I wish to commend Pope Benedict XVI for making it mandatory that communicants kneel and receive Holy Communion on the tongue during papal Masses. This is not a return to tradition but rather an affirmation of present church norms. The reception of Holy Communion in the hand while standing was introduced abusively and hurriedly by church middle management in the 1960’s as an ecumenical gesture to Protestants and others who do not believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

Pope Benedict XVI had previously pointed out that “the man who learns to believe learns also to kneel, and a faith or a liturgy no longer familiar with kneeling would be sick at the core.” St. Thomas Aquinas and Pope John Paul II have also stated that only the priest, who stands as an intermediary between God and the people, should touch the sacred host because only his hands are especially anointed for this task at his ordination.

Kneeling and receiving Communion on the tongue helps the devotion of the faithful and introduces the sense of mystery of the Mass more easily. Hopefully all Catholic bishops and priests will follow the Pope’s lead in helping to restore in the faithful a more profound sense of the sacred.
PAUL KOKESKI