Lay Eucharistic Ministers a Farce

David Martin | The Daily Knight

During these apostate times, priests have made a habit of inviting lay people to come up to the altar and serve as ‘lay Eucharistic ministers’ at Mass.

However, in the Catholic religion there is no such thing as a ‘lay extraordinary minister’ or ‘lay Eucharistic minister.’ This is a farce. This practice has no precedent in the 2000-year history of the Church and today’s bishops are doing wrong by allowing this farcical aberration to become commonplace throughout the Church.

What this promotes is widespread sacrilege against the Eucharist since only the hands of a duly ordained Catholic priest may touch the Body of Christ in Holy Communion. Lay people are not authorized to touch the Eucharist with their hands, let alone administer it at Mass.

The Council of Trent makes it clear:

“To priests alone has been given power to consecrate and administer to the faithful, the Holy Eucharist.”                 

In his Redemptionis Sacramentum, Pope John II says that lay extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist may not be appointed and if they are appointed, they are not to be used.

“If there is usually present a sufficient number of sacred ministers for the distribution of Holy Communion, extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion may not be appointed. Indeed, in such circumstances, those who may have already been appointed to this ministry should not exercise it. The practice of those Priests is reprobated who, even though present at the celebration, abstain from distributing Communion and hand this function over to laypersons.” (Chapter 7, article 157)

The pope furthermore states that the Sacred Host is not something that lay persons may touch. “To touch the sacred species and to distribute them with their own hands is a privilege of the ordained.” (Dominicae Cenae, Feb. 1980)

This teaching stems from the fact that lay people’s hands are not anointed to touch the Eucharist, unlike the hands of a priest. St. Thomas Aquinas beautifully articulates this teaching in his Summa Theologica.

“Because out of reverence towards this Sacrament, nothing touches it, but what is consecrated; hence the corporal and the chalice are consecrated, and likewise the priest’s hands, for touching this Sacrament.”

Hence it is illicit for lay people to distribute Communion. Allowing them to administer Communion fosters the heretical idea of the laity being a “common priesthood,” which was Luther’s idea.

The Sedition of Core

In the Biblical Book of Numbers, we read how the earth opened and swallowed up Core, Dathan, and Abiron, and how fire from heaven came down and destroyed 250 of their followers for having dared to challenge Moses and insist that they be allowed to offer incense at the altar as in the priesthood (Numbers 16:1-35). We might see this as a figure of the punishment that is in store for lay members of the Church who insist on standing at the altar and giving out Communion as in the priesthood.

The present-day empowerment of the laity reflects the errors of Communism at work within the Church. The Leninist clenched fist is simply being applied in an ecclesial context. The ugly hand of Communism has truly reached in to desecrate the Body of Christ. 

Communion in the Hand Fosters Denial of Christ

Allowing the laity to touch the Eucharist with their hands nurtures the denial of Christ’s Divinity.  With this, it promotes personal uncleanness and fosters the general mentality of transgressing into forbidden realms (touching that which we ought not), which calls to mind the transgression of Eve when she rose up in her pride and partook of the forbidden fruit. Thus is promoted all manner of disrespect in Church, i.e., talking, guitar strumming, women in promiscuous attire, with tattoos, etc. 

Poor liturgical discipline indeed has caused the faithful to fall into the lamentable blindness of not acknowledging the physical and supernatural presence of Christ in the Eucharist, so a key way of reversing the present apostasy is to stop Communion in the hand and the use of lay Eucharistic ministers. For even angelic preaching will do little good to enlighten the faithful about the Eucharist as long as these illicit practices continue.

Only Deacons can Serve as Extraordinary Ministers

It is only in the case of a dying person that a deacon (not married) can be authorized to bring the Holy Eucharist to the terminally ill when there is no priest available. The excuse that there aren’t enough priests to administer Communion holds no water. If they would cut their merry-making and extra-curricular activity there will always be enough priests to fulfill this ministry.