Is Bowing to the Priest Correct?

Hi,

I was wondering if you could tell me what are the correct rubrics on the following topic.

I am an older man and I do not ever recall when I was young at the Latin Mass bowing or genuflecting to the priest carrying a crucifix when he enters and leaves the high Mass or at the Asperges. Lots of the young people at the Latin Mass I go to started doing this, and the old people have all joined in. It looks like the gesture could be made to the priest or crucifix, or both, which would be a way of showing respect for the priestly office and the Cross.

I’m wondering if this is something new or old, and in the latter case perhaps just no longer done when I was young since things were already starting to get lax before Vatican II. However, my antenna went up because I don’t think we should be introducing new customs if this is not in the old rubrics, but since I am not sure about it, I don’t say anything.

I know the young people want to do everything right, and I admire that. It is encouraging to see their zeal. I just think if it’s not part of the rubrics, new things should not be introduced, even if they are pious, because this is the way it started after Vatican II with something new introduced every week, and most of those novelties were not pious.

I asked the priest, but he didn’t know and said it really doesn’t matter because it encourages respect for the priest and crucifix, which has diminished since Vatican II. Anyway, just wondering and decided to check with you, especially after I saw Dr. Byrne’s response to the question about standing for the Our Father at the High Mass (Bugnini's Changes in the Mass), which was not part of the rubrics until the Freemason Archbishop Bugnini introduced it in 1945. I had wondered about that too, and now I kneel during the Our Father at high Masses.

    T.B.


TIA responds:

Hello T.B.,

Thank you for the trust you place in us.

After a quick search on this topic, we found the article "Bowing to the Priest at Mass?" specifically written to answer this question. It was written by Mr. Patrick Madrid who exhaustively addresses the matter, refuting many arguments in favor of this new practice. Mr. Madrid is a conciliar conservative Catholic who accepts Vatican II and the New Mass as part of the Magisterium of the Church. We have restrictions about this position. For example, he quotes Sacrosanctum Concilium to refute one argument, which we would never do. Nonetheless, his study is serious and satisfactorily answers most of the arguments favoring the new practice.

Mr. Madrid 's original text in full with footnotes can be read on Substack here.

He addresses your concern, showing that this bowing/genuflecting when the priest passes is, in fact, a novelty, although the intent is surely pious and sincere. We agree with this statement. We will quote excerpts from his well-researched article that demonstrate his point that this genuflection/bow was not included in either the Western or Eastern rubrics in the past. We encourage you to read his whole article.

When a gesture looks traditional but isn’t

However well-intentioned, bowing to the priest as he processes to or from the Sanctuary is not part of the Church's traditional liturgy. It seems to have arisen only fairly recently and is now being mistaken for something long-standing, as though it had always been part of the Church’s liturgical tradition. But truly traditional piety delivers us from the temptation to invent such things.

One common objection insists that “there are no rubrics for the laity at the TLM,” so gestures like bowing to the priest must be harmless or even fitting. But that claim evaporates the moment one consults authoritative sources such as Adrian Fortescue and J. B. O’Connell’s The Ceremonies of the Roman Rite Described, long recognized as the standard reference guide to the Mass’ ceremonial norms.

For centuries before Vatican II’s liturgical reforms, the behavior of the laity at Mass was governed by immemorial custom, diocesan norms and universal law. The absence of printed rubrics is not the same as the absence of binding rules. As Fortescue notes in The Ceremonies of the Roman Rite Described (e.g., Preface, p. xiii), the congregation’s deportment is regulated by custom, recognized and approved by the bishop, and long tradition, even if not printed in the Missal.

This work outlines in detail when the faithful are to stand, sit, kneel, make the sign of the cross, strike the breast, etc. Chapter XX, The Faithful at Mass, begins with “Rules for the Laity at Mass” and nowhere in the following seven pages of explanation mentions bowing to the priest (15th ed., pp. 242-248).

The book describes precisely every moment of the Traditional Latin Mass and prescribes down to the minutest details everything that should take place (see especially pp. 242-248, but also 44-45). In every place where bowing or reverence is mentioned, nowhere does it call for, or even contemplate, the lay faithful bowing to the celebrant as he enters or leaves the Sanctuary.

The absence of any mention of the lay faithful bowing to the priest as he processes into or out of the Sanctuary is not accidental. The Roman Rite directs reverence to the altar, the cross, and above all Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, but never to the priest celebrant moving through the aisle. Had this gesture actually belonged to the traditional Mass, Fortescue and O’Connell would surely have mentioned it, but they don’t.

A number of other arguments in this article’s comments section have attempted to establish this innovation as something “ancient,” and all of them fail. These include the erroneous claim that bowing to the priest during the processional “is a traditional part of the Eastern Divine Liturgy that some Catholics are ‘borrowing’” (not true), or that the Mass “technically begins with the priest making the opening sign of the cross,” therefore assuming that anything that happens before that moment, such as bowing to the priest, is legitimate (also not true), and several other equally spurious claims. …

How liturgical customs develop legitimately

Some say that this is how legitimate liturgical traditions actually did develop over the centuries. But that’s not historically true. Catholic Tradition surrounding the Mass falls into three distinct categories.

