Last week Donald Trump tweeted 

Standing with locked arms is good, kneeling is not acceptable

This statement puzzles me. Though I am not a religious man, I was raised Roman Catholic. Lots of people make jokes about the transitions between sitting, standing, and kneeling that are part of the Catholic Mass being a strategy to keep worshippers awake throughout the service, but in fact gestures and physical actions have meaning in the Catholic Church, just they do in most faith traditions. A 2002 document from the Catholic Diocese of Worcester explains the significance of some of these gestures.  Continue reading →