Can a priest deny the Eucharist to someone if that person kneels and wants to receive Communion on the tongue? Specifically when the usual form in that parish (in the U.S.) is receiving Communion standing and in the hand.
Reception of Communion on the tongue is the universal norm for the Latin Catholic church. In some countries (including the U.S.) there is a dispensation for reception in the hand, but no communicant is required to receive Communion in the hand if he does not want to do so. A priest cannot deny Communion to someone who wants to receive it on the tongue. That said, a communicant also should not make the Communion line a place for a battle of wills with the priest. If the priest refuses to give Communion on the tongue, the communicant should either accept it in the hand or go to another minister for Communion.
Kneeling for Communion is not a standard posture for reception of Communion, except at those liturgies at which it is expected for all communicants (such as the extraordinary form of the Roman liturgy). The standard posture for the ordinary form of the Roman liturgy is to stand. While a priest should not embarrass someone who inappropriately kneels for Communion by refusing him Communion, he should privately counsel that individual to stand for Communion in the future. If the communicant knowingly and deliberately refuses to follow the priest’s counsel, he does so not out of piety but out of willful disobedience to the just direction of his spiritual father in Christ.
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