No hand holding or raised hands during the Our Father prayer at Mass, archdiocese says
The Archdiocese of Portland, Oregon, instructed laypeople not to hold hands or raise their hands during the Our Father at Mass. The archdiocese said the raised-hands orans posture is proper to the priest, who prays on behalf of the congregation. Its guidance cites the General Instruction of the Roman Missal, Vatican II’s Sacrosanctum Concilium, and the Code of Canon Law. The archdiocese also noted that the pre-1970 Roman Missal had the priest alone pray the Lord’s Prayer with hands extended.
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The Archdiocese of Portland, Oregon, has instructed laypeople not to raise their hands or hold hands during the Lord’s Prayer at Mass, saying the extended-hand posture is assigned to the priest. Its guidance cites liturgical documents and Church law. 1
The instruction appeared in the archdiocese’s November 2026 Divine Worship Newsletter. It says the priest extends his hands while praying the Our Father on behalf of the congregation, while neither deacons nor laypeople are directed to adopt that posture. 1
The archdiocese acknowledged that the General Instruction of the Roman Missal does not explicitly forbid laypeople from using the “orans” posture. It argued that the GIRM’s directions to extend hands refer specifically to the priest, and that laypeople doing so would add a gesture to the liturgy. 1
The newsletter invoked the Second Vatican Council’s Sacrosanctum Concilium, which says that no one may alter the liturgy on their own authority, and Canon 907, which says deacons and laypeople may not perform actions proper to the celebrating priest. It also noted that the GIRM instructs the priest to extend his hands during the Lord’s Prayer. 1
The archdiocese said that before the 1970 Roman Missal, the priest alone prayed the Lord’s Prayer as part of the liturgy with hands extended, and that it found no indication in the later missal or Vatican II documents that the posture had changed. 1
The article describes the “orans” posture—praying with arms extended—as an ancient practice found in religious traditions, Scripture, and early Christian art. It cites Moses raising his hands during the battle against Amalek as one biblical example. 1
Liturgical gestures express authority and communal participation
The statement captures an important principle: liturgical gestures communicate both who is acting and how the Church acts together. They are not merely personal expressions of devotion. In the Roman Rite, gestures and postures help make the meaning of the celebration visible, while the roles within the liturgy show that participation is shared but not identical.
The General Instruction of the Roman Missal says gestures and postures should make the meaning of the Mass clear and foster the participation of all. It also says a posture shared by the assembly expresses and strengthens the community’s unity:
A common posture, to be observed by all participants, is a sign of the unity of the members of the Christian community gathered for the sacred Liturgy: it both expresses and fosters the intention and spiritual attitude of the participants.
So bodily participation matters: standing, kneeling, singing, listening, keeping silence, and moving in procession are ways the faithful take part in the liturgy. Pope Francis emphasizes that these shared actions form people as members of one body, rather than treating worship as a collection of isolated individual acts. Their outward form can also shape inner dispositions—such as attention, reverence, and unity.
Communal participation does not mean that everyone performs every gesture or function. The liturgy is an action of the whole Church, but different members serve in different ways. The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith describes the presider as acting both in persona Christi—in the person of Christ—and nomine Ecclesiae—in the name of the Church. The minister’s role is not separate from the assembly’s worship: it serves the Church’s baptismal priesthood, while the whole Church celebrates as Christ’s Body.
This helps explain why gestures associated with presiding can communicate authority. A presider’s chair, for example, has traditionally signified the leadership of the one who presides, and certain actions—especially presidential prayers—belong to that role. But liturgical authority is not simply personal prominence or social status: it is an ecclesial service exercised within the worship of the whole Church.
The Roman Missal’s principle is not that a gesture is good simply because an individual finds it meaningful. It calls for attention to the norms and traditional practice of the Roman Rite, and to what serves the spiritual good of the whole People of God, rather than private inclination or arbitrary choice.
That is relevant when Catholics disagree about a gesture during Mass. Someone may understand a gesture as a personal expression of prayer; others may see its use by the assembly as blurring a distinction between the assembly’s role and the presider’s role. The liturgical question is therefore not only, “What does this gesture mean to me?” It is also, “What does this gesture communicate in this rite, and does it fit the common discipline of the Church’s worship?”
For example, a scholarly liturgical study describes the presider extending his hands in the orans posture at several prayers, while noting that some communities have the assembly join that posture during the Lord’s Prayer. That description illustrates that a gesture may carry different significance depending on who performs it and how it is used; it does not, by itself, establish a universal rule for the assembly.
The most balanced conclusion, then, is that liturgical gestures express both unity and ordered diversity. Shared gestures help the assembly worship as one body; distinct gestures and functions make visible the different ministries within that body. Neither side should be reduced to the other: unity does not require everyone to do everything, and differentiated roles do not make the faithful passive spectators.