If You Can't Beat Them, Join Them

   
      To their everlasting shame, the Bishops of such countries as Great Britain, Canada, and the U.S.A. have not simply succumbed to blackmail and obtained permission to legalize an abuse which can lead to a profanation of the very Body of Christ, but they are now engaged in an all-out campaign to impose it as the norm. This is something which no one could possibly deny after reading such official propaganda tracts as The Reception of Holy Communion in the Hand, published by the Catholic Truth Society of England and Wales, or such American offerings as The Body of Christ or Take and Eat.

      These publications contain page after page of the most slanted propaganda which is clearly inspired by the belief that most of the laity have already been conditioned beyond the point where they are capable of independent thought. This propaganda consists, in the main, of totally gratuitous assertions. The only appropriate response to these assertions is to ask "How?"-----"Why?"-----"Who says so?" -----"How do you know?"-----"Where is your proof?"

       Here are just a few examples from page 17 of The Body of Christ. It differs in no way from the propaganda utilized in other countries.
       
Communion in the hand:-----
          "Teaches that our entire body, including hand as well as tongue, shares equally in the goodness of God's creation and in the holiness achieved through Christ's entrance into the world as the Word made flesh."

      The converse is that the reception of Holy Communion on the tongue teaches the opposite-----in which case the Church has been gravely at fault for more than a thousand years, as are the Orthodox Church and the Eastern Catholic rites today, and the Pope himself and the bishops of Italy. The fallacy here is the implication that the aim of Communion on the tongue is to prove that the hand is less good than the tongue, a suggestion which has never been made. It is a sign of reverence and respect, intended to show in a most striking manner that what we are receiving is not earthly bread but the Bread of Angels. [Emphasis added by the Web Master]

          "Reminds us that through the sacraments of Christian initiation -----baptism, confirmation and the eucharist-----we have become temples of the living God, a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation."

      Does it indeed? How does receiving Communion in the hand remind us of this? Who says that it does? And why doesn't receiving Communion on the tongue remind us of the same thing?

          "Receiving the Lord into the palm of our hand brings out the truth that we are cleansed and consecrated by these rites, sharers in Jesus' priesthood, and a new creation."

Therefore, receiving Communion on the tongue obscures this truth? Pity the thousands of millions of Catholics, priests and lay [including countless Saints], who have had this truth obscured. Pity the poor Catholics in the diocese of Rome whose bishop is preventing them from realizing this. Pity our unhappy brethren in the Ukrainian rite, whose liturgy fails to bring out this truth.

    "Requires, as an active gesture [like standing, saying 'Amen'], greater participation by the communicant and thus fulfills the ideals of the Constitution on the Liturgy."

       Does it indeed? This bears thinking about.

       "Forms a positive, human, understandable response to Jesus' invitation 'take and eat' . . . reflects the giving-receiving dynamic . . . appears to many a more mature and adult gesture . . ."

       And so it continues, cliché after cliché-----the vocabulary of the "Conciliar Church" with a vengeance.

In Memoriale Domini, Pope Paul admonished us, bishops especially, that:

 See the Appendix.