Truth or Fiction (NO OPINIONS PLEASE!)?

  • Thread starter Thread starter kinderbueno
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
K

kinderbueno

Guest
I know there is a moratorium on COTT vs. CITH, but I’m simply asking a question. I am NOT ASKING FOR ANY OPINIONS on which should be the norm. *(Jean, I don’t know where else to post this!) 🤷 *

With that said, there was an ‘article’ recently on NewsBlaze (I’ve never read anything from them before) that stated the Holy Father was encouraging COTT while kneeling for the entire Church. Here’s a link to the article:

newsblaze.com/story/20090801065749zzzz.nb/topstory.html

Is this for real? I can’t find corroboration on any official Catholic sites, so it leads me to think this is not authentic news.

REMEMBER, NO OPINIONS, JUST THE FACTS!!! 👍

Thanks, -Mike
 
Yes, this has been the case for a while according to his story (dated from last summer) from the Catholic News Service which corroborates what you’ve found.

catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0803381.htm
POPE-COMMUNION Jun-26-2008 (610 words) xxxi
Click to expand...
Vatican: Receiving Eucharist kneeling will be norm at papal liturgies
Click to expand...
By Carol Glatz
Catholic News Service
Click to expand...
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Receiving the Eucharist on the tongue while kneeling before the pope will become the norm at papal liturgies, said the Vatican’s liturgist.
Click to expand...
 
well…I know about at Papal liturgies, but this piece seems to take it to the entire Church…
 
I know when one receives the Eucharist from the pope they do so kneeling and on the tongue, this is something that Pope Benedict has done at every Mass he has celebrated since becoming pope.

But to say that he is encouraging it is a misconception.

He is the pope, he is the authority. He does not need to encourage anything as he is the supreme legislator of the Church. The Church allows the local bishop to decide if reception of the Eucharist may be done in the hand, the pope has not changed this.

The pope just does not allow this for those who receive from him. It is still allowed at the Masses he celebrates, just not from him.
 
…after reading it again, I don’t think this columnist is presenting anything new nor authoritative. It was just the fact that it was released this month that made me wonder.
 
Thanks all for your quick sleuthing! I would think if there were any changes THIS significant, it would come from the source! 😃

Peace, -Mike
 
This is what the online magazine Chiesa reported as far as the practice was concerned. The quote comes from no less than the Holy Father’s own Master of Ceremonies, Msgr. Guido Marini:
As for communion placed by the pope on the tongues of the faithful, kneeling – during his recent visit to Santa Maria di Leuca and Brindisi – Marini affirms that this will become “a regular practice at papal celebrations.” And he continues:
Click to expand...
«In this regard, it must not be forgotten that the distribution of communion in the hand remains, from the juridical point of view, a*** dispensation from the universal law***, conceded by the Holy See to the bishops’ conferences that have asked for it. The practice adopted by Benedict XVI tends to emphasize the continued validity of the norm for the whole Church. In addition, one might also note a preference for the use of this manner of distribution which, without taking anything away from the other, better highlights the truth of the real presence in the Eucharist, aids the devotion of the faithful, and makes it easier to enter into the sense of mystery. In our time, pastorally speaking, it is urgent to recover and emphasize these aspects.»
Click to expand...
The practice went into usage during the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, back in May 2008 and has been the norm at every Papal Mass for communicants who receive Holy Communion from the Holy Father.

Below is a direct quote from the Homily that the Holy Father preached during the Mass that launched his return to this practice:
At this point we cannot forget the beginning of the “Decalogue”, the Ten Commandments, where it is written: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me” (Ex 20: 2-3). Here we find the meaning of the third constitutive element of Corpus Christi: kneeling in adoration before the Lord. Adoring the God of Jesus Christ, who out of love made himself bread broken, is the most effective and radical remedy against the idolatry of the past and of the present. Kneeling before the Eucharist is a profession of freedom: those who bow to Jesus cannot and must not prostrate themselves before any earthly authority, however powerful. We Christians kneel only before God or before the Most Blessed Sacrament because we know and believe that the one true God is present in it, the God who created the world and so loved it that he gave his Only Begotten Son (cf. Jn 3: 16). We prostrate ourselves before a God who first bent over man like the Good Samaritan to assist him and restore his life, and who knelt before us to wash our dirty feet. Adoring the Body of Christ, means believing that there, in that piece of Bread, Christ is really there, and gives true sense to life, to the immense universe as to the smallest creature, to the whole of human history as to the most brief existence. Adoration is prayer that prolongs the celebration and Eucharistic communion and in which the soul continues to be nourished: it is nourished with love, truth, peace; it is nourished with hope, because the One before whom we prostrate ourselves does not judge us, does not crush us but liberates and transforms us.
Click to expand...
Thus, there are not only liturgical, but theological reasons, sound ones, behind the practice. This is also consistent with what he wrote as the former Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger.
 
Re the title, ‘Vatican: Receiving Eucharist kneeling will be norm at papal liturgies’, I understand that this is only a point of language but I am under the impression that receiving on the tongue and kneeling is technically the universal norm anyway and that receiving in the hand and standing is by local indult.
 
need_to_know said:
Re the title, ‘Vatican: Receiving Eucharist kneeling will be norm at papal liturgies’, I understand that this is only a point of language but I am under the impression that receiving on the tongue and kneeling is technically the universal norm anyway and that receiving in the hand and standing is by local indult.
Click to expand...
Yes. That is how Msgr. Guido Marini, the Papal MC, defined it in the quote I inserted in my initial post on this thread.
 
ByzCath said:
I know when one receives the Eucharist from the pope they do so kneeling and on the tongue, this is something that Pope Benedict has done at every Mass he has celebrated since becoming pope.

But to say that he is encouraging it is a misconception.

He is the pope, he is the authority. He does not need to encourage anything as he is the supreme legislator of the Church. The Church allows the local bishop to decide if reception of the Eucharist may be done in the hand, the pope has not changed this.

The pope just does not allow this for those who receive from him. It is still allowed at the Masses he celebrates, just not from him.
Click to expand...
i distinctly remember people receiving in the hand and standing from Pope Benedict XVI when he was in NYC in 2008. It was shortly after that time that he made a rule that those receiving from him would be kneeling and receive on the tongue. I’ve often wondered if his first trip to the US as pope some how solidified in his mind that standing and receiving in the hand is not reverent enough. But I haven’t seen any other priests follow his lead.

Also it is my understanding that the article in question is a letter to the editor not a news article.
 
Brooklyn said:
Also it is my understanding that the article in question is a letter to the editor not a news article.
Click to expand...
This is exactly what I was asking for (as the OP 😉 ). I should know better than to get excited over something not coming directly from the Vatican! Nothing new here – it was just the fact that it was published so recently that I thought it might be something.

Thanks to all…I think our work is done here. :cool:
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top