Liturgical Pet Peeve #1: Holding Hands during the Our Father

A bit unusual to have back-to-back LPP1s, but I couldn't pass this one up after seeing the excellent video embedded below.

A practice seen in a large number of Catholic parishes (virtually every one I've attended, outside the Sacred Music Colloquium and St Patrick's in New Orleans) is that of congregants holding hands with one another during the Our Father—sometimes practically the entire congregation takes part in this, and I've even seen folks holding hands across the aisles. This culminates in the hand-holders raising their hands high at the Doxology ("For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are Yours, now and forever").

I'm not quite sure how or when this got started; I've heard that someone, somewhere, saw it at a Protestant service and thought it might be cool for us Catholics to follow suit. However, the practice has become so prevalent, at least in the United States, that many bishops have acquiesced in it (in my diocese, it's supposed to be limited to immediate family, but I still see unrelated folks reaching for their neighbors' hands).

"But, Chris," I hear from the galleries, "it's such a nice, touching gesture [pun not intended]. It shows our warmth, our humanity, our neighborliness, our unity."

That's nice, guys and gals. I truly don't have a problem with gestures of warmth, humanity, or unity per se. I certainly exchange the first two with Ladylove rather frequently (the third one, of course, will have to wait for marriage, should that be our lot). But three small problems arise with endemic paternosterian manual contact:

1. Someone, somewhere, figured it would be cool and decided to "just do it." Sorry, but that's not the way we do things in Catholic liturgy, brothers and sisters:

Regulation of the sacred liturgy depends solely on the authority of the Church, that is, on the Apostolic See and, as laws may determine, on the bishop.... no other person, even if he be a priest, may add, remove, or change anything in the liturgy on his own authority. (Sacrosanctum Concilium 22)

2. There's already a sign of unity built into the Mass. The Eucharist is the ultimate sign of Christian unity, which is why the USCCB "Guidelines for the Reception of Communion" point out that, basically, Protestants can't receive (with specified exceptions). Why do we need another?

3. It takes the congregation's attention from the One Whom we're supposed to be praying to. I'll let Fr Jeffrey Keyes, pastor of St Edward Parish in Newark, CA, explain:


So, can we please give the hand-holding a rest?