Bishop Henry, it's not your call (Calgary's Bishop Suspends TLM Over H1N1) (Catholic Caucus)

Rorate Caeli ^ | 12/1/2009 | "New Catholic"

[Pyro7480]

The Bishop of Calgary, Alberta, has just suspended all activities of the Latin Mass communities in Calgary and Medicine Hat due to a pseudo-scientific and anti-Canonical order mandating the non-reception of the Eucharist on the tongue due to concerns related to the transmission of the Influenza A (H1N1) virus.

We had known about the matter for days, but had waited for some official words from the FSSP priests who serve those communities. However, since the entire matter has now been made public, we post the contents of the e-mail messages related to the affair. (A reader sent the e-mail exchange directly to us, but it was first made available in a web-based forum.)

Are you sick and tired of this kind of clerical abuse? Mail the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, make your protest known, wherever you may live around the world. We too are sick and tired of unwarranted episcopal tyranny, the despotism of those "liberal" or "conservative" bishops who use any excuse to persecute us: they swallow entire "Modern" elephants, yet choke on Latin mosquitoes. Or viruses...

[Pyro7480]

Read the entire e-mail exchange.

[Pyro7480]

Catholic ping!

[GovernmentShrinker]

If these people don’t recognize the authority of this bishop, then why do they care what he prohibits? And if they do recognize his authority, then why don’t they just submit to it?

[ArrogantBustard]

It would seem that His Excellency is much more in need of my screen name than I am ... although in all fairness and in the interests of honesty I think that when he adopts it, he should correct the spelling by changing one letter.

He would seem to have grossly exceeded his authority. IMO. IANACL.

[NeoCaveman]

It seems to me that the TLM passes far less germs.

I was thinking about this at my Novus Ordo Mass this Sunday. All that handshaking and the communion in the hand, it has to be a flu outbreak waiting to happen.

[Mrs. Don-o]

I have received "on the tongue" for years, and have never experienced the EM's finger touching my tongue.

It would make sense, I think, for the Bishop to rule that henceforth all priests and deacons will receive training on how to administer the Host without touching people's tongues, and will extend the time of each Mass by 15 minutes so that distribution will be done slowly and with special care. And the participation of lay people as "Extraordinary" Ministers of the Eucharist will be henceforth suspended until the end of the H1N1 pandemic.

And no Handshake of Peace except between family members.

That would work.

C'est vrai?

[Heliand]

Because the Bishop does not have authority to suspend the liturgical norms of the Church?

[sitetest]

Dear Mrs. Don-o,

“I have received ‘on the tongue’ for years, and have never experienced the EM’s finger touching my tongue.”

I have. More than once.

One of the less important reasons why I prefer to receive in the hand.

sitetest

[Mrs. Don-o]

They need training! :oP

[Mrs. Don-o]

Well, there's the legitimate practice of authority, and there's the illegitimate.

The backstory here is that Pope Benedict XVI has mandated that Catholics' liberty to assist at the Latin Mass is to be affirmed as widely and as generously as possible. He has made it clear that this is the canonical right of Catholics.

It is possible to question whether a bishop is permitted to cancel these Masses upon any pretext. And if the business about virus-spreading were the compelling issue, there would be far less restrictive ways to address that. An obvious one would be a slower and more careful distribution of the Sacrament.

[Carolina]

Because the Vatican has already said that it is not licit to deny communion on the tongue over swine flu fears.

[narses]

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[markomalley]

The CDW's answer to a question from a Brit whose Ordinary forbade reception of communion on the tongue:

Source: Rorate Cæli

[Verginius Rufus]

The bishop’s letter calls it the N1H1 virus. That’s not the only thing he’s got backwards. He must think that Latin causes germs to travel faster, when the reverse is true—germs can’t travel as fast when transmitted in a dead language. It stands to reason (as in the expression, “the quick and the dead”).

[GovernmentShrinker]

It’s sounds like it’s a liability issue, based on requests from the Canadian government. Such requests don’t have to be legal mandates to form the basis for expensive lawsuits. Canada isn’t as lawsuit-addicted as the US, but it’s still a significant issue. As long as these Latin Mass groups remain part of the Roman Catholic Church, then their actions put the assets of the Roman Catholic Church at risk, and it’s appropriate for the designated agents of the Roman Catholic Church in a particular area to have authority over matters which risk the Church’s assets. One could certainly argue that competent adults are assuming the risk, and that their lawsuits wouldn’t get far as long as the parishes in questions gave prominent notice that the government was advising against direct-to-mouth communion. However, masses are also attended by minors, adults who are retarded and already classified as mentally incompetent for legal purposes, and elderly people who may be found mentally incompetent to assume such a risk if a legal issue arises.

[netmilsmom]

>>I have. More than once.<<

Someone in your parish need a bit of training.

In my MANY years of receiving on the tongue, it’s been touched once. By my husband as he was training to be an EMHC.

We have eight Holy Masses on the weekends, three every weekday, 1000 families with an average of six children and all of us receive on the tongue. We’ve suspended the handshake of peace and the Holy Water has drops of bleach added. And we have NO flu outbreak here.

Our priests and EMHCs are trained to dispense the Holy Eucharist without touching the tongue. If my convert DH can be trained, anyone can.

I’ll take my chances of one tongue touch over the lipstick smears and backwash of a communal cup anyday.

[sitetest]

Dear netmilsmom,

“I’ll take my chances of one tongue touch over the lipstick smears and backwash of a communal cup anyday.”

I said nothing about receiving from the chalice.

sitetest

[netmilsmom]

>>I said nothing about receiving from the chalice.<<

Dear sitetest
I never said you did.

[sitetest]

Dear netmilsmom,

Then, in response to me, to my statement, why bring it up?

sitetest

[livius]

The dirtiest part of the body is not the tongue but the hand, and putting the host into your mouth with your hand - after the eucharistic minister has also touched it, probably after touching many other hands - certainly couldn’t be any “cleaner” than the risk of an occasional tongue touch. The latter happens, but not very often.

If the bishop had really been concerned about that, he would have prohibited communion from the cup...but I notice that he didn’t seem to consider that (everybody’s saliva all over the cup) even remotely risky. So I’d say he’s doing this just to harass the people who go to the TLM.