I suspect that altar rails are a flashpoint because they are a symbolic rebuke to the egalitarianism which motivated so much of the 20th-century liturgical changes. By physically defining a clerical space and a lay space, the altar rail challenges the reformers' efforts to blur the clerical-lay distinction.
I suspect that altar rails are a flashpoint because they are a symbolic rebuke to the egalitarianism which motivated so much of the 20th-century liturgical changes. By physically defining a clerical space and a lay space, the altar rail challenges the reformers' efforts to blur the clerical-lay distinction.
I remember years ago when a new archbishop came to our archdiocese and he was interviewed by his brother who was a call-in radio talk show host. Almost everybody who called in complained about not being able to kneel in church. At all. Because the kneelers had been removed. After a while it became just comical. He fixed it for us.
I suspect that altar rails are a flashpoint because they are a symbolic rebuke to the egalitarianism which motivated so much of the 20th-century liturgical changes. By physically defining a clerical space and a lay space, the altar rail challenges the reformers' efforts to blur the clerical-lay distinction.
I remember years ago when a new archbishop came to our archdiocese and he was interviewed by his brother who was a call-in radio talk show host. Almost everybody who called in complained about not being able to kneel in church. At all. Because the kneelers had been removed. After a while it became just comical. He fixed it for us.
Why not just kneel on the floor?
There are people who are not capable of doing that? Or are not capable of getting back up afterwards?
Let's bring back the rood screen ...
So let's do a two foot rail, which gets us to the same place.