Cardinal Robert Sarah
Posted on 05/02/2020 2:11:50 PM PDT by Mrs. Don-o
In this exclusive interview with the Daily Compass, the Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments intervenes on the subject of “take away” Communion and on the “negotiations” underway to guarantee its taken with the correct precautions.
Cardinal Sarah, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments responds publicly to the “concerns” of the faithful, who have not only been deprived of Holy Mass, but who are now dismayed by the bizarre proposals being put forward, with a view to a limited return to public Masses, that guarantee hygienic safety for the distribution of communion.
Recently, and in Italy, there has been talk about a solution which has already been adopted in Germany by some, whereby the Body of Christ is "packaged" : "To allow Italian Catholics to return to it, whilst avoiding contamination - states the newspaper La Stampa - consideration is being given to a "do it yourself" communion with "take away" hosts previously consecrated by the priest, which would be closed individually in plastic bags placed on shelves in the church".
«No, no, no - Cardinal Sarah replies shocked on the phone - it's absolutely not possible, God deserves respect, you can't put Him in a bag. I don't know who thought of this absurdity, even if it is true that the deprivation of the Eucharist is certainly a suffering, the matter of how to communicate is not open to negotiation. We communicate in a dignified way, worthy of God who comes to us. The Eucharist must be treated with faith, we cannot treat it as a trivial object, we are not at the supermarket. This is total madness."
Something like this has already taken place in Germany ... Unfortunately, many things are done in Germany that are not Catholic, but that doesn't mean you have to imitate them. Recently I heard a bishop say that in the future there will be no more Eucharistic assemblies, only the liturgy of the Word. But this is Protestantism.
As usual, "compassionate" reasons prevail: the faithful need Communion, which they have been deprived of for some time, but since the risk of contagion is still high, a compromise must be found ...
There are two issues that must be absolutely clarified. First of all, the Eucharist is not a right or a duty: it is a gift that we receive freely from God and that we must welcome with veneration and love. The Lord is a person, no one would welcome the person he loves in a bag or otherwise in an unworthy way. The response to the privation of the Eucharist cannot be desecration. This really is a matter of faith, if we believe we cannot treat it unworthily.
And the second issue?
Nobody can prevent a priest from confessing and giving communion, nobody has the right to stop him. The sacrament must be respected. So even if it is not possible to attend Masses, the faithful can ask to be confessed and to receive Communion.
Speaking of Masses, what do you think about the prolonging of celebrations on streaming or on TV? We cannot get used to this, God became incarnate, He is flesh and blood, He is not a virtual reality. It is also highly misleading for priests. In Mass the priest has to look at God, instead he is getting used to looking at the camera, as if it were a show. We cannot go on like this.
Let's go back to Communion. In a few weeks, there is still hope that public Masses will be restored. And apart from the more sacrilegious solutions, there is also discussion as to whether it is more appropriate to receive Communion in the mouth or in the hand, and in the latter case how to receive it in the hand. What should be done?
There is already a rule in the Church and this must be respected: the faithful are free to receive Communion in the mouth or hand.
In recent years, there has been concern that a clear attack on the Eucharist is taking place: first there was the question of the divorced and remarried, under the banner of "communion for all"; then intercommunion with Protestants; then the proposals on making the Eucharist available in the Amazon and in the regions with a shortage of clergy, now the Masses at the time of the coronavirus ...
It should not surprise us. The devil strongly attacks the Eucharist because it is the heart of the life of the Church. But I believe, as I have already written in my books, that the heart of the problem is the crisis of faith in the priesthood. If priests are aware of what the Mass is and what the Eucharist is, certain ways of celebrating or certain hypotheses about Communion would not even come to mind. Jesus cannot be treated like this.
Impossible. There are rumors he is a Christian.
What the laity has accepted for decades is sickening.
Try telling that to the majority of American Catholic bishops.
Great post. Thank you.
My wonderful priests have turned ad orientum for the live stream masses. I hope they will continue this when we are back in the real world.
Love,
O2
Great job, priests.
Not allowing priests to administer Extreme Unction to dying people is right out of the communist playbook.
Mandating churches to turn over lists of parishioners (of all religions) along with names and phone numbers is another.
(Kansas)
If --IF---IF the Eucharist is not what Christ said: "My Flesh is true food and my Blood true drink" "And he blessed (the bread) and broke it and, giving it to His disciples, said, "This is My Body"--- *IF* that's not true, then to hell with it, and there's no reason to be a Christian following a deranged man like Christ.
This is not nicey-nice. This is as offensive as Jesus could get. But He is God and can neither deceive not be deceived.
I truly hate the word “compromise” as used today. A true compromise is when BOTH parties give up something to reach an agreement.
The liberal definition of compromise is synonymous with capitulate. They scream that we have to learn to compromise, but they never give anything up. They just take and take, and take some more.
This is why anytime anyone tells me I need to learn to compromise, I tell them, “Okay, let’s compromise. What are you willing to give up?”
When they start to him-n-haw I tell them to their face, “You don’t want to compromise, you just want to get your way. Quite childish, talk to me when you grow up.”
Thank God for Cardinal Sarah!!
“The devil strongly attacks the Eucharist because it is the heart of the life of the Church”.
—Cdl Sarah
St Michael is needed these days.
Cardinal Sarah is not Pope, but as Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments he outranks everyone else who isn’t Pope, with the possible exception, after a recent reorganization, of Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican Secretary of State.
Now that Cardinal Sarah has weighed in and underscored the absolute right on the part of a well-disposed member of the faithful to receive the Most Blessed Sacrament on the tongue, watch for local ordinaries (bishops and archbishops in charge of actual dioceses) worldwide to react (once the Sunday Mass precept is reinstituted) by instructing priests and pastors to refrain from distributing the Host to anyone after priestly consecration and consumption. In other words, the priest who says Mass will be the only one permitted to consume the Host.
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