is celebrated (if they just think of it as a stage, period).

The altar is a place of sacrifice where Jesus is working a miracle when he transforms the bread and wine into His Body and Blood. What a powerful event happens each time Mass is celebrated.

People walk up onto the altar looking for whatever like it is an aisle at the local grocery store. Some approach to lay their hand on the tabernacle; some come up to pray before the altar or some other item found upon the altar. Very few reverence the altar or the tabernacle with a bow or genuflection. They just approach the altar and climb up the stairs like they own the place. Some converse in a loud voice like there was a picnic happening in the church.

Where has all the reverence gone in our church??
 
I think the Anglican Use still has altar rails; in fact, I know so. They manage to distribute the Eucharist under both species without spillage to communicants on their knees at the rail.

Our parish (not Anglican Use, just good old garden-variety Catholic- orthodox, no extremes) still has altar rails, but does not use them. Having seen what an Anglican Use parish can do with them, I think it would be worth the experiment, say, start with the school children during their Mass.
 
Our new Latin Mass parish (oratory, actually) will be re-installing the altar rail and High Altar shortly. :clapping: There were a couple of people who mentioned a sledgehammer should be taken to the ugly free-standing altar on which the new Mass is celebrated. Luckily, the kibosh was quickly put on that idea. We will not treat the liturgical furnishings for the new Mass in the same ham-handed way that the vandals in the 60’s and 70’s treated the liturgical furnishings for the old Mass. Holy objects are still holy, even if they aren’t to our taste. Not to mention the fact that, in their zeal to discard the old and sing a new church into being, the barbarians destroyed objects of great artistic and historic value, nevermind their liturgical value. All to be replaced by felt wall hangings and a presider’s throne. :nope:

Bring back altar rails by all means, to those churches that had them removed. I see little point, however, in forcing them into a modern church where, quite frankly, an altar rail would look odd and would be little used if ever.

But that’s a separate issue entirely from whether the Church should return to kneeling while receiving Communion as the norm.
 
I was thinking back to a few years ago when I visited a small parish in Hamburg, Germany, where communion was given standing, but people lined up in the old way as if there were an altar rail, with the priests and emhc going from side to side and distributing communion. I think that this style while perhaps not quite as penitential as when an altar rail is used, did allow for a less-stressed experience where there was at least a few seconds of standing still to wait for the person giving communion to come my way.

And at most of the Masses I attended there the altar boys and the male-emhc’s wore cassocks and surplices.
 
No. I hold that the alter rails create the impression and goes against the understanding that while with in the Liturgy there is the specific roles for the the ordained clergy it is still the Liturgy the worship of the faithful who all share in the priesthood of Christ.
Alter Rails create a psychological barrier that can and often implies that the Mass is the priest work and we are just the spectators or passive participants in the Liturgy.

However, in saying that, if the rails are already there it would be alright not to remove them, but the gates shouldn’t be closed.
 
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ncjohn:
I’m indifferent. I wouldn’t mind at all having them back, but realize that not everyone will agree for reasons of preference or health.

I’m also not sure how this would work logistically for communion under both species. I haven’t been able to work out a good way for that to occur with an altar rail other than having separate lines off to the side somewhere. Maybe it would work in some churches but ours doesn’t physically have the room for both an altar rail and separate lines for the Cup.
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The Anglicans have been doing it for centuries. First the rector goes down the line with the host and then with the chalice. We could streamline it by having an EMHC follow father with the chalice. Alternatively, as in my parish, we still just take the host.
 
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TOME:
No. I hold that the alter rails create the impression and goes against the understanding that while with in the Liturgy there is the specific roles for the the ordained clergy it is still the Liturgy the worship of the faithful who all share in the priesthood of Christ.
Alter Rails create a psychological barrier that can and often implies that the Mass is the priest work and we are just the spectators or passive participants in the Liturgy.

However, in saying that, if the rails are already there it would be alright not to remove them, but the gates shouldn’t be closed.
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This of course was the argument used to remove them in the first place even though it was not an intention of either the council or even the NO mass. We are a priestly church and we have a distinct and consecrated priesthood. The priesthood of all believers is a protestant heresy. the fact that there is an altar rail does not make us any less active participants. We join in the responses and participate through our actions. But the priest and the priest alone stands as “alter Christi”. It is not a “role” as you say but a separate calling. Bringing back the rails will remind us of that fact.
 
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