Should You Cross Yourself After The Confiteor?

[Crispy]

I have been brought up crossing myself after the Confiteor when the priest says, "May Almighty God have mercy on us, forgive us our sins, and bring us to everlasting life." I see now that not everyone does this.

Should this practice be continued? I read in "How Not to Say Mass" by Fr. Dennis Smolarski that the sign of the cross should not be done here.

[cappie]

In the Extra Ordinary form or the "old Mass" there were 2 prayers said by the priest after the confiteor

"Misereatur tui omnipotens Deus, et, dimissis peccatis tuis, perducat te ad vitam aeternam." to which the server replies: Amen

This is the prayer now said by the priest after the confiteor today in the ordinary form: May Almighty God have mercy on us etc....

There is no sign of the cross.

In the Extra Ordinary form there is an additional prayer:

Indulgentiam, absolutionem, et remissionem peccatorum nostrorum tribuat nobis omnipotens et misericors Dominus. to which the server says : Amen

The rubric called for the priest only to make the sign of the cross not the people.

This prayer by the priest is not in the Ordinary Form of the Mass and so the sign of the cross is redundant as the prayer to which it was attached is not there