Bishop David A. Zubik wrote to Pittsburgh diocesan priests Oct. 2. "Liturgical practices are one of many encounters throughout the day that are capable of transmitting viruses."
I was in Toronto during the "SARS scare". It was exceedingly dumb. The AD of Toronto had issued a ban on receiving on the tongue so I stopped receiving at all, naturally.
I then went to the local Ukrainian Catholic parish where the only sign posted that was not written in Cyrillic was one that read, "The Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy is not under the jurisdiction of the Latin ordinary of Toronto. The practices of receiving Communion in the Eastern Rites is perfectly hygenic and safe and we have no intention of changing it." Good enough for me.
"Someone suggested we eliminate the (sign of) peace, but a lot of people look forward to it, especially the young people," said the Rev. Bruce Nordeen, pastor at St. John's.Actually, hated it when I was young too, but maybe I'm just weird.
"...Those uncomfortable receiving from the cup during the flu season should not feel obligated to do so," he wrote.What about all the other times?
5 comments:
Just wait for the total ban on public Masses... Oh wait. That's meant to happen some other time.
I'm just waiting for the day when I see containers of hand sanitizer every 3 feet in churches, and each "eucharistic minister" (always a menopausal woman with an agenda) squeezes some on to her hands after every person standing in line to receive the Lord from her unworthy and unpriestly--but damned hygienic hands--comes up.
Or they should use rubber gloves.
AM
My parish still has reception on the tongue, but mysteriously and with no fanfare the handshake of peace has just...disappeared!
It's not, you know, perfectly hygienic; that thing they do with the communion spoon. I mean, there does seem to be rather a lot of bumping-of-mouth-with-spoon going on.
No matter. It's still better than communion in-the-paw from a Lay Groper of the Sacred Species working under a bishop who has neither the Faith nor any qualification in public health.
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