Traditionalists are sometimes accused of having a static concept of the Faith, of being opposed to any development. On the contrary, it is the Liberals who wish to ignore developments in liturgy and doctrine which have taken place under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. The most effective answer to contemporary liturgical and doctrinal innovators is to be found in Newman's The Development of Christian Doctrine. In this book the great Cardinal shows how it was not only natural but inevitable that there should be development in every aspect of the Church's life. The first Christians still frequented the synagogues and, in many cases, observed Jewish dietary regulations. Centuries passed before the true nature of the Trinity and the Divine nature of Christ were fully clarified. Forms of worship used in times of persecution were clearly no longer adequate when the Christians emerged from the catacombs and were presented with great basilicas. As with other doctrines, without ever contradicting what had been previously believed, the nature of the Sacrifice of the Mass and the Real Presence of Our Lord in the Eucharist became more and more apparent, and this was reflected in the liturgy. Lex orandi, lex credendi, the manner in which the Church worships will reflect what she believes. ³ Cardinal Newman correctly observed that "a developed doctrine which reverses the course of development which has preceded it, is no true development but a corruption; also that what is corrupt acts as an element of unhealthiness towards what is sound." ⁴ There could be no more accurate description of the nature and effect of the reversal of development which has occurred with the introduction of Communion in the hand.

        Furthermore, this particular innovation, together with most of the liturgical changes following Vatican II, cannot be reconciled with the belief that the Holy Ghost inhabits and guides the Church. If the arguments in favour of Communion in the hand, and the other liturgical changes are valid, then clearly the Holy Ghost has not been guiding the Church for well over a thousand years. He was evidently either absent or ignored until the Protestant Reformers of the 16th century made the very same changes being imposed by the neo-Protestants within the Church today. It will be proved below that, as the Protestant Reformers introduced Communion in the hand specifically to reject belief in the Catholic priesthood and the Real Presence, the retention of Communion on the tongue had become an embarrassing obstacle to ecumenism since Vatican II. Those who are destroying the Roman Rite today are opposed to virtually every aspect of the manner used by Latin rite Catholics for celebrating Mass before the Council. If they are correct, then it is quite inconceivable that the Holy Ghost was leading the Popes of the past 1,000 years to permit and impose harmful forms of worship. And if the Holy Ghost has not been guiding the Church for over a millenium, then quite clearly ours is not the one true Church.
    
Liberals might answer that what was adequate until the second half of this century is no longer adequate today, as we are now in the presence of 'modern man', of humanity 'come of age', of the 'adult Catholic'. In his book The Devastated Vineyard, Dietrich von Hildebrand shows convincingly that the so-called "modern man" is a myth, invented by the sociologists, that in his essential nature, in his basic needs, desires, and attitudes, contemporary man does not differ from his predecessors of past centuries. ⁵ Human nature does not change.

    The Practice of Communion in the Hand
    
The key issue of the debate concerning the escalating imposition of Communion in the hand is not whether it was once widespread in the early Church, but whether it should be introduced in the present day. In order to simplify the debate, let it be conceded, for the sake of argument, that for some centuries it was considered acceptable for the priest to place the host in the hand of the communicant. There is, however, definite evidence that, in at least some regions, the laity were receiving Communion on the tongue by the end of the sixth century. ⁶ The Roman Ordo of the ninth century accepts Communion on the tongue as the normal practice. ⁷ The Synod of Rouen in the year 650 condemned the reception of Communion in the hand by the laity as an abuse. This indicates that the reception of Holy Communion upon the tongue must have already become the established practice. ⁸

    Scholars are not clear why the transition took place-----differing explanations are given and there is probably some truth in most of them. The precise reason is not important, however. What is important is that the change must have been made for good reason under the influence of the Holy Ghost. The change to unleavened bread is given as one reason; the fear of abuse is another; Fr. Jungmann cites "growing respect for the Eucharist" as the decisive reason. ⁹

    A study of patristic and early medieval sources reveals not only a continually heightened appreciation of the Eucharist as the true Body and Blood of Christ-----not simply to be received, but to be adored-----but of the nature of the Mass as a solemn Sacrifice, the prime purpose of which is the adoration of Almighty God. The essential sacrificial act required a validly ordained priest, wheaten bread, and wine. It was offered by the priest acting in the person of Christ. The laity had the awesome privilege of being present at the Sacrifice-----but the liturgy naturally and logically came to accentuate the primary role of the priest and the solemnity of the Sacrifice. A booklet of propaganda in favour of Communion in the hand, The Body of Christ, issued by the American Bishops' Committee on the Liturgy, writes of this as if it were something to be condemned:
    
"In the eighth and ninth centuries the laity were almost completely excluded from the celebration. They no longer took the offerings to the altar during Mass, but were required to do so beforehand; the singing was done by the schola only; the general intercessions disappeared; the faithful could no longer see what was happening on the altar because the priest was in front of the altar, now sometimes completely surrounded and completely hidden by the iconostasis; the canon was said quietly and everything took place in silence or in a language less understood by the people."

   This reads like a list of complaints made by a 16th century Protestant Reformer and, in most of the instances given, is a condemnation of the present liturgical practice of the Orthodox and Eastern-rite Catholics. As an example of the shoddy scholarship in this pamphlet, and all the propaganda for Communion in the hand, it needs only to be pointed out that the very idea of the faithful needing to see "what was happening on the altar" would have been totally alien to the Christians of this time, as Fr. Charles Napier, Superior of the London Oratory, has pointed out. ¹⁰ Similarly, from the time that  Christians first had churches, it was the almost invariable custom for Mass to be offered facing the East, and so the priest always stood before the altar with his back to the congregation. I have given sufficient evidence of this elsewhere and will not repeat it here. [See my pamphlets, The Tridentine Mass and The New Mass, available from The Remnant at $1 each.]

     Once the true nature of the Mass is grasped, once there is a true understanding of what takes place when a priest of God pronounces the awesome words of consecration, it is not hard to understand why the most solemn moments of the Sacrifice take place behind the Iconostasis in the Eastern Churches. It is, indeed, a matter for wonder that any priest dares to pronounce these words or that the laity dare to be present when he does. There is a passage in the ancient liturgy of St. James which expresses perfectly the attitude which sinful men should adopt in the presence of this mystery, an attitude epitomized perfectly by the manner in which Mass was celebrated by the close of the ninth century, but which is found totally deplorable by today's proponents of Communion in the hand. The passage reads: