Posted on 11/19/2020 6:27:37 PM PST by marshmallow
On October 1, 2020 the Piotr Skarga Association of Christian Culture started a new campaign expressing the concern of Catholic laity about the proper reverence due to the Most Holy Sacrament. There were many positive reactions coming from Catholic priests and the faithful, as well as some saddening but very telling comments made by some priests. In a few cases those reactions were quite shocking.
The aim of the “STOP Holy Communion in the hand” campaign was simple. The Piotr Skarga Association of Christian Culture sent a letter and a booklet about the proper reverence due to Our Lord Jesus in the Most Holy Sacrament to most of Polish parishes and to all of its supporters. The Association also conducted a billboard campaign in major Polish cities in order to focus the attention of the faithful on that issue. Why? Since the beginning of the SARS-2 epidemic the idea of receiving Communion in the hand was presented by some priests as the only acceptable, responsible and proper way of receiving it.
Some priests tried to discourage laypeople from receiving the Eucharist in the traditional manner, others openly forced Communion in the hand which has never been a popular or common practice in the Catholic Church in Poland. In a few cases lay Catholics who didn’t want to follow those “guidelines” were publicly treated as a kind of “second-class” faithful. In other cases there were parish communities which suffered from the open and unjust division into “the responsible faithful” and those “stubborn” ones. In many cases priests stressed that receiving Communion in the hand was a question of fidelity to the Catholic bishops and anyone who didn’t do it disobeyed the will of the Church hierarchy.
The reasons why many faithful didn’t want to receive Communion in the hand were very.......
(Excerpt) Read more at eng.pch24.pl ...
Ping
This has happened to me.
That was our parish’s position just after re-opening, when the Bishop was still hard core against the hand. It was extremely pre-Vatican II (until Pius XII it was pretty universal that those who received received after Mass).
However, the Bishop revised things so that those who wanted to receive on the tongue “for reasons of conscience” would do so after everyone else in Mass. This is Canada, and “conscience” is a very flexible term. Our parish is managing very well.
The pastor is a very open minded liberal Pole. I doubt he would have installed the altar rail, but he inherited it, and so we role on.
We go to two parishes: a TLM parish and a parish of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter. All Catholics are welcome at both parishes, and at the TLM, Holy Communion is given only on the tongue. In the Ordinariate parish Peolple are strongly encouraged to receive on the tongue, but the will give It oin the hand. About 95% receive on the tongue.
I strongly encourage all Catholics to find either a TLM parish or an Ordinariate parish. You will find a level of reverence you won’t find anywhere else.
I wonder how long THAT would last.
If it helps recall the parable of the Publican and the Pharisee.
The Bishop and the Pastor have to keep in mind two levels of health authorities, and the Bishop has to keep about three dozen priests functioning as a working unit.
I’m grateful for what I’ve been given.
It beats praying on the steps of a locked Church as Mass is livestreamed.
When he was in the seminary, he and five others called themselves the "Council of Trent" and when the liberal-nut nun who was telling priests how to conduct themselves, these guys never went to her touchy-feely, guilt-inducing indoctrinations.
The day has come when we have to hunt for the sacraments. This is really the first phase of Masses in the catacombs. Not unlike what the English Catholics had to do in order to survive spiritually.
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I went across town to the “more liberal” parish tonight, and the priest there has donned a cassock, and, courtesy of COVID, the music was largely chant done by a small group of women who live together (and thus are allowed to sing together in a choir loft under an accepted interpretation of the diocesean guidelines). The boyfriend of one of the ladies served as crucifer/thurifter. This parish had been way stripped down, and the vigil there has traditionally been a musical dumpster fire, so silence, followed by piano only, had been an improvement.
Unlike the more traditional parish, there is no altar rail and there aren’t actually lines for confessions (but there are confessions).
It could be worse. God writes straight with crooked lines.
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