Attention to hygiene

Anent my previous post about Holy Communion on the tongue, and how strange it is that our hierarchy seems to have successfully indoctrinated the majority of the faithful in the hygienic myth that on the hand is safer, and in honor of the new collection of some writings of Fr. Paul Mankowski, SJ (more to come -- one edited by my husband and another by another friend of Father's), I reproduce here in full an email conversation of note*:

From Fr. Mankowski to three friends, circa August 2020:

"Receive this mask as a sign of craven submission, and future docility, before the moral faddisms of profane elitist authority.  May CNN, Disney, and Under Armour, who have begun this work in you, bring it to fulfillment ..."

From me to three friends:

That is a nice effort at parody, but in future I suggest that you try something not so close to reality -- the effect is better. I realize that things in the parody business are getting more difficult, but try harder.

I can't help remembering that some years ago (I've lost track), the sanitizer bottle made its way onto the credence table. Now at our parish (which truly is one of the better ones), there is a bottle on a pedestal -- yes, a small pedestal -- in a few places in front of the sanctuary and at the entries.

We call this "organic development of liturgy" and "authentic inculturation."

The sanitizing of the celebrants' hands is a nice addition, as is the paten with the hosts to be distributed placed some inches away from the main one, and the positioning of the concelebrant 6 feet away from the altar (specifics are on file at the diocesan offices). **

I heard last night from a friend that in his diocese (Joliet?), Communion was distributed through a slot in the plexiglass -- it made it difficult but not impossible! for him to receive on the tongue...

Future historians and archeologists will have a fine time documenting all of this when the remains of our faith are dug up...

 

From Fr. Mankowski to three friends: 

I can't help remembering that some years ago (I've lost track), the sanitizer bottle made its way onto the credence table.

When you think of how many hundreds of millions of hosts were placed on hundreds of millions of tongues in Catholic churches, the practice itself should have long served as an epidemiological benchmark -- from the very beginning of epidemiology, in fact -- if transmission of disease thereby ever reached the faintest statistically measurable level.  Given the attention to hygiene of the average priest over the past centuries, the insignificance of the morbidity stats points, if anything, to the miraculous properties of the consecrated host. 

*Sorry for the shock value that readers might find herein, but Fr. M was not a tame servant of the Lion. 

**For Fr. M's parody of this careful, Covid-aware placement of the paten, go here.