First, retired Polish Archbishop Jan Pawel Lenga, said that bishops who force people to receive Communion on the hand are going to “end up in Hell”. HERE
For a person to wind up in Hell he has to have committed a mortal sin. For a sin to be a mortal sin for which one has culpability, the matter has to be grave, the person has to know it is wrong, and then go ahead and do it anyway, or else counsel it to be done, force others to do it, etc. There are NINE ways to share in the guilt of another.
Everything having to do with the Eucharist and Communion is serious, so sins involving the same would be grave because of their matter.
As far as knowledge is concerned, bishops today are men of their age. It is likely that some of them had really bad seminary formation. However, they spent time as priests, during which time their priestly vocation obliged them to inform themselves about all things central to their vocation. Bishops must do the same. Priests and bishops cannot easily claim ignorance as a defense when it comes to knowing that certain things are sinful. Their ignorance is culpable.
Furthermore, it is beyond the authority of an individual bishop to prohibit Communion on the tongue. And yet some do this anyway, with the excuse of “public health”. They simply get away with the ultra vires imposition of their will because the flock has so little power to fight back.
As we’ve been saying…
From LifeSite:
21 doctors tell bishops Communion on tongue ‘safer’ than in hand
‘From the point of view of hygiene, it is absolutely incomprehensible to us why oral communion has been banned in Austria. We also consider this form of distribution safer than hand communion.’
June 26, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – Twenty-one Austrian doctors have authored a letter appealing their country’s Bishops’ Conference to lift the de facto ban on receiving Holy Communion on the tongue, which has been enforced since Communion in the hand was announced to be the only permitted form of distribution for the consecrated Host.
[…]
They went on to show in substance that in the traditional Catholic liturgy – that is, the Tridentine Rite of the Mass – barrier measures to prevent spreading the coronavirus are even more widely present than in the Novus Ordo, as when the priest is required to hold thumb and forefinger joined together from the moment he has consecrated the bread, only using them to touch the Host from then on until the moment when he once again purifies his hands.
[…]
The doctors commented that “the priests who celebrate in the traditional rite are experienced in administering oral communion and practically never have contact with the mouth of the communicant. Should this happen, however, a priest can be credited with such a sense of responsibility that, taking into account the present situation, he will interrupt the giving of communion and clean his hands.”
They also noted that when the faithful kneel to receive Communion, contamination by droplets is less likely because the priest’s face is not at the same level as that of the communicant.
“From the point of view of hygiene, it is absolutely incomprehensible to us why oral communion has been banned in Austria. We also consider this form of distribution safer than hand communion,” the doctors wrote. They also underscored that most contaminations are the result of sullied hands, quoting Dr. Boscia, who wrote in May: “What is certain is that the hands are the parts of the body that are most exposed to pathogens.”
[…]
Yesterday I received a copy of George Weigel’s new book
