Bishop Athanasius Schneider: ‘We are in the fourth great crisis of the Church’

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JimR-OCDS said:
So the Church is in heresy because they allow Catholics to receive in the hand ?

What about the first several centuries when Christians only received in the hand ? They were heretics too ?
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Have you noted how “heresy” is thrown around here willy-nilly. This is the actual definition.

“Heresy is the obstinate post-baptismal denial of some truth which must be believed with divine and catholic faith, or it is likewise an obstinate doubt concerning the same.”

There is no denial in catholic truth when one follows any legitimate disciplinary practice in the Church. By its very nature, heresy cannot apply to any discipline. So whether or not this Dutch Catechism was “heretical” (as if a book can be obstinate), on this practice, it is not.
 
No Pope has said “Communion in the hand is a good idea” in fact, all have lamented the abuse of the indult. The conditions for the indult have never been met so therefore, the permission was not given. Why are our Bishops not listening to the Chair of Peter and continuing with this tragedy? All of the fruits of communion in the hand are rotten. Witches, Satanists & Freemasons rejoice that communion in the hand is even allowed. Do you think all our bishops are pure as the wind driven snow? Don’t you know that the agents of hell have infiltrated even to the highest positions in the church?
The Dutch Catechism is preferred by those who wish to be Protestant in the Catholic Church. Lack of charity? Really? How about some definitive CLARITY by those who are in charge of leading us to holy sainthood. I wonder what Padre Pio or Bishop Sheen would think about what’s going on in the Church of Nice. As Our Lady of Akita said “it will be priest against priest, bishop against bishop and cardinal against cardinal” We are there.
 
drolla said:
Lack of charity? Really? How about some definitive CLARITY by those who are in charge of leading us to holy sainthood. I wonder what Padre Pio or Bishop Sheen would think about what’s going on in the Church of Nice.
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Well, charity is pretty important.

A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them. - Jesus (Matthew 7)

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. St. Paul (Galations 2)

I have never heard any saint speak against being nice. I do not trust those that abandon these fruits to publically attack bishops and priests. Christianity is more than thus orthodoxy. Orthodoxy without charity is Pharisee-ism.

I note that Bishop Athanasius in his opinions is able to speak with charity even in areas he disagrees with others. He has no problem being nice. Here is the OP’s link again.

catholicherald.co.uk/features/2014/06/06/bishop-athanasius-schneider-we-are-in-the-fourth-great-crisis-of-the-church/

His concern with fragments should be something we all consider of vital importance, and perhaps in his diocese this is a serious issue. However, communion only on the tongue is bu one solution. The host can be formulated crumb free. I have never seen a single shred of even one crumb in over a decade of communion, and I look quite carefully.
 
So, again…why do the U.S. Bishops not honor the Popes preference for the reception of Holy Communion on the tongue while kneeling???

Be good, be kind, be truthful, be merciful… but don’t be nice. It is vanity to seek the approval and acceptance of others than to suffer persecution for witnessing the Truth.
Please answer the question above.
 
drolla said:
So, again…why do the U.S. Bishops not honor the Popes preference for the reception of Holy Communion on the tongue while kneeling???

Be good, be kind, be truthful, be merciful… but don’t be nice. It is vanity to seek the approval and acceptance of others than to suffer persecution for witnessing the Truth.
Please answer the question above.
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I think the bigger question is, why did Pope Benedict XVI mandate receiving on the tongue while kneeling from him, but not others at the Masses he was celebrant ?

The main purpose of mandating reception on the tongue in the past. was because of the abuse of people taking the consecrated host with them and receiving at home, or giving it to others who did not attend Mass. There were also Satanic cults who would receive and then desecrate the host at their black masses. However, receiving on the tongue doesn’t stop them from this sacrilegious practice.

Jim
 
It certainly makes it a lot harder to get away with. Why does he want them to kneel also?
May I share with you an article that shed’s a greater light on Pope Benedict’s view?:

From the time of the Fathers of the Church, a tendency was born and consolidated whereby distribution of Holy Communion in the hand became more and more restricted in favor of distributing Holy Communion on the tongue. The motivation for this practice is two-fold: a) first, to avoid, as much as possible, the dropping of Eucharistic particles; b) second, to increase among the faithful devotion to the Real Presence of Christ in the Sacrament of the Eucharist.

Saint Thomas Aquinas also refers to the practice of receiving Holy Communion only on the tongue. He affirms that touching the Body of the Lord is proper only to the ordained priest. Therefore, for various reasons, among which the Angelic Doctor cites respect for the Sacrament, he writes: “. . . out of reverence towards this Sacrament, 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. Hence, it is not lawful for anyone else to touch it except from necessity, for instance, if it were to fall upon the ground, or else in some other case of urgency” (Summa Theologiae, III, 82, 3).

