So… is the Pope really thinking about receding the indult to receive in the hand?
I haven’t heard that the Pope is reconsidering it. I know that Archbishop Ranjith thinks the practice needs to be re-examined, and
Bishop Schneider wrote about the practice and even gave an interview (linked). The practice, while ancient, has had a rocky (and some would say suspect) history for the past 40 or so years.
I ask because I casually mentioned it to my father (who is an EM. I used the term EMHC and he had no clue) and he went off on how he really hates Benedict and doesn’t like the things he is doing (esp. the statement about the RCC being the only true Church “what about ecumenicalism?”) and that all these changes make the priest have to do too much, etc…
If he doesn’t know the term “EMHC”, it’s probably because the priests at his parish don’t use the term. They might not know about it (out of ignorance, which is easy to correct with teaching) or they might prefer to use a term that the Church has told them not to use because it leads to confusion about the role (
extraordinary) and blurs the lines between the priestly power to confect the
Eucharist and the permission for some lay people to distribute
Holy Communion.
As for ecumenism, your father is apparently unaware that Vatican II said the same thing, and Pope John Paul II said the same thing. The goal of ecumenism is, through dialog and better explanation of the Catholic faith, to bring back into the Church all those who are outside of Her because they do not accept the entirety of the faith; here are three excerpts from
Ut Unum Sint (from nn. 18, 36, 97):
Taking up an idea expressed by Pope John XXIII at the opening of the Council, the Decree on Ecumenism mentions the way of formulating doctrine as one of the elements of a continuing reform. Here it is
not a question of altering the deposit of faith, changing the meaning of dogmas, eliminating essential words from them, accommodating truth to the preferences of a particular age, or suppressing certain articles of the Creed under the false pretext that they are no longer understood today. The unity willed by God can be attained only by the adherence of all to the content of revealed faith in its entirety. In matters of faith, compromise is in contradiction with God who is Truth. In the Body of Christ, “the way, and the truth, and the life” (Jn 14:6),
who could consider legitimate a reconciliation brought about at the expense of the truth? The Council’s Declaration on Religious Freedom
Dignitatis Humanae attributes to human dignity the quest for truth, “especially in what concerns God and his Church”, and adherence to truth’s demands. A “being together” which betrayed the truth would thus be opposed both to the nature of God who offers his communion and to the need for truth found in the depths of every human heart.
…
Full communion of course will have to come about through the acceptance of the whole truth into which the Holy Spirit guides Christ’s disciples. Hence all forms of
reductionism or facile “agreement” must be absolutely avoided.
Serious questions must be resolved, for if not, they will reappear at another time, either in the same terms or in a different guise.
…
The Catholic Church, both in her praxis and in her solemn documents, holds that
the communion of the particular Churches with the Church of Rome, and of their Bishops with the Bishop of Rome, is—in God’s plan—an essential requisite of full and visible communion. Indeed full communion, of which the Eucharist is the highest sacramental manifestation, needs to be visibly expressed in a ministry in which all the Bishops recognize that they are united in Christ and all the faithful find confirmation for their faith. The first part of the Acts of the Apostles presents Peter as the one who speaks in the name of the apostolic group and who serves the unity of the community—all the while respecting the authority of James, the head of the Church in Jerusalem. This function of Peter must continue in the Church so that under her sole Head, who is Jesus Christ, she may be visibly present in the world as the communion of all his disciples.
If only the Church properly taught what Vatican II said, and people actually paid attention to what Pope John Paul II said, and paid attention to what Pope Benedict XVI is saying now, they’d see it’s the same thing.
:clapping: :clapping: