COMMUNION MINISTER AND MINISTERED ALL FROTHING AT THE MOUTH IN NEW PLYMOUTH

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"Communicants approached me with mouths wide open and tongue halfway out (a disgusting sight at the best of times). Despite every respect to the Sacrament (sic) and every diligence I could muster, I endured repeatedly the revolting wet feel of warm saliva coming to rest on my thumb and forefinger."

The Wellington Archdiocese is wheeling out the big guns to mount its offensive against faithful Catholics who receive Holy Communion on the tongue: the deathless prose above comes from one Peter Gaines, a 'minister of the Eucharist' (sic) in New Plymouth. 

To see it in print at all is excruciating and I apologise for reproducing it, but as Gaines' fulminations actually feature on the Wellington Archdiocesan website for last Sunday, they are obviously meant for the delectation and delight of all the faithful. And it's really required reading for those in the Archdiocese who like to be up with the play of the NZ Conference of Catholic Bishops.

And wait: there's more. 

"On such occasions," says Mr Gaines, "I try to wipe off the invasion of my person on a hankerchief (sic).... on I go putting my damp finger into the communion bowl (sic), seeking out a host for the next unfortunate communicant.

"After Mass I take communion to a large retirement home. God alone knows how many persons I may have infected that day."

Is your mind boggling yet?

"Those who insist on receiving communion on the tongue cough and splutter their way up the communion queue until they get to me. It is not out of the ordinary for me to ‘cop’ full on in my face an obnoxious and highly unwelcome gobbit of warm air from their throats."

Mr Gaines is concerned for his personal health, and for "the overwhelming number of communicants taking the host in the palm of their hand ‘stands for all time in front of a few zealots with an archaic mindset centred on an outdated, revolting and unhygienic, highly dangerous practice. I believe these misguided souls should start to get a grip on themselves, not be self-centred but think only of the common good.’"

Mr Gaines "calls on the bishops to issue a mandate ‘for all time’ for everyone to receive communion only in the hand.

"Such a display of leadership will meet with universal approval. As far as I am concerned my care for parishioners is such that in future I will give the host only in the palm of the hand.’"

Dear Mr Gaines, in so doing (I assume you have the permission of your parish priest) you will incur a serious infringement of the GIRM, which states that "The consecrated host may be received either on the tongue or in the hand, at the discretion of each communicant." Not "at the discretion of  the extraordinary minister of the Eucharist" or even "at the discretion of the priest" or even "at the discretion of the bishop". Nup. "At the discretion of each communicant."

And could the Archdiocesan website please note that Mr Gaines is not a 'Minister of the Eucharist", even if he acts and sounds like one; the Minister of the Eucharist is the priest. 

Dear Cardinal Dew, how can you take this man seriously, let alone promote such arrant nonsense on the Archdiocesan website? At least Mr Gaines cannot be accused of clerical abuse, but you and the rest of the Bishops' Conference must know that a Catholic has the right to receive Communion on the tongue while kneeling during an OF Mass? Is denying that right not an instance of clerical abuse?

The Archdiocesan website blandly asserts that "Receiving communion on the tongue has been severely discouraged for reasons graphically described by Peter Gaines, from New Plymouth who has been a minister of the Eucharist for 23 years." 

Do you and the Conference of Bishops really have to hide behind poor Mr Gaines? As someone who would seem to have been spreading infection among New Plymouth parishioners including the 'vulnerable elderly' for many years, was he the best person to hide behind?

Why was poor Mr Gaines not taught how to distribute Holy Communion? That is the responsibility of his parish priest, and so it is a responsibility of the Conference of Bishops. 

Do you really believe Communion in the hand is less likely to spread infection than on the tongue?  What professional opinion or evidence do you cite to support that opinion? None whatsoever, at least not in the information supplied to my parish of Holy Trinity Central Hawke's Bay, which baldly states that 'communion on the tongue will not be available.'

The Archdiocese of Portland Oregon went to the trouble of commissioning two independent physicians, one an immunologist, who concluded there is less chance for germs to be spread by communion on the tongue, because fewer germs live in the mouth, than on the hand where germs proliferate through distribution of Holy Communion, and then in consumption. 

Faithful Catholics of the Wellington Archdiocese will be relieved to know a letter has been sent to the Papal Nuncio, the Most Reverend Novatus Rugumbwa, expressing the writer's "deep concern regarding the abuse of lay people's rights" in being denied Holy Communion on the tongue due to the potential spread of coronavirus."

The writer (not I) refers to Redemptionis sacramentum, the Congregation of Divine Worship’s 2004 instructions on matters pertaining the Holy Eucharist, explicitly notes that "the faithful retains the right to receive Holy Communion in the hand or on the tongue, period." 

The writer quite rightly characterises Mr Gaines' prose as "fearmongering", and in addition  points out that contrary to the direction of Monsignor Brian Walsh of Palmerston North in regard to reception under one kind and in the hand only "at any Mass in the Palmerston North Diocese", at the Traditional Latin Mass (indult) at St Columba's Ashhurst, Holy Communion must be offered only on the tongue. 

So the  New Zealand Bishops who in their wisdom have "severely discouraged" communion on the tongue "for reasons graphically described by Peter Gaines, from New Plymouth" have not got a collective leg to stand on.

Bishop Pascal Roland, of the diocese of Belley-Ars, France, gives the Wellington Archdiocese a wonderful example by publishing the following  on his diocesan website:
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/french-dioceses-ban-holy-communion-on-tongue-as-coronavirus-sprea

"More than the coronavirus epidemic, we should dread the epidemic of fear!
We all seem to have lost our minds! In any case, we are living a lie. 

"Why suddenly focus our attention on the coronavirus alone? Why hide the fact that every year in France, the ordinary seasonal flu makes between 2 and 6 million people sick and causes about 8,000 deaths? We also seem to have removed from our collective memory the fact that alcohol is responsible for 41,000 deaths per year, while it is estimated that 73,000 are attributed to tobacco!

"A church is not a place of risk, but a place of salvation."