webenda wrote:... It must be a common plan for churches built with a cross floor plan to place it on the right side. I remember the Catholic Church I attended in Long Beach, California (rectangular floor plan) had it up front on the left side...
Seeing pulpits on the left and on the right sides of churches has been my experience, too, though I have more often seen an ambo on the left, intended more for the use of the laity when making announcements or reading.
Pulpits are traditionally more reserved for use by the clergy. They have a practical purpose, such as when delivering homilies and projecting the reading aloud of the Scriptures more broadly across the congregation seated in the Nave. The canopy ("abat-voix," a "sounding board") is intended to help with those acoustics and has usually been made of wood.
I would venture the generality that, in the larger cathedrals, the pulpits are located on the right (as the congregation faces the Sanctuary) especially since the bishop's chair ("Cathedra") is located on the left side of the Sanctuary, as I have often seen them.
Perhaps, Mitch would like to add his perspective here since he and I have having been an Altarboy in common (technically, I still am, having never resigned, still managing to serve in that capacity, throughout college undergraduate years, when returned home for visits, and when assigned Altar-servers have not shown up for duty, at various Masses, though rare, in my adulthood.)