Over the centuries the Church has always characterized the moment of Holy Communion with sacredness and the greatest respect, forcing herself constantly to develop to the best of her ability external signs that would promote understanding of this great sacramental mystery. In her loving and pastoral solicitude the Church has made sure that the faithful receive Holy Communion having the right interior dispositions, among which dispositions stands out the need for the Faithful to comprehend and consider interiorly the Real Presence of Him Whom they are to receive. The Western Church has established kneeling as one of the signs of devotion appropriate to communicants. A celebrated saying of Saint Augustine, …] teaches: “No one eats that flesh without first adoring it; we should sin were we not to adore it” (Enarrationes in Psalmos 98, 9). Kneeling indicates and promotes the adoration necessary before receiving the Eucharistic Christ.

From this perspective, the then-Cardinal Ratzinger assured that: “Communion only reaches its true depth when it is supported and surrounded by adoration” [The Spirit of the Liturgy (Ignatius Press, 2000), p. 90]. For this reason, Cardinal Ratzinger maintained that “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” [cited in the Letter “This Congregation” of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, 1 July 1, 2002]. …]

In continuity with the teaching of his Predecessor, starting with the Solemnity of Corpus Christi in the year 2008, the Holy Father, Benedict XVI, began to distribute to the faithful the Body of the Lord, by placing it directly on the tongue of the faithful as they remain kneeling.

In the Universal Church, if the Eucharist demands the greatest respect and care at the Vatican, shouldn’t it be that way everywhere? Or is that a second-class Jesus?
 
Cardinal Ratzinger wrote this before he became Pope.

He didn’t change the indult after becoming Pope, why not ?

Also, the Pope said in the document that only rightly ordained can touch the consecrated Eucharist.

Does this mean he wanted an end to the use of Extra-ordinary Ministers of the Eucharist?

He didn’t change that either.

Also, if the hands of the human are so impure, what about the mouth and stomach which is loaded with bacteria ?

The bottom line is, it’s either wrong, or it’s not. If it’s wrong, then remove the indult and mandate reception on the tongue while kneeling.

I’d have no problem with this, except that I think reception on the tongue, is abnormal way to take and eat, as Christ said. It’s also allows for the minster to touch the tongue of the communicant and spread the germs to the next person.

But the Church will decide which is right or wrong on this subject, not those members of this forum.

Jim
 
drolla said:
So, again…why do the U.S. Bishops not honor the Popes preference for the reception of Holy Communion on the tongue while kneeling???
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Hmm. A question that begs the question. First, does Pope Francis in fact have a preference that people receive communion on the tongue while kneeling in Houston, for example? When has he ever said this was his preference everywhere?

Also, I would not that bishops, including the bishop of Rome, do not kneel, but stand behind the altar when receiving communion.

Third, the very question uses the word “preference” and answers itself. I *prefer *standing for its humility and reverence.
 
The Holy Father continues to say that when we receive communion, we should cultivate “an inner submission before the mystery of God that puts himself into our hands. Thus we should not forget that not only our hands are impure but also our tongue and also our heart and that we often sin more with the tongue than with the hands. God takes an enourmous risk – and at the same time an expression of his merciful goodness – in allowing not only our hand and our tongue but even our heart to come into contact with him. We see this in the Lord’s willingness to enter into us and live with us, within us, and to become from within the heart of our life and the agent of transformation.” (God is Near Us, p. 71)
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And this is the main point when receiving Holy Communion, whether you decide to receive on the tongue or in the hand.

Jim
 
His Holiness Pope Francis does not want the faithful receiving Communion in their hand nor does he want them standing to receive Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. According to Vatican liturgist, Monsignor Guido Marini, the pope is trying to set the stage for the whole church as to the proper norm for receiving Communion for which reason communicants at his papal Masses are now asked to kneel and receive on the tongue.

The Holy Father’s reasoning is simple: “We Christians kneel before the Blessed Sacrament because, therein, we know and believe to be the presence of the One True God.” (May 22, 2008)

According to the pope the entire Church should kneel in adoration before God in the Eucharist. “Kneeling in adoration before the Eucharist is the most valid and radical remedy against the idolatries of yesterday and today” (May 22, 2008)

The pope’s action is in accord with the Church’s 2000 year tradition and is being done in order to foster a renewed love and respect for the Eucharist which presently is being mocked and treated with contempt. The various trends and innovations of our time (guitar liturgy, altar girls, lay ministers, Communion in the hand) have worked together to destroy our regard for the Eucharist, thus advancing the spiritual death of the church. After all, the Eucharist is the very life and heartbeat of the Mystical Body around which the entire Church must revolve.

Recently, Cardinal Antonio Canizares Llovera, prefect for the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, encouraged Catholics to consider receiving holy Communion on the tongue as a “sign of adoration that needs to be recovered.” When we do so, he said, we “know that we are before God himself and that he came to us and that we are undeserving.” To receive the Eucharist on our tongue, he said, is to signify our humility before the Lord and to recognize that it is God himself who feeds us.

For this reason, some Catholics choose to receive the Eucharist not in their hands, but directly on their tongues. Receiving the sacred host on our tongue ensures that we do not treat Christ’s presence as an ordinary piece of bread.

