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If you have casually followed this blog, you know I follow closely any news from His Excellency Athanasius Schneider. Up until now, I was not aware that Bishop Schneider had actually called for hand Communion to be banned. His unassuming manner might lead one to think that Bishop Schneider would never call for anything other than voluntary initiatives. However this, apparently, is not at all the case.
His Excellency sees reverence for Jesus Christ, hence Eucharistic reverence as the center of our worship. Everything else flows from the Center! For the Church to be righted, she must refocus on that Center! Any other program for reform is analogous to removing the sun from the solar system and then trying to get the planets to keep moving in their orbits....or something like that....
Thanks to Rorate for the following quote from Bishop Schneider's December visit to Hong Kong.....
One can adduce pastoral reasons in favor of continuing with the practice of Communion in the hand, as for example the right of the faithful to choose. Such a right, however, violates—considering the general proportions of the practice—the right that the Eucharistic Jesus has, i.e. the right to the greatest possible sacredness and reverence. In this regard it is about the right of the most fragile in the Church. All the reasons in favor of the continuation of the practice of Communion in the hand lose their weight confronting the gravity of the situation of the minimalism of reverence and sacredness, the obvious danger of carelessness and loss of the fragments and of the increasing stealing of the consecrated hosts. The continuation of the use of the indult of Communion in the hand cannot be said to be a pastoral need, because it damages the faith and the piety of the faithful and it damages the rights of the Eucharistic Lord Himself.
15.
Great Saints who reformed the Church and true apostolic souls in the history of the Church have said: the spiritual progress of an epoch of the Church is measured by the manner of reverence and devotion towards the Sacrament of the Altar. Saint Thomas Aquinas has expressed this truth very concisely: “Sic nos Tu visita, sicut Te colimus” (Saint Thomas Aquinas, hymn “Sacris solemniis”): Lord, visit us to the extent as we venerate you! This is valid also for our days: the Lord will visit His Church nowadays with special graces of an authentic renewal, so desired by Blessed John XXIII and the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council, to the extent He is loved and also venerated in a visible manner especially in the moment\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
