This past year, I read Bishop Athanasius Schneider’s book, Christus Vincit, and one of his assertions in the book that resonated with me was the following: “There has never been a time in history when, inside the Church, our Eucharistic Lord has been treated in such a horrific manner and been so profaned and outraged by His faithful and priests, as in our times.”⁽¹⁾Bishop Athanasius Schneider, Christus Vincit (Brooklyn: Angelico Press, 2019), 222. We priests are the custodians of the Eucharist and having witnessed countless profanations, I must agree with the bishop’s statement. 

            During the post-Vatican II era, many parishes fell into irregular liturgical practices to such an extent that St. John Paul II needed to commission a juridical document in 2003⁽²⁾In his 2003 encyclical, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, Pope John Paul II writes, “I have asked the competent offices of the Roman Curia to prepare a more specific document, including prescriptions of a juridical nature, on this very important subject [of liturgical abuse]”(52). In fulfillment of this request, the Congregation for Divine Worship released Redemptionis Sacramentum in 2004. for the universal Church in order to address the issue: “It is not possible to be silent about the abuses, even quite grave ones, against the nature of the liturgy and the sacraments as well as the tradition and authority of the Church, which in our day not infrequently plague liturgical celebrations in one ecclesial environment or another. In some places the perpetuation of liturgical abuses has become habitual.”⁽³⁾Redemptionis Sacramentum, 4.

            However, these abuses were not something that only developed toward the end of his pontificate. Eucharistic abuse was present right at the beginning of his papacy in 1978. Just two years later, St. John Paul II wrote an Apostolic Letter to Catholics around the world called Dominicae Cenae apologizing for the widespread liturgical abuse after the Second Vatican Council: “I would like to ask forgiveness – in my own name and in the name of all of you, venerable and dear brothers in the episcopate – for everything which, for whatever reason, through whatever human weakness, impatience or negligence, and also through the at times partial, one-sided and erroneous application of the directives of the Second Vatican Council, may have caused scandal and disturbance concerning the interpretation of the doctrine and the veneration due to this great sacrament.”⁽⁴⁾Domincae Cenae, 12.

            This means that for the 26 years of Pope St. John Paul II’s pontificate, liturgical abuse was a serious problem in the universal Church. Although there are individual priests who have made significant improvements at their parishes, my own experience as a parish priest confirms that still today, 15 years after the death of John Paul II, failure to show proper reverence for our Eucharist Lord still exists in far too many parishes. 

St. Paul on Profanation of the Blessed Sacrament

            St. Paul makes a dramatic statement about those who profane the Blessed Sacrament in his first letter to the Corinthians: “Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgement upon himself. This is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died” (1 Cor 11:27-30). 

            It is unclear from this passage whether the individuals who received Holy Communion unworthily were the ones who were punished with illness and death, or whether it was the whole community of Corinth that was punished. Nevertheless, St. Paul is asserting that such disrespect, i.e. receiving the Blessed Sacrament unworthily, results in punishment from God. St. Thomas Aquinas, commenting on this passage, writes: “As a sign of the future judgment, God even in this world punishes certain ones temporarily in this world… for the sin of receiving this sacrament unworthily some in the early Church were punished by God with bodily infirmity or even death.”⁽⁵⁾St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on First Corinthians, 701.

            There are not many sins which call for God’s immediate justice. The Sacred Scriptures reveal that there are four sins so grave that they cry out to heaven for God’s action: murder (Genesis 4:10), sodomy (Genesis 18:20, 19:13), the oppression of the poor (Exodus 3:7-10), and depriving the worker of wages (James 5:4).⁽⁶⁾Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1867. The above passage from St. Paul indicates yet another sin that brings God’s immediate justice: profanation of our Eucharistic Lord. 

            We are all witnessing an increase of social unrest, political upheaval, natural disasters, and spreading pandemics. We could point to these four sins that cry out to heaven for justice as causes which have led to so much unrest today. Yet the question should be asked for us as Catholics: How much of the increase of chaos in the world today is the result of decades of abuses against the Holy Eucharist?

Communion in the Hand

            In the passage from Corinthians, St. Paul cites reception of Holy Communion unworthily as the cause of illness and death. What would happen if we were to take Holy Communion, drop it on the floor, and walk on it? Would this not equally be a form of profanation of Our Eucharistic Lord meriting punishment? St. Cyril of Jerusalem, commenting on the care necessary for the Sacred Host, writes: “Why, if you had been given gold dust, would you not take the utmost care to hold it fast, not letting a grain slip through your fingers, lest you be so much the poorer? How much more carefully, then, will you guard against losing so much as a crumb of that of which is more precious than gold.”⁽⁷⁾St. Cyril of Jerusalem quote in Athanasius Schneider, Dominus Est (Pine Beach, NJ: Newman House Press, 2008), 34.

            One of the clearest ways that particles from Holy Communion carelessly falls to the ground today is through reception of Holy Communion in the hand. We priests find these fragments on a paten (when it is used) and unfortunately even on the ground after Mass in parishes that distribute Communion without one. The Council of Trent infallibly teaches that Our Blessed Lord is truly present even in the particles: “If anyone denies that in the venerable sacrament of the Eucharist the whole Christ is contained under each form and under every part of each form when separated, let him be anathema.”⁽⁸⁾Chapter VIII, Canon 3.  For this reason the priest always purifies his anointed hands of particles at the end of Mass, and uses a corporal (a small white cloth meant to catch the corpus, or body, of Our Lord).

