One of our female Eucharistic Ministers has been married and divorced twice. She has just moved into a new home that she and her future (3rd) husband are building.
the lived reality in the United States has had negative consequences. The above clearly defined circumstances notwithstanding, it has become routine in most parishes to have Extraordinary Ministers of the Eucharist assist with the distribution of Holy Communion, regardless of the number of communicants or available clergy--even for small daily Mass congregations.
We have a visiting seminarian this summer. Not even he is allowed to distribute communion. Only the Eucharistic Ministers.
St. Sixtus I (circa 115)
"The Sacred Vessels are not to be handled by others than those consecrated to the Lord."
Pope St. Eutychian (275-283)
Forbade the faithful from taking the Sacred Host in their hand.
St. Basil the Great, Doctor of the Church (330-379)
"The right to receive Holy Communion in the hand is permitted only in times of persecution." St. Basil the Great considered Communion in the hand so irregular that he did not hesitate to consider it a grave fault.
The Council of Saragossa (380)
Excommunicated anyone who dared continue receiving Holy Communion by hand. This was confirmed by the Synod of Toledo.
Pope St. Leo the Great (440-461)
Energetically defended and required faithful obedience to the practice of administering Holy Communion on the tongue of the faithful.
The Synod of Rouen (650)
Condemned Communion in the hand to halt widespread abuses that occurred from this practice, and as a safeguard against sacrilege.
The Sixth Ecumenical Council, at Constantinople (680-681)
Forbade the faithful to take the Sacred Host in their hand, threatening transgressors with excommunication.
St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274),br> "Out of reverence towards this sacrament [the Holy Eucharist], nothing touches it, but what is consecrated; hence the corporal and the chalice are consecrated, and likewise the priest's hands, for touching this sacrament." (Summa Theologica, Part III, Q. 82, Art. 3, Rep. Obj. 8)
The Council of Trent (1545-1565)
"The fact that only the priest gives Holy Communion with his consecrated hands is an Apostolic Tradition."
Pope Paul VI (1963-1978)
"This method [on the tongue] must be retained." (Memoriale Domini)
Pope John Paul II
To touch the sacred species and to distribute them with their own hands is a privilege of the ordained. (Dominicae Cenae, 11)
"It is not permitted that the faithful should themselves pick up the consecrated bread and the sacred chalice, still less that they should hand them from one to another." (Inaestimabile Donum, April 17, 1980, sec. 9)
As reported by Fr. George Rutler in his Good Friday sermon at St. Agnes Church, New York in 1989, when Mother Teresa of Calcutta was asked by Fr. Rutler, "What do you think is the worst problem in the world today?" She more than anyone could name any number of candidates: famine, plague, disease, the breakdown of the family, rebellion against God, the corruption of the media, world debt, nuclear threat and so on. "Without pausing a second she said, 'Wherever I go in the whole world, the thing that makes me the saddest is watching people receive Communion in the hand.'"