Monday, August 08, 2011

Vatican call to formalise communion ritual

THE Vatican cardinal in charge of the mass wants Catholics to revert to receiving communion on the tongue while kneeling. 

In a statement that will infuriate modernist liturgical advocates, Spanish cardinal Antonio Canizares Llovera said such a "sign of adoration needs to be recovered".

"I think the entire church needs to receive communion while kneeling," said the prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.

"It is to simply know that we are before God himself and that he came to us and that we are undeserving," he told the Catholic News Agency during a visit to Peru last week.

"If we trivialise communion, we trivialise everything, and we cannot lose a moment as important as that of receiving communion, of recognising the real presence of Christ."
The cardinal said Catholics who received communion while standing should make "a genuflection or profound bow".

Coming from one of the Vatican's most powerful officials, the statement reflects the Pope's desire to tighten up liturgical practices, a trend that includes the new, more formal translation of the mass.

Since the Second Vatican Council in 1975, Catholics in Australia have had the option of receiving communion either kneeling or standing, on the tongue or in the hand.

Australia's National Liturgical Council executive secretary, Peter Williams, said responsibility for such practices rested with national bishops' conferences.