Bob Roller/CNS photo illustration

A photo illustration shows a priest cleaning the Communion vessels inside the chapel of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' building in Washington Oct. 24, 2006.

Phoenix Diocese to adopt new norms for Holy Communion

By J.D. Long-García | Updated Oct. 17, 2011 | The Catholic Sun

Plans are underway in the Diocese of Phoenix to implement new local norms for the distribution of Holy Communion that will bring the local Church in line with universal Church guidelines.

As a result, the Precious Blood will not be offered at every Sunday Mass, but instead be reserved for special occasions, left to the determination of each parish pastor.

“What we’re trying to do is be faithful to the General Instruction of the Roman Missal,” Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted said. “What’s in there is what we want to follow. It’s a question of being obedient and in communion with the larger Church.”

The change will bring local Catholic celebration of the Eucharist into union with the practice of the faithful around the world. Receiving Communion under both kinds is uncommon in most countries.

Related: Questions and Answers: Norms for Reception of Holy Communion Under Both Forms (Updated Sept. 27, 2011)

Madison Bishop Robert Morlino will be making similar changes in his Wisconsin diocese. In a letter to the priests of his diocese, the bishop said the lay faithful had been profaning the Sacrament.

“So many of our people do not understand the kinds of reverence due at all times to the Sacrament, whether within the eucharistic liturgy or outside the celebration,” Bishop Morlino wrote.

After the Second Vatican Council, the lay faithful in the United States began receiving the Eucharist under both kinds.

“What many people don’t realize is that we’ve had experimental
privileges,” said Fr. Kieran Kleczewski, executive director of the Office of Worship. “We’re now under the same norms as the Church in the rest of the world.”

For Catholics in the United States it will seem like a restriction, he said, but it’s an expansion for the rest of the world.

The new norms come from the revised General Instruction of the Roman Missal, third edition, as well as the final edition of The Norms for the Distribution and Reception of Holy Communion Under Both Kinds for the Dioceses of the United States of America.

Communion under both kinds should be offered on the occasions in which both kinds further the sign of unity or are clearly a fuller expression of Christ’s presence, Fr. Kleczewski said. The Church teaches that Christ — body, blood, soul and divinity — is present fully in the bread form. He is also fully present in the wine form.

“It’s offered to a bride and groom at their wedding. Why? Because it’s a beautiful sign of Christian unity in the sacrament of marriage,” he said. “That’s why you would offer them the chalice as well as the host.”

The same goes for offering both kinds on retreat, where offering both kinds recognizes a great unity among participants.

“If the majority of people receiving Communion do not receive from the chalice, then you shouldn’t be offering the chalice,” Fr. Kleczewski said.

In his church, St. Thomas Aquinas Parish in Avondale, the first four or five pews receive from the chalice. But few others do.

“That’s destroying the sign of unity that this is supposed to be,” Fr. Kleczewski said.

The Church gave the United States, the United Kingdom and Oceania experimental permission to offer the cup to the faithful. The Second Vatican Council called for this to find occasions when the cup could be offered to the laity — it had not been offered to the lay faithful for hundreds of years.

The 1975 missal — the one currently used — allows for 14 times when the cup can be offered to the laity. In poor countries, Fr. Kleczewski said, churches don’t have the resources to offer the chalice to the laity every time they celebrate Mass.

“The universal Church is what is considered in making universal norms,” he said.

So the experiment didn’t work?

“Yes, it did,” Fr. Kleczewski said. The experiment will lead to broader use of both kinds of Communion throughout the world with the new Roman Missal. John Paul II promulgated the new Roman Missal in 2000, and — now translated — it’s set to be promulgated in the United States this November.

“If you read those early documents from the council, it was never envisioned that every time we have Mass the chalice would be offered to the lay faithful,” Fr. Kleczewski said.

The new norms give the local bishop latitude in application. In the Diocese of Phoenix, the norms provide for the distribution of Holy Communion under both kinds for special feast days and other important occasions — like the Chrism Mass, Holy Thursday, the Feast of Corpus Christi, retreats, spiritual gatherings and weddings.

The universal norms for the Church say that the extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist shall not overshadow the ordinary ministers of the Eucharist — priests and deacons.

They are extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist, Bishop Olmsted said, so they shouldn’t be ordinarily used.

The 2011 norms, which Fr. Kleczewski said he received in June, incorporated:

• The new English translation of the Roman Missal;
• The new norms for the Church in the United States;
• Church teachings on Communion under both kinds published since 2002; and
• Responses from the Holy See to inquiries from the U.S. bishops.

As far as the implementation of the new norms, Bishop Olmsted said different parishes will implement at different times. But all parishes will implement by the end of 2012.

Fr. Kleczewski discontinued the use of the cup at daily Mass earlier this year. Some priests, like Fr. John Ehrich at St. Thomas the Apostle, implemented the new norms years ago.

Fr. Ehrich, after spending two years studying in Rome, realized that the practice of offering the Precious Blood to the faithful at every Mass was atypical throughout most of the world.

“For about two to three weeks, a handful of parishioners said that they missed receiving under both kinds,” Fr. Ehrich said. “That was about all.”

Catholics upset about changes throughout the diocese will likely be reacting emotionally, he said.

“I believe that distributing Holy Communion only under one form has actually increased [parishioners] understanding of the Eucharist,” Fr. Ehrich said. “I suspect that many people will come to find out that their understanding of the Eucharist was incomplete.”

Some Catholics believe they must receive under both kinds to receive the full presence of Christ, he said. “This is simply not true,” he said. “No one is being deprived of anything.”

“As hard as it is to understand, the role of the priest at Mass is significantly different than the laity, and even the deacon,” Fr. Ehrich said. “Only the priest stands in the person of Christ and offers sacrifice on behalf of the Church. Without priests, there is no Eucharist and without the Eucharist, there is no Church.”

It’s not a question of fairness, he said, but a question of identity.

“The Church, in her wisdom, does what it must to regulate the Sacred Liturgy,” Fr. Ehrich said. “There is great freedom and joy in obedience.”