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But Archbishop Chaput is the highest-ranking member of the hierarchy that I've heard speak about the issue. His words seem like a reasonable guide.

The USCCB has weighed in. The old Sacramentary does not allow either hand holding or the orans gesture, thus neither are licit. The new Sacramentary allows the orans gesture but has not been approved by the Holy See, thus hand holding and the orans gesture are still illicit, despite what Chaput thinks or writes. He thinks if the GIRM doesn't explicitly prohibit something then it's alright. He is mistaken.

Orans

Many Catholics are in the habit of holding their hands in the “Orans” posture during the Lord’s prayer along with the celebrant. Some do this on their own as a private devotional posture while some congregations make it a general practice for their communities.
Is this practice permissible under the current rubrics, either as a private practice not something adopted by a particular parish as a communal gesture? What is the status of the bishops’ proposal to include this practice as part of the liturgical norms for the US?
No position is prescribed in the present Sacramentary for an assembly gesture during the Lord’s Prayer. While the recently approved revised Sacramentary does provide for the use of the orans gesture by members of the assembly during the Lord’s Prayer, the revised Sacramentary may not be used until it has been confirmed by the Holy See. I might also note that in the course of its discussion of the this question, the Bishops’ Committee on the Liturgy expressed a strong preference for the orans gesture over the holding of hands since the focus of the Lord’s Prayer is a prayer to the Father and not primarily an expression of community and fellowship.

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Committee on the Liturgy
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
3211 4th Street, N.E., Washington, DC 20017-1194 (202) 541-3060

http://www.usccb.org/liturgy/q%26a/mass/orans.htm

Dear SMEDLEYBUTLER,

I appreciate your reference, but I'm not sure that it means what you say it does.

Here is the difficulty (and I was surprised about this):

"No position is prescribed in the present Sacramentary for an assembly gesture during the Lord’s Prayer."

That's right out of the text of the Q&A that you cite from the USCCB site. That seems to be what Archbishop Chaput said, as well.

If one position were prescribed, one could rightly infer that all other positions would be prohibited.

But if no position is prescribed, one may not infer that one position is acceptable and others are prohibited. The best inference would be that there are perhaps several acceptable positions.

I don't follow these things closely, but I wonder whether the additions in the new Sacramentary are in part because previously, the old Sacramentary failed to prescribe an appropriate position.

Once the new Sacramentary is approved, this will change. It appears that then, there will be prescribed positions, and it appears that hand-holding will not be one. At that time, I think it would no longer be permissible to hold hands during the Our Father.

I looked around the USCCB site for further guidance. I'm not so familiar with the site, and thus, I may have missed something. The GIRM is available at the site, but it appears to be available in Latin, and regrettably, I don't read Latin.

I've e-mailed their Q&A folks for clarification. If I hear back, I'll share this here.

In the meanwhile, after googling a bit, I found this at Peter's Net:

http://www.petersnet.net/browse/1175.htm

The author is Fr. William Saunders, who is is dean of the Notre Dame Graduate School of Christendom College and pastor of Queen of Apostles Parish, both in Alexandria. Fr. Saunders makes clear that the priest may not instruct the congregation to hold hands. There is no mandate to hold hands. However, Fr. Saunders has this to say:

"Can a congregation hold hands anyway, even if it is extraneous? While no one can find fault if a husband and wife, or a family want spontaneously to hold hands during the Lord's Prayer, the priest does not have the right to introduce, mandate, or impose it."

It appears that though no priest may mandate it, it does not appear currently to be prohibited.

Again, perhaps this is part of the reason that the new Sacramentary will address this point.

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