ASK FATHER: How do priests who dislike Communion on the hand cope with the obligation to do it? Wherein Fr. Z rants.

From a reader…

QUAERITUR:

I have taken your advice from almost a decade ago in a previous «Quæritur» to heart; I want to help the church where I live and be a diocesan priest.

The issue I am struggling with is not the liturgy itself, but with a pain in my conscience over the idea of giving communion in the hand […].

Being a veteran diocesan priest yourself I have no doubt you had to navigate this and I’m hoping you can help me.

Not an easy topic.  I’m sure that priests reading this will have helpful insights.  I hope they will chime in.  I can anonymize anything.

With a measure of trepidation, I shall put on my waders and sally forth.

On the one hand, we have a responsibility regarding reverence for the Blessed Sacrament. On the other hand, we have a responsibility regarding the legitimate ordering of the Church and authority.

We can feel caught in the middle.

As a matter of fact, what you ask about is an issue of potential moral injury for a priest.

Moral injury results from a situation when a person cannot take an action that he feels to be morally right, or is forced to do something morally wrong, by the order of a superior.  For example, COVID Theatre saw bishops forcing priests to do repugnant things.

We have to keep in mind that it was not our personal choice to give Communion in the hand, which while suboptimal is not in itself intrinsically evil. If it were intrinsically evil, then a lay person would not be able to pick up a Host found in a parking lot after Mass.  The weight of responsibility and judgement for allowing Communion on the hand (CotH) is on those who made the choice to allow it to be done by law, an indult. Once the indult for CotH was given (Communion on the tongue is really still the norm!) then people had a right to receive that way. The right is not absolute, of course, but under normal circumstances at Mass in the Novus Ordo Communion on the hand shouldn’t be denied.

Popes and the local bishops will have to answer to God for this, not the priest in the trenches.

Analogies limp, but here is something that is illustrative if not conclusive.

Consider the Novus Ordo and Vetus Ordo like two different cities or countries which have some similarities but which are dramatically different.   You feel like a foreigner in going from one to the other and determining how to behave can be a challenge.

To this we can apply something that the North African St. Augustine relates about his mother Monnica (yes, that is a legitimate ancient spelling based on her Punic heritage) when they were in Milan.

When Monnica was with Augustine in Milan, she carried on with her North African custom of refrigeria meals (called laetitia in Confessions 6.2.2) in cemeteries by the tombs of the dead. This raised many Milanese eyebrows, to put it mildly, including those of bishop Ambrose.

Augustine says that Ambrose instructed Monnica not to do this in Milan, for it was not their local custom. Ambrose said that when he was in Rome, he followed the Roman laws concerning fasting, which were different from those of Milan:

“When I am here I do not fast on Saturday, but when I am at Rome I do; whatever Church you may come to, conform to its custom” (cf. Augustine ep 36.14.32 and ep 54.2.3).

In other words, when in Rome you do as the Romans do.

We follow the local rules of the place where we are, according to our Church.

For example, Latin Church members follow Latin Church rules of the local Latin diocese even if they go to a Ukrainian Catholic Church for Divine Liturgy that day.  But they receive Communion in the manner of the Easterners when in their church.

Putting aside the risible claims to the contrary, the Novus Ordo and the Vetus Ordo are different rites and each have their own laws that govern how Communion is distributed.

If we consider that the Novus Ordo and the Vetus Ordo are places with their laws and customs, we priests can – not without a measure of repugnance – recognize the quasi-right that the CotH indult gives in the Novus Ordo and, holding our proverbial (but not literal) nose distribute CotH and hope for better days based on our subsequent ars celebrandi and teaching from the pulpit over time.

I write that knowing full well that there are bishops out there who have nearly unhinged notions about how people MUST be FORCED to receive.  In their tin-pot dictatorial jihad to impose uniformity they violate the consciences of both their flocks and their priests and justify it because it’s important for… you know… everyone doing the same thing because… reasons and …. because… unity and other … ’cause… it’s really meaningful and all that.

Finally, I know a couple of priests who have gone to the mattresses with their bishops over Communion on the hand (and other things) and who… well… “lost”.  They are now in the eyes of their bishops “unassignable”.  Hence, they are stuck on the sidelines without a way to influence much of anything in a parish or anywhere else.   I do not judge these priests.  They stood up for what they believed.  On the other hand, it is too bad that they now must sit on their hands.  God will sort this out.   In the meantime, people in the pews can thank their bishops for hamstringing a valuable asset when there is a shortage of active priests.  I may be wrong, but I suspect that 85% of bishops would rather hammer a priest into the ground and then kick him to the gutter than paternally work something out with him.

Cue the moral injury music, which has an echo of a certain kind of marching quality that often employs the Glockenspiel.