The concern would be for hosts found in pews or other places of the church. Those should be dissolved in water and disposed of through the sactorium (sp?).
A pastor I know recently found many hosts in the vents of the church he was recently assigned to when they were cleaning the vents out. It was years of people dropping the hosts after receiving them and I suppose they never would tell the priest about it. It is an old church with vents on the floor where the pews are. It had him concerned about how the congregation of his new parish are/were receiving communion. Because of how old some of the hosts were and because many were covered in dust and dirt, they weren’t consumed, but were dissolved properly. I think this year’s First Communion Class all were actually taught to receive in the mouth and kneeling with all the families’ support.
DISCLAIMER: Catholic Answers has turned over the archive to Catholic-Questions.org and no longer owns, manages, or moderates the forums. For additional apologetics resources please visit www.catholic.com.
