Why can’t people stand kneelers anymore?

Corrado Gnerre

For some time I have noticed that there are fewer kneelers in churches today. Indeed, in modern buildings, often benches are found without the part assigned to welcome the faithful genuflected. I don’t understand why. I initially thought that this could thus facilitate a more penitential style: kneeling on the floor is much more uncomfortable than doing it on boards with padding. But I realized that this cannot be the explanation as there are children and mainly elderly people. What is your opinion on this?

Dear …, your impression is not wrong at all.

It is news these days that even in the Basilica of Loreto they have set up many pews without kneelers. And for several years now this type of setup has become a fashion. So I have to tell you that you got it right!

The explanation obviously does not lie in an invitation to do more penances, but rather far from it. Indeed, the explanation is simpler than we can imagine, and lies in a definition: “liturgical hall”. Today many churches are no longer defined as such, but – precisely – “liturgical halls”.

The aversion to kneelers does not concern the fact that they take up more space, but that churches today should not be so much churches as classrooms.

Dear …, the church implies the concept of a place with a presence, the classroom instead the concept of a place to meet. An empty church remains a church, because He is there, there is God present in body, blood, Soul and divinity in the Blessed Sacrament; but an empty classroom is nothing, due to its being empty as its raison d’etre is only in welcoming an assembly.

So, dear …, the situation is clear: the emphasis must shift from adoration to participation. The liturgy must no longer be based on adoration, but on participation, no longer on receiving, but on giving. When receiving, the most natural position is to kneel or at most bow; when it is given, the most natural position is to remain standing.

In short, all this logically falls within the famous anthropological turning point that marked the liturgical reform. From the centrality of God to the “centrality” of man. Man, perfectly aware of his dignity, should no longer kneel before God, because God would no longer want this.

Now, dear …, in addition to the fact that man becomes truly great when he kneels and not when he stupidly widens his shoulders or puffs up his chest, because only by kneeling does he consistently give reason to his being, which is inevitably marked by the need to invoke … in addition to this – I said – it is an illusion to believe that man can be so mature that he no longer has to kneel. When man no longer kneels before God, he will end up kneeling before idols: power, fashions, the world …What unfortunately, dear …, has been happening to so many Catholics, self-styled Catholic culture and theology for many years now.