Reverend Peter M.J. Stravinskas founded The Catholic Answer in 1987 and The Catholic Response in 2004, as well as the Priestly Society of Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman, a clerical association of the faithful, committed to Catholic education, liturgical renewal, and the new evangelization. Father Stravinskas is also the President of the Catholic Education Foundation, an organization that serves as a resource for heightening the Catholic identity of Catholic schools.
“I was stunned to read of your recent attack on those who receive Holy Communion on the tongue. Even more so because you used an Easter homily to launch that assault…”
Your Grace,
I was stunned to read of your recent attack on those who receive Holy Communion on the tongue. Even more so because you used an Easter homily to launch that assault, which demonstrates an amazing lack of pastoral sensitivity and is, frankly, quite despicable. I suspect that if one of your priests preached against those who receive in the hand, you would probably suspend him. That said, permit me to react to your line of argumentation.
You say that reception on the tongue began in “the Dark Ages” because the people had dirty hands, but that now, we are much more hygienic and should, on that score, receive in the hand. You also say that the laity today are not children anymore (about which I shall comment further on).
Your harangue then asserts that those receiving Holy Communion on the tongue are guilty of the sins of pride and disobedience because the popes and bishops have mandated reception on the hand, which is patently false. In point of fact, liturgical law calls for reception on the tongue, so that any national body of bishops desiring reception in the hand must seek and receive an indult from the Holy See! As for popes, John Paul II never gave Communion in the hand; Benedict XVI stopped doing it on the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, 2008; Francis never gave the Sacrament in the hand as pope.
Now, as a favor to you, I should like to present an accurate history of the issue.
Proponents of Communion in the hand maintain that “this was how Communion was distributed in the Early Church.” Well, yes and no. There are certainly indications that this was done in some places. However, by the time the Christological controversies of the first centuries were settled and when Eucharistic theology was firmly in place, the practice either died out or was suppressed. Indeed, there are many practices of the ancient Church that few would want revived—like lifelong penance! What is certainly incontestable is that for over a millennium, reception on the tongue was universal.
When did a call for its abandonment occur? At the time of the Protestant Reformation.
The Protestant “Reformers” were particularly sensitive concerning the symbolism of liturgical ceremonies, and special attention was therefore paid to eliminating anything which could perpetuate belief in a sacrificing priesthood possessing powers denied to the laity or in the Real Presence of Christ in the Sacrament. In Thomas Cranmer’s 1549 Communion Service, he allowed the Sacrament to be placed on the tongue of the communicant by the minister. This was severely criticized by the very radical Swiss Martin Bucer, for two reasons. In his judgment, it gave undue reverence to the “bread,” as it called it, and it elevated priests above the laity. And so, he demanded that Cranmer comply with his vision, causing Cranmer to change the rubric for his 1552 Prayer Book, to bring it into line with Protestant practice on the Continent. Bucer’s rationale for this change is quite unambiguous, presented with shocking bluntness.
The Catholic Church held firm on her immemorial practice of distributing Holy Communion solely by placing the Sacred Host directly into the mouth of the recipient. In the wake of the Second Vatican Council (which never even remotely considered a change in this regard) and in that rebellious “spirit of Vatican II,” in places like Holland, Belgium, France, and Germany, priests began to distribute Holy Communion directly into the hands of recipients—in total disregard for liturgical law. This violation of Catholic Tradition caused Pope Paul VI to survey the bishops of the world regarding their attitude toward this practice. The response of the worldwide episcopate was almost uniformly negative. In his 1969 Memoriale Domini, the Pope tried to avoid a schism by playing Solomon and thus forbade the practice—except in the few countries where it had been done illicitly (namely, Germany, Belgium, Holland, and France).
Needless to say, it makes no sense to give approval to actions that were clearly acts of disobedience. At any rate, if the document had been taken at face value, the illegitimate practice would have been legitimized in only four nations. Instead, other episcopal conferences began to petition the Holy See for the indult (which, canonically, is a grudging permission); all who asked for it received it. Some liturgists and bishops in the United States sought to get on the bandwagon, with the issue being raised several times for a vote of our bishops, each time defeated. Finally, through the machinations of Cardinal Joseph Bernardin (then president of the episcopal conference), the illicit polling of absent bishops through mail-in ballots (!) brought about victory for those proponents in 1977. Since then, priests (even those supporting the practice) report that consecrated Hosts are regularly found in pews, in missalettes, and even in toilets; we also know that Hosts are taken from churches and used in Satanic Masses.
“What’s wrong with Communion in the hand?” “Is the tongue any holier than the hand?” Those superficial queries miss some fundamental points of doctrine. We are not receiving ordinary bread in Holy Communion, but the very Bread of Life, Christ Himself. Therefore, our mode of reception ought to reflect the uniqueness of the action. Almighty God, speaking to us in Psalm 81, invites us: “Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.” You argued that adults feed themselves; they are not fed like children. The truth of the matter, however, is that as we approach the holy altar, we do so, precisely, as children of our Heavenly Father. As a matter of fact, being fed in the ancient world was a sign of hospitality; in that light, it may even be right to suppose that Our Lord actually placed “the first morsel” of the Last Supper directly into the mouths of His Apostles. Such “feeding” was even connected with royalty and, after all, through Baptism, we belong to the royal people redeemed by Christ. We still have a vestige of that idea as newlyweds feed each other the first pieces of the wedding cake.
It is no accident that the traditional Catholic language speaks of “receiving” Holy Communion, while an alternative verb now competes with it, so that some speak of “taking” Holy Communion—which is, yes, the Protestant manner of speaking.
Receiving on the hand also has another perhaps unforeseen consequence: It places the recipient in the role of intermediary. When one is baptized, he doesn’t take the water from the minister and pour it on himself; when someone receives the Anointing of the Sick, he doesn’t take the oil and daub it on himself. With Communion-in-the-hand, however, the recipient takes the Body of the Lord from the minister and administers it to himself, which changes him from being a humble recipient to that of an active minister.
Last but by no means least, we cannot omit observing that the Roman/Latin Rite is the only one of the 23 rites of the Church to permit Communion-in-the-hand. Nor is the practice permitted in any of the Orthodox Churches. In other words, no Christian community with valid Orders and belief in the Real Presence sanctions this Roman aberration and is often cited as scandalous to Eastern Christians—both Catholic and Orthodox.
Following the national Eucharistic Congress in the summer of 2024 in Indianapolis, the largest survey ever of laity was conducted to gather intelligence from lay Catholics as to what they believe ought to be done to bolster faith in the Real Presence. On issues potentially contributing to a loss of faith in the Real Presence, the first response was the distribution of Holy Communion in the hand.
To sum up, Your Grace, I must conclude that your understanding of Communion reception is woefully misinformed, ahistorical, and unjust.
Permit me to offer three bits of fraternal correction.
First, to remedy the lacunae in your understanding of the topic, I would recommend reading Dominus Est—It Is the Lord! Reflections of a Bishop of Central Asia on Holy Communion by Bishop Athanasius Schneider, published in English by Newman House Press (which I serve as publisher); I should note the work was originally published in Italian by the Vatican Press itself.
Second, since you pride yourself on being a “Francis bishop,” you might want to echo his famous retort, “Who am I to judge?”
Third, meditate on the line of your early mentor who became Pope Benedict: “What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful.”