VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — A man attending the funeral of Pope Benedict XVI in the Vatican City was denied Holy Communion after attempting to receive the sacrament on his tongue while kneeling.
Footage of the January 5 Funeral Mass for the late pontiff, presided over by Pope Francis, captured a man approaching the railings in St. Peter’s Square where priests were administering the Eucharist, removing his hood, and kneeling down to receive Holy Communion on his tongue. The priest can be seen withholding the host and apparently gesturing that the man may receive in his hand. The man then appears to try to forcibly take the Eucharist from the priest’s hand by mouth but is prevented by the priest before turning away.
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Other communicants could be seen receiving Holy Communion on the tongue and kneeling.
LifeSiteNews contacted the Holy See Press Office to confirm whether a rule had been imposed that Holy Communion was only to be distributed to the faithful in the hand while standing, but did not immediately receive a reply.
Pope Benedict advocated the reception of Holy Communion on the tongue and kneeling during his papacy, distributing the Sacred Host in this manner from the 2008 feast of Corpus Christi onwards.
The Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments later confirmed in 2009, in a letter regarding reception of Holy Communion during the Swine Flu epidemic, that the 2004 instruction of Redemptionis Sacramentum “clearly stipulates that ‘each of the faithful always has the right to receive Holy Communion on the tongue’ (n. 92), nor is it licit to deny Holy Communion to any of Christ’s faithful who are not impeded by law from receiving the Holy Eucharist (cf. n. 91).”
While Redemptionis Sacramentum does allow for the post-Vatican II practice of Holy Communion being received on the hand, it also stipulates that reverence must always be prioritized: “If there is a risk of profanation, then Holy Communion should not be given in the hand to the faithful.”
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Bishop Athanasius Schneider has resolutely defended reception of the Eucharist on the tongue and has spoken firmly against the practice of distributing Communion in the hand, describing the novel arrangement as “one of the grievous phenomenons and evils within the Church.”
In an interview with LifeSiteNews editor-in-chief John Henry Westen in October last year, Schneider explained that “we are trampling our Lord under foot in our churches” when tiny fragments are lost owing to receiving in the hand. “This is so grievous and evil, we cannot simply continue,” he stated.