            People who grew up prior to the Second Vatican Council will remember when everyone received Holy Communion on the tongue and kneeling. This has been the long held practice for thousands of years (although during certain periods of the early Church it did allow Communion in the hand).⁽⁹⁾There was an organic development in the liturgy going back as far as the sixth century where the Church adopted the practice of giving Holy Communion directly into the mouth, and forbidding Communion in the hand. Cf. Joseph A. Jungman, The Mass of the Roman Rite, trans. Francis Brunner, (Westminster, MD: Christian Classics, Inc., 1986), II.381-382; Schneider, Dominus Est, 27-28. While many think that it was Vatican II that called for this change in the way we receive our Eucharistic Lord, it is important to note: Vatican II never called for Communion in the hand. Nor was Communion in the hand originally instituted as part of the new Mass, Pope St. Paul VI’s ordinary form of the Roman Rite. The truth is that permission to give Holy Communion in the hand was the result of disobedience, rather than some kind of desire for greater devotion to the Eucharist. 

            After the Second Vatican Council some dioceses in the world started to make their own rules by receiving Communion in the hand, disobeying the laws of the universal Church. Therefore, in 1968, Pope Paul VI graciously sent out a questionnaire to all the bishops of the world asking if there should be a prudent change in the Church’s practice on how Communion would be distributed. The poll numbers came back overwhelming against Communion in the hand.  Hence the Vatican concluded: “The answers given show that by far the greater number of bishops think that the discipline currently in force should not be changed. And if it were to be changed, it would be an offense to the sensibilities and spiritual outlook of these bishops and a great many of the faithful.”⁽¹⁰⁾Sacred Congregation of the Divine Worship, Memoriale Domini, May 29, 1969. An indult is a special permission for a particular situation, rather than a universal norm.

            Nonetheless the disobedience continued and some of these dioceses petitioned Rome to officially permit Communion in the hand. Pope Paul VI then gave an indult to the French bishops permitting each bishop to decide the question in his own diocese for the ordinary form of the Mass.⁽¹¹⁾Cf. Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship, En réponse a la Demande. May 29, 1969. Eventually the majority of dioceses in the world took advantage of the indult and simply permitted the practice. The United States received the indult in 1977. 

            Why did the Pope allow it? Perhaps it can be best summed up by the words of Our Lord about why divorce was allowed in the Old Testament: “For your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives” (Matthew 19:8). Their disobedience had reached such a point that it would have been difficult to have them return to the traditional practice. 

            In its initial rejection of Communion in the hand, the Congregation for Divine Worship stated that if Communion in the hand were permitted, it feared that it would lead to, “…both the possibility of a lessening of reverence toward the august sacrament of the altar, its profanation, and the watering down of the true doctrine of the Eucharist.”⁽¹²⁾Memoriale Domini. After decades of decrease of reverence for the Blessed Sacrament, I think it is safe to conclude that this fear was well-founded.  

            Nonetheless not everyone has embraced Communion in the hand. For example, St. Teresa of Calcutta always taught her sisters that Communion must be received on the tongue, never in the hand. Pope Benedict XVI clarified the practice at the Vatican so that now all Papal Masses only give Communion out on the tongue. Some countries like Sri Lanka did not use the indult, and maintained the long held tradition of receiving only on the tongue. Recently there have also been dioceses around the world such as San Luis, Argentina and Lima, Peru that have returned to the traditional practice and no longer permit Communion in the hand. This is an option fully supported by the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith.  

            The extraordinary form of the Roman Rite (Traditional Latin Mass) never allowed Communion in the hand. I know of young men who are entering monasteries and religious orders that only offer the extraordinary form just so that, as priests, they will never have to give out Holy Communion in the hand. In the ordinary form of the Roman Rite, every priest has the right to refuse Holy Communion in the hand if he fears profanation: “If there is a risk of profanation, then Holy Communion should not be given in the hand to the faithful.”⁽¹³⁾Redemptionis Sacramentum, 92.  

            Considering that Communion in the hand originated because of disobedience, and that there have now been decades of liturgical abuse in the ordinary form of the Mass, and further how St. Paul explains that the faithful are punished for profaning the Eucharist, it is time to move towards eliminating this practice. First it must begin by individuals making the choice to receive on the tongue, recognizing the need to properly reverence our Eucharistic Lord. Then, please God, some day soon it will be addressed by the clergy as well.  

            Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith of Sri Lanka has written: “I think it is now time to evaluate carefully the practice of Communion in the hand and, if necessary, to abandon what was actually never called for in the Vatican II document Sacrosanctum Concilium nor by the Council Fathers, but was in fact ‘accepted’ after it was introduced as an abuse in some countries.”⁽¹⁴⁾Cardinal Malcom Ranjith in Preface to Dominus Est, 17. During this month of October, we beg Our Lady of the Rosary to bring about this necessary reverence for our Eucharistic Lord. 

For more reading on reverence for the Holy Eucharist: 

Dominus Est by Bishop Athanasius Schneider 

Jesus Our Eucharistic Love by Fr. Stefano Manelli