Show me where I have said that CITH is a
sacrilege. Show me where I have used that word. I would understand sacrilege to be profaning the Host, like what happened at the London Oratory. I say that CITH is one more mundane element added to the rite. Likewise EMHCs. An object previously held, normally, to be untouchable by laity, now can be, in the central Roman Catholic rite. If God is present in the Host, why have we
changed to letting laypeople distribute and handle it?
Fair enough. Maybe it was not you who said sacrilege, but someone here did say it and that’s when I said that it was not a sacrilege, otherwise the Church would be in serious trouble, because it has been done for centuries in those Churches who use the Chaldean Rite and in Roman religious orders of men.
Perverse is still not a good term, because one of it’s meanings is “wicked”. There was nothing wicked about it when it was done, either in the East or among medicants and monastics.
Coupled with the other changes (dropping Latin, hymns, editing the text, removing altar rails, unvested lay lectors) the overal trend is to the mundane.
These are objections that you’re entitled to have. But it does not make any of it wrong. Again, the proper way of thinking about these things is that they were the common way of doing things in the Latin Rite, not the universal way of the Latin Rite. The reason that I say this is because most people in the Latin Rite grow up in secular parishes. The secular deacons, priests and bishops were bound to this praxis, as were religious priests who were in simple vows. Orders in solemn vows were exempt from all of these rules since the 1200s when the Lateran Council named certain orders as exempt for liturgical disciplines, but allowed their founders or their superior to carry on with what they had inherited.
When these orders were asked to take on parishes, to help the bishops who were short of secular priests, they were given the option of using the Latin Rite as it was prescribed for the secular clergy or bringing their traditions to the parish. People in those parishes grew up with those traditions, be they no communion rails, no Gregorian Chant, standing during the canon, having non-ordained religious distribute the Eucharist, kissing the floor, no kneelers, no statues, a cross or an icon instead of a crucifix or whatever the traditions the order brought with them to the parish.
There was a very bad outcome to this. Many religious orders that took on parishes adopted to the secular priests form of saying the mass. This set the ordained religious apart from the non-clerical religious. After a while, it was very difficult to assign an entire community of religious men to a parish, because the ordained were on a different track. It was like having two communities in one house. The Major Superiors had to reign in those priests back into the religious traditions. They had to meet with the bishops and make it clear that either the bishop accept the customs of the order or the order would have to leave the parish. The result was catastrophic. Many of the ordained religious, left the orders, because they liked living and minstering as secular priests and no longer felt comfortable in the enviornment of the abbey or friary. It was decided that no one would be assigned to any parish unless it was clear with the bishop that the traditions of the order prevailed over the traditions of the Latin Rite. This was agreed upon by Pius XII.
Still waiting for a good reason for changing an Roman Catholic diocese over from COTT, kneeling, from a priest to CITH, standing, from a laywoman, at the Holy Sacrifice Of The Mass.
First of all, you can’t limit the distribution of communion to the priest. By law and tradition, if there is a deacon, it is his job to distribute communion. Today we have thousands of deacons, unlike 50 years ago. Also, as I said above, if you do that, then those religious orders that help the dioceses by covering parishes will leave those parishes or close them down. Because you cannot impose on them that the priest singularize himself, when it is forbidden to them. Under your proposal a non-ordained monk or friar would not be able to distribute commion. Monastic and mendicant orders do not have deacons. They are not allowed to have deacons, because a deacon is a cleric. You have to keep the number of clerics to a minimum. There is no great need for ordained men in religious life.
As to a secular person distributing communion at mass, the rules are very clear. They may be used when it’s necessary to speed up the process, such as when you have a very large crowd or when you have masses back to back as many parishes do. You have a legitimate complaint if there is a small crowd. There is no need for the EMHC at mass.
The EMHC also does a great service to the sick and homebound. Priests and deacons cannot make the rounds to hospitals, nursing homes and the homes of the parishioners who cannot come to mass. The number of these people with special needs is very large and the priests and deacons do not have the time to do so. They cannot leave the parish unattended for several hours every day. People would begin to become upset and I wouldn’t’ blame them. If you come to a parish and the priests and deacons are gone for four hours every day, it’s not fair to the parish. This is a good and holy service to the sick, elderly and disabled that the EMHC perform. We have to recognize this.
I have terminal cancer. I have been in the hospital many times, six in the past year. I have been very appreciative when the EMHC brings me the Eucharist on those days that a friar cannot come. When you’re at the other end of this ministry, you begin to appreciate it.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
