The Bishop's Weekly Column from the Parish Bulletin

How many times have we all heard the horror stories of laity denied Holy Communion at the Novus Ordo by irate priests demanding that the communicant stand or else ! I heard of one case recently where the priest simply distributed Communion (if that's what it was) to all comers and then simply returned to the altar having ignored a communicant who had knelt down for Communion. Just in case you didn't catch this reply (in Spanish) from the Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship I include it here with my translation.

Translation of the letter to the left

CONGREGATION OF DIVINE WORSHIP
AND THE DISCIPLINE OF THE SACRAMENTS

Prot. 981/05/L

Rome, August 23, 2005

Dear Mr. ____________

This Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments has received your kind letter of June 8 of this year, in which you ask the question of the posture of the faithful for the reception of Holy Communion.

In the intruction, Remptionis Sacramentum, published on March 25, 2004, this Dicastry, in virtue of its own authority and competence, has established the manner in which the canons and provisions of the Insitutio Missalis Romani which refer to the reception of Holy Communion, should be interpreted and applied universally. Specifically, n. 91 of the Instruction establishes that "it is not licit to deny Holy Communion to one of the Faithful, for example, solely for the fact of wishing to receive the Eucharist kneeling or standing".

As stipulated in canon 34 of the Code of Canon Law, the provisions of one Instruction, which establish the law of the Church and specify the manner in which the lastter ought to be put in practice, are, necessarily, above those who have the responsibility to apply the appropriate norms of said law: specifically, in the present case, of the Pastor of souls and of all the ministers of Holy Communion.

The congregation hopes, then, that the present reply may be useful for you, and invites you to show a copy of this letter to your parish priest or to any other person interested, or if necessary, to your own diocesan Bishop, to make sure that your rights or the rights of any other other faithful Christian are respected, in whatever situation.

In closing I take the opportunity to assure you of my esteem and consideration.

Sincerely in Christ,

Mons Mario Marini,
subsecretary.

Now if you think an official reply from Rome carries any weight in your local parish I will tell you a little object lesson from my own experience. When I attended the Indult Mass at St Mary's Highfield Street in Liverpool, UK for about a year during the mid 90s the then Parish Priest (a notorious liberal with a malicious sense of humor especially during sermon time when he constantly barraged the indult congregation with insults) stopped me one morning for a chat. He knew that I was a former seminarian with the Society of St Pius X. His brother (a very conservative and pious priest in my home town of Southport) had given me convert lessons in early 1988. The indult priest suggested that my having been received into the Church by a Society priest meant that I was not really a Catholic and had to be received all over again and I should cease receiving Communion (which I promptly did as he requested).

Nothing daunted, however, I wrote to the Ecclesia Dei commission about the matter and received a very nice reply from Monsignor Perl in which (after consulting a canon lawyer) the contrary position was stated by Rome. When I came to show the indult priest that Rome disagreed with him and that he had no business denying me the Sacraments, he waved his hand dismissively in my direction and said: "That doesn't count !" and stormed away. Needless to say I resumed presenting myself at the Communion rail from then onwards. Father, however, was kind enough to give me only half a Communion Host from then on. The moral - take a letter from Rome with you but will they listen ? Roma locuta causa inaudita !