it's all gone...
Posted on 03/31/2016 4:04:59 PM PDT by Morgana
TOKYO (ChurchMilitant.com) - Parishioners have been warned by two priests at a parish in Tokyo not to kneel for Holy Communion. In so doing, they're knowingly opposing the directives from Rome and from their own bishops' conference.
The parishioners informed ChurchMilitant.com that they're too scared to kneel. One parishioner, Neil Day, said:
The situation is extremely volatile. If anyone kneels in front of either Fr. Grimm or Fr. Russell, they will be refused. The reactions of these two priests tends to be extremely rude where Fr. Grimm actually physically grabbed a woman by the arm to try and force her to stand.
For more than three years, Fr. Russell Becker, O.F.M., pastor of Franciscan Chapel Center in Tokyo, has been denying Holy Communion to those who kneel — in defiance of Rome and the Japanese bishops' conference (CBCJ). For the past several months, his assistant, Fr. Bill Grimm, a visiting priest from Thailand, has been doing likewise.
Both Rome and the Japanese Bishops' Conference (CBCJ) said communicants have the option to kneel for Communion. But when a parishioner brought this fact up, the Fr. Grimm responded, "[It] is not valid for you to decide to overrule the pastor when it comes to the administration of the sacraments at the Chapel Center."
Parishioners have documentation as far back as December 2015 of several instances of this ongoing abuse of power by both priests.
According to eyewitnesses, in January, Fr. Becker refused to give a parishioner Holy Communion because he was kneeling. After Mass the pastor reprimanded the parishioner for kneeling, and when he disagreed, Fr. Becker told him to leave the parish and never come back. The parishioner has since left the parish.
On another occasion last December, Fr. Grimm refused to give Holy Communion to a woman who knelt to receive. When she remained kneeling, he attempted to pull her up by the elbow. Failing to do so, he reportedly stormed away, saying that the "Catholic Bishops' Conference of Japan" has banned the distribution of Holy Communion to those who kneel.
But in February, after parishioner Neil Day contacted Fr. Grimm with documentation from the CBCJ over communicants' right to kneel, the priest admitted in the correspondence that the CBCJ "allows for kneeling as an exception." He added, "That exception is not recognized at the FCC [Franciscan Chapel Center]."
The same day, the priest listed reasons for refusing to obey the mandate of the CBCJ to allow communicants to kneel. "The flow of traffic makes kneeling dangerous to other people" and "those who insist upon kneeling usually make a big show of doing so."
He then went on to admonish Day:e
Might I recommend that until you have a couple of graduate degrees in theology, are ordained, have been appointed pastor by the archbishop and have decades of experience that you have the humility to assume that men who have those qualifications might actually know what they are about.
As reported by ChurchMilitant.com last November, a parish bulletin in Tokyo's St. Ignatius Church was directing communicants to stand when receiving Holy Communion.
ChurchMilitant.com has been informed by sources in Tokyo that after reporting on the restrictions, St. Ignatius has subsequently relaxed its restrictions and now gives Communion to those who kneel.
Our report noted the CBCJ in their 2014 document referred to the universal option of kneeling granted by Rome in "Institutio Generalis Missalis Romani" (GIRM), which universally regulates rubrics for all Latin Rite Masses. Paragraph 160 of this document states, "Communicants should not be denied Holy Communion because they kneel."
The CBCJ then quoted verbatim from yet another source, namely "Redemptionis Sacramentum," Rome's binding instruction produced by the Congregation for Divine Worship (CDW), which governs the GIRM. The CBCJ quotes paragraph 90 of this document, writing, "However, It is not licit to deny Holy Communion to any of Christ's faithful solely on the grounds that the person wishes to receive the Eucharist kneeling."
In an interview discussing paragraph 90 of "Redemptionis Sacramentum," Cdl. Francis Arinze, prefect of the CDW, said,
The main point that we are making there is that the people are free. Even if the bishops have chosen standing, those who want to kneel are free to kneel. And no one has the right to say to them you are disobedient ... which means then that a Catholic, who is not forbidden to receive Communion, should not be denied just because the Catholic prefers to kneel.
Later in the same interview, Cdl. Arinze added, "Some people just punish others at the very supreme moment of receiving Holy Communion; they begin to give orders."
But at the Franciscan Chapel Center, Fr. Becker and Fr. Grimm are still denying Holy Communion to those who kneel, in spite of being made aware of Church law.
To learn more about problems with Communion in the hand, watch this episode of "Sleight of Hand: Reception Deception—Where Faith Goes Actions Soon Follow."
This sounds way too weird to be true.
Actually am told a lot of priests don’t like people kneeling.
And not in the hand.
Will NOT take it in the hand, and will NOT take it from anyone but the Priest!! That is HIS job!