First, organic liturgical developments were guided and fostered by the Magisterium of the Church. Things like approved feast days and processional customs that began locally had to be approved by a bishop, a synod or council, or even the pope himself, before they were permitted to be adopted universally. Feast days such as Corpus Christi and Eucharistic processions emerged locally and developed organically over time, but only under the approval of the local bishops and eventually with the express papal approval before such customs enjoyed that status of universal acceptance.

The second category includes private devotional customs such as lighting candles before icons or other sacred images of Christ, Our Lady, and the saints, making the sign of the cross, genuflecting before entering the pew or when passing in front of the tabernacle, etc. These are legitimate pious devotions practiced by the laity that enjoy episcopal approbation even though they were not formally decreed or codified.

The third category involves liturgical innovations among the faithful at Mass that were neither approved by the Magisterium or part of the Church’s longstanding traditions and, as in some cases, have been discouraged and even forbidden, but have still flourished in some sectors. …

The new fad among some of bowing to the priest as he processes in falls into this category. …

Yes, legitimate customs develop gradually, but not spontaneously. The feasts of All Saints and All Souls began locally and were later adopted by the universal Church after centuries of discernment. The key difference is that such practices unfolded in continuity with liturgical tradition and were ultimately ratified by ecclesiastical authority.

A gesture introduced by lay initiative in the 21st century, even if widely imitated, is not yet a custom in the canonical sense. Canons 24-30 (1917 Code) allows for customs praeter legem (i.e. beyond the law), but only if they are reasonable, uninterrupted for 40 years, and not rejected by competent authority. Popular usage alone does not confer legitimacy. …

The critical distinction is this: Centuries-old customs that emerged slowly across the Latin Church (kneeling for the Canon, standing for the Gospel) cannot be equated with a gesture that has no precedent in the Roman tradition until a few years ago. Treating both as equally “customary” the moment someone starts doing them collapses the category of custom into mere local fashion. That’s not how Catholic liturgical tradition develops.

A few years ago, traditional liturgical commentator Fr. John Zuhlsdorf (widely known among his readers as Fr. Z) addressed the question of laypeople bowing toward the priest as he processes to the altar. He writes: “These small signs of respect are not harmful. They can be helpful in a time when decorum is at low ebb. While we mustn’t exaggerate by piling them on, these gestures are helpful on the human level.”³

While I appreciate Fr. Z’s pastoral instinct to encourage reverence wherever it appears, I must respectfully disagree with his accommodation of this practice. If Sacrosanctum Concilium 22.3’s prohibition against adding to the liturgy means anything, it must bind us when innovations appear reverent, not just when they appear progressivist. The principle matters more than the specific gesture. Traditional Catholics cannot defeat liturgical progressivism by adopting its methodology with different aesthetics. As Sacrosanctum Concilium says, no one, “even if he be a priest, may add, remove, or change anything in the liturgy on his own authority” (see 22.3).

It’s not Eastern either

This particular gesture of respect is also not part of Eastern Catholic liturgical tradition. In rites such as the Byzantine, Maronite, and Chaldean, entrance processions are highly structured and symbolically rich. Reverence is expressed through prescribed actions such as the Sign of the Cross, bows directed toward icons or the altar, and communal responses rooted in centuries of liturgical development. The priest himself is not the focal point of physical gestures from the congregation during these processions. …

A faux ‘tradition’ in the making?

That’s why I find this emerging fad worth addressing. The gesture is spreading among faithful, well-intentioned Catholics who desire to express reverence, but may not fully realize that although this gesture toward the priest looks traditional, it isn’t. Catholic liturgical tradition is not invented on the fly. It is transmitted faithfully and unfolds organically, deliberately, as rooted in the Church’s lived experience. The Mass is not ours to embellish or customize to suit individual preferences. Its structure and elements do not arise from personal predilections, no matter how pious. Post-Vatican II attempts to counter modern irreverence by introducing reverent-looking innovations are also wrong. …

Mr. Madrid’s conclusion is that the practice of what may appear to be a reverent custom does not validate it. He warns that reverent looking innovations should not be confused with the Church’s time honored traditional customs.

To all this erudite reasoning we add TIA’s opinion coming from a different perspective:

It is not sinful to bow or genuflect to a priest, but since it is a novelty, it is contradictory to our general counter-revolutionary position of rejecting novelties. We should hold to the Tridentine Mass before 1955 and the Magisterium of the Church before John XXIII. By doing so, we securely have with us all the previous perennial Magisterium of 1,958 years.

If we were to open the door for one single novelty, this would represent a hole in the dam; we would enter a process of choosing and picking what are the acceptable or rejectable novelties, we would be dispersing our time discussing questions that - no matter how relevant they might be - are not essential to our cause.

     Cordially,

     TIA correspondence desk