Answer

Jimmy Akin’s book Mass Confusion, available at shop.catholic.com, is an excellent resource for questions like this. Concerning holding hands during the Our Father, Jimmy states, “The Holy See has not ruled directly on this issue. In a response to a query, however, the Holy See stated that holding hands ‘is a liturgical gesture introduced spontaneously but on personal initiative; it is not in the rubrics’ . . . For this reason, no one can be required to hold hands during the Our Father” (161). Jimmy describes the practice as “discouraged.”