Yes!
It happened to me. Complete with the arm-grabbing.
“but if everyone starts kneeling, we would have to bring the altar rails back. “
Well bring them back! I came here to be Catholic!!
The day a priest grabs my elbow or arm to yank me up from kneeling is the day that priest will be arrested for assault.
I went to Mass in Baja California. In that diocese everybody goes up to the communion rail and kneels for communion. During the Lords Prayer the hands are held together, palm to palm, instead of the open hands wide apart. This was about 50 miles away from San Diego. I guess it depends on the local bishop.
OK. Now, what’s the opposing version of the story?
Simple assault. As in FLORIDA.
it's all gone...
A lot depends on the bishop. The staff isn't just for decoration...
“This sounds way too weird to be true.”
I have no idea if this particular case is true, but I know a Catholic family who lived in the Kansas City, Missouri diocese some years ago and they were denied communion by a parish priest because the family knelt (the girls also wore chapel veils). The father of the family was deployed in Afghanistan if I recall correctly. He wrote a letter to Bishop Robert Finn explaining the situation and asking for help. Finn, from what I was told, wrote back telling him to essentially shut up. I never saw the letters, and that seemed out of character for Finn (who I met later) but this family would never lie to me.
Wow. Here in Steubenville, Oh, we have a lot of charismatics so kneeling is seen often. Several of our churches have kneeling rails. I joined the Church a year ago and have never taken communion in hand. I would love to see communion in the hand forbidden.
Prot. n. 1322/02/L
Rome, 1 July 2002
Your Excellency,
This Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments has recently received reports of members of the faithful in your Diocese being refused Holy Communion unless while standing to receive, as opposed to kneeling. The reports state that such a policy has been announced to parishioners. There were possible indications that such a phenomenon might be somewhat more widespread in the Diocese, but the Congregation is unable to verify whether such is the case. This Dicastery is confident that Your Excellency will be in a position to make a more reliable determination of the matter, and these complaints in any event provide an occasion for the Congregation to communicate the manner in which it habitually addresses this matter, with a request that you make this position known to any priests who may be in need of being thus informed.
The Congregation in fact is concerned at the number of similar complaints that it has received in recent months from various places, and considers any refusal of Holy Communion to a member of the faithful on the basis of his or her kneeling posture to be a grave violation of one of the most basic rights of the Christian faithful, namely that of being assisted by their Pastors by means of the Sacraments (Codex Iuris Canonici, canon 213). In view of the law that “sacred ministers may not deny the sacraments to those who opportunely ask for them, are properly disposed and are not prohibited by law from receiving them” (canon 843 § 1), there should be no such refusal to any Catholic who presents himself for Holy Communion at Mass, except in cases presenting a danger of grave scandal to other believers arising out of the person's unrepented public sin or obstinate heresy or schism, publicly professed or declared. Even where the Congregation has approved of legislation denoting standing as the posture for Holy Communion, in accordance with the adaptations permitted to the Conferences of Bishops by the Institutio Generalis Missalis Romani n. 160, paragraph 2, it has done so with the stipulation that communicants who choose to kneel are not to be denied Holy Communion on these grounds.
In fact, as His Eminence, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger has recently emphasized, the practice of kneeling for Holy Communion has in its favor a centuries-old tradition, and it is a particularly expressive sign of adoration, completely appropriate in light of the true, real and substantial presence of Our Lord Jesus Christ under the consecrated species.
Given the importance of this matter, the Congregation would request that Your Excellency inquire specifically whether this priest in fact has a regular practice of refusing Holy Communion to any member of the faithful in the circumstances described above and — if the complaint is verified — that you also firmly instruct him and any other priests who may have such a practice to refrain from acting thus in the future. Priests should understand that the Congregation will regard future complaints of this nature with great seriousness, and if they are verified, it intends to seek disciplinary action consonant with the gravity of the pastoral abuse.
Thanking Your Excellency for your attention to this matter and relying on your kind collaboration in its regard,
Sincerely yours in Christ,Jorge A. Card. Median Estévez
Prefect✠ Francesco Pio Tamburrino
Archbishop Secretary
I don’t attend any Mass involving Communion in the hand so never encounter this.
We have to strike a balance between efficiency and spirituality.
“Render unto God the things that are God’s.”
If Communion takes extra time with some or even all members kneeling and in return more people come to church and connect more deeply to God and to the Christian community, that’s worth letting the service run an extra five, ten, even twenty minutes.
If some are only kneeling to be seen in doing so, then that is a topic to address discretely in the sermon. It’s easy to find the right verses for that lesson!
If so many more people come for the better experience that the service takes an extra half hour, the priest should just suck it up. The balance between God and efficiency is 100% on God’s side.
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