Reception of holy Communion on the tongue has been a tradition of the Church for more than 15 centuries. It began, largely, as an effort to affirm that the Eucharist was not a symbol or a ritual, but the living presence of Jesus Christ. In recent years I have observed that a growing number of young Catholics, particularly seminarians, choose now to receive holy Communion on the tongue.
 
JimR-OCDS said:
I think the bigger question is, why did Pope Benedict XVI mandate receiving on the tongue while kneeling from him, but not others at the Masses he was celebrant ?
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How far would that have gotten?

It really says something when most of Catholic instruction now goes over all the rights of the Catholics, what is lawful and what isn’t. Where are the dogmas and doctrines of previous councils presented? Most Catholics don’t even know what the Immaculate Conception is but they know they have a right to receive by hand. I mean, really?
 
drolla said:
His Holiness Pope Francis does not want the faithful receiving Communion in their hand nor does he want them standing to receive Christ in the Blessed Sacrament.
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Not all of us know the mind of the Holy Father so well. Speaking only for myself, I only know what he says, not what he thinks, what he means by what he says beyond the literal meaning, or what he will do in the future. I am sure all Catholics here that do not receive on the tongue will honor any change that the Holy Father wishes to make, as well as honor* options* that he chooses to allow. I mean, who are we to push our own opinions and preferences onto others? Those who wish to defend authority must not themselves refuse to submit to authority (J.R.R. Tolkien, with extra points if someone can guess the reference, PM if you wish the answer)
 
ProVobis said:
How far would that have gotten?
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It would have become the norm and the Bishops of the dioceses around the world would’ve enforced it.

Sure, some priests would’ve ignored it, but the majority would’ve followed the norm.

Jim
 
Receiving Holy Communion on the Tongue while Kneeling is “THE NORM” for the Universal Church. Receiving in the Hand is an “Indult” or exception to the rule.
Please read the document “Memoriale Domini” to understand the conditions REQUIRED for Communion in the Hand to be licit. This has never been achieved.
If you don’t know the history of how it began, then the influence of your ignorance hollows out your opinion, as it is weighted with personal experience and feelings instead of facts.
If someone added just one drop of Roundup to an 8 oz. glass of pure water, would you still drink it?
Again, there are agents of hell in high places who open Pandora’s boxes so there is much debate and then compromise. Like a frog in a pot of cold water slowly heated on the stove.
 
drolla said:
Receiving Holy Communion on the Tongue while Kneeling is “THE NORM” for the Universal Church. Receiving in the Hand is an “Indult” or exception to the rule.
Please read the document “Memoriale Domini” to understand the conditions REQUIRED for Communion in the Hand to be licit. This has never been achieved.
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It has not ben achieved. It has been replaced.
From the 1975 GIRM

“In accord with the Constitution on the Liturgy, each conference of bishops has the power to lay down norms for its own territory that are suited to the traditions and character of peoples, regions, and various communities”

“But it is up to the conference of bishops to adapt the actions and postures described in the Order of the Roman Mass to the customs of the people.”

And from the USCCB website:
"The General Instruction asks each country’s Conference of Bishops to determine the posture to be used for the reception of Communion and the act of reverence to be made by each person as he or she receives Communion. In the United States, the body of Bishops determined that Communion should be received standing, and that a bow is the act of reverence made by those receiving. These norms may require some adjustment on the part of those who have been used to other practices, however the significance of unity in posture and gesture as a symbol of our unity as members of the one body of Christ should be the governing factor in our own actions.
Those who receive Communion may receive either in the hand or on the tongue, and the decision should be that of the individual receiving, not of the person distributing Communion. "
usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/the-mass/order-of-mass/liturgy-of-the-eucharist/the-reception-of-holy-communion-at-mass.cfm
 
pnewton said:
… will honor any change that the Holy Father wishes to make, as well as honor* options* that he chooses to allow. I mean, who are we to push our own opinions and preferences onto others?
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Easier said than done. There are those, for example, who wish liturgical dancing given that it’s allowed in certain African countries. But have thrown fits because it’s not allowed in the U.S. Or how many have attended Spanish Masses only to realize the Gloria, Creed, and other prayers are altered in or removed from the liturgy. To be honest with you, I don’t even know what’s allowed or what the conditions are. I can’t believe they actually wanted me to teach RCIA at one point.
 
Yes, Cardinal Bernardine (who should be denounced) and his Lavender Mafia foisted a falsified vote after the US bishops voted down communion in the hand 3 times. Apparently the bad guys cheated and won. “By their fruits you shall know them” How’s Catholic culture looking to you?
 
drolla said:
“By their fruits you shall know them” How’s Catholic culture looking to you?
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Fruits? Again, I find communion in the hand to be a more reverent posture for me to receive communion, so I would consider the existence of the option a positive move for those like me, though admittedly, I come from the Protestant culture.
 
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