I have always been puzzled (I get that a lot, which is why my screen name) as to why this practice has become the norm. Back in the Fuzzy Generation when all the experimentation with the Mass was at its height (not uncommong to have liturgical dancers, wonder bread, kumbaya and women homilists at the same celebration while seated on lawnchairs in the church parking lot, altar being a tailgate) intinction was common. Of course that was self-intinction, an abuse with its own history, but there were plenty of priests doing it properly, and guidelines quickly came out to correct abuses, and church supply catalogs featured the proper vessels for this practice, which are still available in those catalogs. I can only assume that the uproar against lay persons distributing would be even stronger if intinction were the common practice (quite rightly) and it would just break the hearts of those dedicated EMHCs who would have to be told they can no longer participate.
What has always puzzled me even more is the attitude that if you are not somehow actively engaged in service to the liturgy you are not participating at Mass. The entire notion of what “full, active participation” really means seems to have morphed since I was catechized from an essentially engaged, involved contemplative activity, to an engaged gymnastic and performance activity. Also the rationale for communion under both species, or at least the way catechesis on that practice has been conducted, seems to contribute to rather than to combat the reportedly prevalant disbelief in the Real Presence among today’s Catholics.
