MANNERS IN CHURCH

How to behave in church is something which has to be learned. Not only outsiders but often confirmed believers are appallingly ignorant of church etiquette. It is common practice among Anglicans and Episcopalians to "kneel" by simply bending their heads. Noisiest, least well-behaved of all Catholic churchgoers are those in Eastern Orthodox nations. For U. S. Catholics, and for such of their friends as might be interested, two useful guides to church behavior were circulated last week.

> In Pittsburgh, Rev. Thomas Francis Coakley of swank, well-publicized Sacred Heart Church (which acquired an electrically-heated baptismal font last year) issued a pamphlet, Church Manners. Price: 10-c-. The pamphlet tells when to sit, stand, kneel, genuflect (drop briefly on the right knee) during services. Some other observations :

When receiving Holy Communion--Keep your eyes downcast or closed. After receiving Holy Communion, close your mouth slowly--do not snap it shut.

For Women only--Please walk the aisles quietly, without accenting your hard heels; if you are not too fat, tiptoe it.

Feet off kneelers [kneeling bench in the pews].

No lady or gentleman will chew gum in Church.

Do not rush to the Communion rail. . . .

Do not pray in solo: keep in unison with the others who are answering the prayers.

Do not rattle beads, or play with your gloves or purse during the Sermon.

> Published with the approving Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur of the Catholic diocese of Southwark, England, was At Your Ease in the Catholic Church, by Mary Perkins.* This work not only deals with manners in church but tells how to address a Cardinal, archbishop, bishop; what to give a priest or an ordinand as a present (a check is proper); when a Catholic may break rules against meat eating (example: a dinner where abstinence would embarrass the host); how a Catholic may best argue birth control, Communism, etc., with a non-Catholic. Excerpts:

(On fasting before Communion): You can gargle, or use mouthwash, or brush your teeth before Communion, and you do not need to worry about getting rid of every drop. . . . The fast can only be broken by something digestible, so if you chew your fingernails, there is no need to worry. . . .

In illnesses in which the stomach rejects all food, Holy Communion may not be received, out of reverence for the Sacrament.

(On Confession) : You cannot shock the priest. . . . There is nothing interesting about your sins . . . so there is no need to make a good story out of them. . . .

*Sheed & Ward (U. S. edition, $2).

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.