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Receiving communion on the hand is part of a diabolical attack, claims Cardinal Robert Sarah.
Sarah, who is the Prefect for the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments, wants Catholics to kneel and receive the Host on the tongue.
He says this mode is “more suited to the sacrament.
“Truly the war between Michael and his Angels on one side, and Lucifer on the other, continues in the heart of the faithful.
“Satan’s target is the Sacrifice of the Mass and the Real Presence of Jesus in the consecrated host,” Sarah wrote in a foreword to a book by Fr Federico Bortoli.
The book is called “La Distribuzione della Comunione sulla Mano: Profili Storici, Giuridici e Pastorali” (“The distribution of Communion in the hand: a historical, juridical, and pastoral overview”).
“Why do we insist on communicating standing in the hand?” Sarah asks in the foreword.
“Why this attitude of lack of submission to the signs of God? [Receiving kneeling and on the tongue] is much more suited to the sacrament itself.
“I hope there can be a rediscovery and promotion of the beauty and pastoral value of this manner.
“In my opinion and judgement, this is an important question on which the Church today must reflect.”
Sarah says communion in the hand “involves a great dispersion of fragments” of the Host, which, although small, are still the body of the Lord.
“Failure to respect this can cause people to lose their belief in the Real Presence, leading Catholics to think: ‘If even the parish priest does not pay attention to the fragments, if he administers the Communion so that the fragments can be dispersed, then it means that Jesus is not in them, or only up to a certain point’”.
So far, Pope Francis has not commented on Sarah’s comments.
However, last year he twice publicly rejected Sarah’s attempts to alter papal decrees.
Once was over his attempts to water down a new papal directive handing more power to local bishops over liturgical translations.
The other was after Sarah suggested priests should turn east and celebrate Mass “ad orientem”.
At that time Francis said the liturgical reforms of Vatican II are “irreversible”.
Receiving communion in the hand was practised by the early Christians.
The practice re-emerged after the Second Vatican Council.
This council of the world’s bishops also voted for changes in the liturgy including the use of vernacular languages.
New Zealand is one of many countries where communion is received in the hand.
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