On May 6, I published at OnePeterFive an article entitled “
Bishops Cannot Mandate Communion on the Hand or Forbid Communion on the Tongue.” Taking up and augmenting material first published at NLM on February 29 and March 2, my goal was to compile in one convenient place testimonies to the universal law of the Church about the right of the (properly disposed) faithful to receive Holy Communion on the tongue, which is and remains the norm.
To this article, some have responded: “That’s all well and good, but we know that the bishops will go ahead and do this anyway, whether they have the authority to do so or not.” Indeed, contrary to the policy of the Thomistic Institute
recommended by the USCCB, many dioceses have already published such illegal policies that are being forced on clergy and laity in the name of “obedience.” (Our situation is bringing home ever more clearly the utter lack of clear and sound thinking about what the virtue of obedience is and what it is not. I recommended
this superlative article on the subject, as well as
this shorter piece.)
My reply here would be that there is a benefit to
knowing that certain policies are illegal: as the Catholic Church has always taught, an unjust law does not bind in conscience. That all too many bishops have grown accustomed to a “lawless” mode of operation — one in which they simply do not care what the Vatican says, or Canon Law for that matter — is not exactly breaking news. Tradition-loving Catholics have been dealing with it for a good half-century now, especially after 1984 (
Quattuor Abhinc Annos), 1988 (
Ecclesia Dei Adflicta), 2007 (
Summorum Pontificum and
Con Grande Fiducia), and 2011 (
Universae Ecclesiae).
A video has been making the rounds of a young canon lawyer attempting to argue that bishops do have the right, in emergencies, to suspend universal law. Typically such justifications will breezily invoke “the common good” in order to wipe out anything and everything that stands in the way. It is precisely this kind of behavior that has made the expression “the common good” sound fascist, as if we’re ants in an anthill, lining up to be sacrificed for the good of the colony. Fr. Zuhlsdorf
refutes the canonist tidily, and then moves into larger questions.
I was not surprised to hear from a German friend that the bishops of Germany have already moved to prohibit communion on the tongue in every diocese of their country. She speculates that if it is not possible for believers to receive on the tongue at traditional Latin Masses, they will peel off in large numbers to the SSPX if things are handled differently there. She then shared with me stunning photos of different “safe methods” proposed for distributing communion that indicate massive disrespect for Our Lord and for His people, a complete loss of the sense of the sacred, no awareness of fittingness, an utter lack of common sense or supernatural faith.
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| The “Alice Through the Plexiglass” Method |
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| The “Stop and Drop” Method |
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| The “Stretch and Catch” Method |
A video has been making the rounds of a young canon lawyer attempting to argue that bishops do have the right, in emergencies, to suspend universal law. Typically such justifications will breezily invoke “the common good” in order to wipe out anything and everything that stands in the way. It is precisely this kind of behavior that has made the expression “the common good” sound fascist, as if we’re ants in an anthill, lining up to be sacrificed for the good of the colony. Fr. Zuhlsdorf refutes the canonist tidily, and then moves into larger questions.
