The true significance of altar rails
SIR – Mr B Robinson (Letter, December 7) asks whether we can have our altar rails back. The answer is in the affirmative, but who at this time is likely to mandate their reinstatement? Their removal was never authorised by the Vatican, being an example of yet one more “good idea” from the 1960s.
The significance of altar rails is the symbolic separation of the divine from the everyday. We seem to have lost our sense of the mystical. For example, in some of our churches minutes after receiving Holy Communion, following the ending of Mass, there are those who descend into casual conversation rather than prayers of thanksgiving, and no one appears unduly perturbed.
