On Tabernacles and Altar Rails

We read that the New York Archdiocese (in a message from the vicar general, Msgr. Joseph P. LaMorte) )has advised that “there is no need for” altar rails when “restoring places of worship.”.

Archdiocese of New York dismisses increased requests for altar rails, claims ‘no need’ for them.LifeSiteNews (1/7/2025)

Some pastors have been inquiring about reinstalling an altar rail. According to current directives there is no need for it. The General Instruction for the Roman Missal (GIRM) specifies that the normal posture for the reception of communion is standing. To install an altar rail would be to suggest a posture other than the GIRM’s stated norm. 1)

Now only last month Cardinal Cupich of Chicago had stated his displeasure at the faithful kneeling when receiving communion. His argumentation, insofar as he relies on authority at all, resembles that of Msgr. LaMorte. I would be surprised if these developments are unrelated.

Lex Orandi, Lex Credenda, The Society of St. Hugh of Cluny (12/13/2024)

 What Cardinal Cupich and Msgr. LaMorte don’t bother to mention is that the GIRM specifically provides for kneeling at Communion. Furthermore, in the United States, the bishops had tried to make standing mandatory – this was changed at Vatican insistence in 2004 (Redemptionis Sacramentum). A position paper of the New York Archdiocese (On Receiving  Holy Communion), upon which Msgr. LaMorte relies for authority does mention the relevant provision of Redemptionis Sacramentum but gives a distorted presentation of the history and current legal status of the issue which exclusively favors standing. (Moreover, it also denies to kneeling and reception of communion on the tongue any special Eucharistic reverence). 2)

Of course, the original (and current) purpose of the altar rail is to mark off the sanctuary or chancel from the nave. It is the descendant of the medieval rood screen or the Eastern iconostasis. It does not primarily derive from the mode of receiving communion. The topic of the altar rail, involving separate ideological issues and ignorance as to what the Vatican Council and the Church actually decreed,  is a separate subject altogether. 

In the Archdiocese of New York itself, as recently as 1998,  a new church (St. Agnes) was built featuring an altar rail. However, as I wrote in 2011:

(C)an the “language” of Catholic traditional art indeed express the modernistic, non-traditional and ever-changing nature of the new liturgy? To point out just one example, by setting up a communion rail, the builders of the new St. Agnes intended to memorialize the return of the traditional mode of receiving communion – kneeling and on the tongue – to the Novus Ordo liturgy. Yet not too many years after the completion of this church, the US bishops tried to mandate receiving communion standing as obligatory in the Novus Ordo. 3)

If I were in a Novus Ordo parish yet desperately seeking to preserve traditional practices of piety, I would be worried. For it seems that some hierarchs would welcome revisiting and overturning  the compromise regarding the posture when receiving communion established in 2004. Cardinal Cupich, after all, has also effectively banned celebrations ad orientem in the novus ordo, which seems to contradict the liturgical books (if not the liturgical practice).4)  And this time there would be no resistance from the Vatican, for Cardinal Cupich enjoys the best of relations with the bishop of Rome. The war of Pope Francis and the progressive establishment against Catholic Tradition is by no means limited to the Traditional Mass!

Yet nevertheless the struggle goes on. As Msgr. LaMorte notes:

No one is sure where the impetus for this (altar rails– SC) is originating, but it seems to be picking up a bit of  steam. 5)

Could it be originating from man’s innate sense for beauty, truth and reverence? A sense that keeps breaking through and making itself felt despite all the official ideologies and attempts at manipulation. Just last year at the church of Corpus Christi in Manhattan, the tabernacle was restored to its old place of honor in the center of the sanctuary – supposedly at the express direction of Cardinal Dolan.  Yet the bulletin of this same parish had published earlier a statement – again by Cardinal Cupich – summarizing ideological reasons why the tabernacle shouldn’t be placed in a central position in a church! 6) The endless ideological conflict that defines the post-Conciliar church continues. Catholic Traditionalists, however,  long ago concluded there is a better way….

1.  Combined Mailing, Archdiocese of New York (December 2024). This entire publication, apparently intended for priests and religious of the archdiocese, is most interesting in its tone and subject matter.
2. Archdiocese of New York, On Receiving Holy Communion.
3. The Churches of New York VII: the Reform of the Reform, The Society of St. Hugh of Cluny (4/13/2011)
4. Msgr. LaMorte recently assumed the duties of pastor at Holy Family parish in New York City. Under the prior pastor, Fr. Gerald Murray,  the Novus Ordo service was celebrated ad orientem. I recently observed that the parish is now back to the “mainstream.”
5. See footnote 1 supra.
6. A Visit to Columbia, The Society of St. Hugh of Cluny (11/16/2023) (all links accesssed 1/10/2025)