Communion on the tongue is the universal norm in the Roman Rite. Paul VI permitted communion in the hand by way of exception. Now, as a result of COVID-19, some bishops are insinuating and others stating openly that the faithful must receive in the hand. This is false. The right of the faithful to receive on the tongue is upheld by Redemptionis sacramentum 92. A diocesan bishop does not have the right to set aside this law on his own authority. Besides, given the moral certainty of desecration when communion is distributed in the hand a command to distribute or receive on the hand would be invalid even if it came from Rome. This virus has exposed a number of errors endemic in the contemporary episcopate not least an acceptance of the inferiority of the spiritual to the temporal power and an estimation of the sacraments as ‘non essential’ and inferior in importance to groceries. We must not permit these half-believing prelates to impose further outrages upon the Body of Christ.
May 18, 2020 at 7:54 pm
Hear, hear!
May 18, 2020 at 7:55 pm
Apparently communion in the hand is now beginning to enter the Byzantine rite in Europe (including Ukraine), on account of the virus.
May 18, 2020 at 8:26 pm
Oh no! Where did you hear that?
May 19, 2020 at 1:54 pm
A Ukrainian priest I know.
May 20, 2020 at 10:26 pm
I can confirm seeing it implemented firsthand in the Slovak Greek Catholic Church. The Greek Catholics have, in line with the general approach adopted by the Slovak episcopal conference, simply accepted and re-published the directives of the state’s main hygienic officer that order the faithful to receive in the hand; the only exceptions being grave *medical* conditions, these should inform the priest and receive as the last ones in the line.
Note that in our contry the exception to administer Communion on the hand has never been granted, making Slovakia perhaps the last European country where Communion on the hand has never been permitted. Now, in a single swift move, not only receiving in the hand is allowed, it is mandatory. The bishops maintain that it is only a temporary measure because of the coronavirus situation, with the practice to cease as soon as possible; they have not even asked the Vatican to grant the official exception for the Communion in the hand.
Public liturgies with a limited number of participants are allowed since the 6th of May, with any obligation to attend Mass being officially still dispensed with at least until they are available without limitation to any number of attendees. Nevertheless, the damage and scandal caused by allowing the practice of Communion in the hand remains very serious: priests might have internal struggles but the sense of obedience generally prevails, believers are lethargic for the most part (anyone who has ever attended a Mass outside our country knows it’s a widespread practice, ergo it cannot constitute sacrilege or irreverence, if God even cares about such things anymore), bishops insist on this being a temporary measure so even if it were wrong, the intent of prevention makes it legitimate.
I was very hopeful for the Greek Catholic bishops not to succumb to these regulations as this manner of administering Communion is even more foreign to them than to the Latins. It pains me greatly to see how much it is patently not the case. Virtually the only ones I know of who openly criticise this practice are the *very* few diocesan priests who say the TLM and their parishioners — all in all, a few hundreds of people at best. NB: there are no societies (or even individual priests that I’d know of) dedicated to the traditional Roman Mass active in Slovakia.
May 21, 2020 at 8:27 am
This is tragic.