Two priests could be seen waiting for congregants to lower their hands before distributing Holy Communion on the tongue at the Vatican’s Palm Sunday Mass.
VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) -- Livestream footage from Palm Sunday Mass on St. Peter’s Square shows two priests refusing to distribute the Holy Eucharist in the hands of two congregants.
During the distribution of Holy Communion (viewable in the video below from 1:43:47-1:44:00), two priests can be seen distributing Communion to multiple Mass attendees on the tongue before another two faithful, almost simultaneously, approached with their hands outstretched. Each priest paused and waited for the congregants to lower their hands, then proceeded to distribute the hosts on their tongues.
The Mass was also notable because Pope Francis made a surprise public appearance, greeting pilgrims without using his oxygen nasal cannulas.
Reception of Holy Communion in the hand has become widespread across the globe since the 1970s, despite Communion on the tongue having been the norm for the Church for well over 1,300 years.
As Pope Paul VI affirmed in Memoriale Domini, which granted bishops permission to allow the distribution of the Eucharist in the hand with approval from the Holy See, the practice of receiving Holy Communion on the tongue “must be retained … especially because it expresses the faithful’s reverence for the Eucharist.”
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Receiving the Eucharist in the hand also significantly increases the risk of profanation against the Blessed Sacrament and inevitably leads to losing particles of the Eucharist, which may fall on the floor or elsewhere.
Cardinal Francis Arinze, the prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments (CDWDS) under Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI, confirmed that receiving Holy Communion on the tongue while kneeling remains the “preferred form.”
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