The new norms were issued back in 2004, in the document Redemptionis Sacramentum. See section 106:
The dioceses are well aware of this, and it’s been two years since the instructions were issued. Any dioceses or parishes that still persist in this practice are in disobedience to Rome.
Oh my, is that contagious? :eek:
Didn’t mean to make it sound silly. If Jr High and HS kids are encouraged to not share drinks because of trenchmouth, and so on, it got me wondering…is all.
I was raised Jewish. Jews don’t drink wine from a shared Kiddush Cup in shul on yer average Friday night sabbath. However, a Kiddush cup is shared at home sometimes. Never occurred to me as a kid to ask this stuff !!
Again, I didn’t ask to be rude or disrespectful.
Then again, as was pointed out just now, those congregations in violation of the Redemptionis Sacramentum may be seen by Rome as rather disrespectful. Might be worth it to print that site out, t-bonham@scc.net.
Then again again, how bad is it for a lay person to tell their Priest/Minister that they are doing it very very wrong ?
If anyone feels you were being disrespectful it is there foolishness, not your writing’s fault.
I’d hate to think what mistakes I might make in my understanding of Jewish, Muslim or Hindu religious activities.
This thread is fascinating.
And I hope I have the opportunity to use the phrase “bogarting the blood of Christ” in a conversation very soon! 
Why? We just live our lives, help the poor, etc. and don’t spend time worrying about ‘what Rome thinks’.
As long as we keep the collection money flowing to Rome, they don’t bother us too much.
I remember the laughter recently when our priest announced that Rome had finally approved allowing girls to be altar servers. We had been doing that for 10 or 20 years, in nearly all the churches in the area. Everybody accepted it as normal, and had pretty much forgotton that according to Rome, it was not allowed.
Frankly, a fair number of catholics in this area do indeed ‘disrespect’ Rome.
We think things like sexism, homophobia, supporting war-making, etc. are sins and wish our church leaders would stop committing them.
I hope you’re only saying that as a joke, because this will be taken literally by most non-Catholics, and even some Catholics. For the record, Catholic dioceses throughout the world are financially independent from the Vatican. They do not send their Sunday collection proceeds to the Pope.
(Occasionally there are special collections for Catholic charities based at the Vatican, but that’s a different thing.)
I’d say my experience attending United Methodist churches was probably split about evenly between leavened bread and intinction and the shot-glass-and-tiny-square-of-cracker method. I really hated the shot glass and tiny square of cracker (they get these little tiny squares, about a 1/4" wide, of unleavened bread that doesn’t resemble anything anyone would normally eat) because it seemed to drain much of the symbolism of the event. It seemed a rather stingy way to enact the celebration of the ressurection feast.
OTOH, I used to think intincion was both symbolic and sanitary until I assisted at the altar and realized how many people dip their fingers into the chalice along with the bread. And this was grape juice, too, so no sanitizing alcohol! I’m now convinced that sipping from a common cup is much more sanitary than intinction.
When I have gone to church with some of my friends (usually cute female friends who seem to get the impression that I need to be invited to church often, which is either very good or very bad, I’m thinking) the bread is usually in the form of what appears to be a chunk of Matzos, a kind of giant cracker which I understand is favored by some Jewish folks (I keep a box of it in the pantry as a snack, and have been known to carry it around to snack on at sci-fi conventions). I theorize that it is also useful as body armor in a firefight. ;j
I just assumed that Matzos may have been a common food for Jewish folks back in the old days, and thus a likely type of bread for Jesus to grab at the dinner table in Jerusalem. Thus, some churches might have chosen it for it’s connection to biblical times. Then again, it might be that the stuff never goes stale and has a shelf life from now to the Second Coming, making it a handy kind of bread to stock up on.
And as <b>t-bonham@scc.net</b> mentioned, not all Catholic parishes stick very closely to what Rome says, and some of them, I understand, aren’t even in communication with Rome, and thus might not even be aware of what rules they’re not following. On the other end of the spectrum, some churches may be in constant communication with Rome, like the one I attended when I lived in Oklahoma, where our priest would travel to the Vatican for conferences every few months (in this case, because he was doing so in lieu of our Archbishop, who apparantly wasn’t able to travel that often for health reasons).
The official position of the Catholic Church is against most modern wars – certainly the war in Iraq – as most modern wars don’t qualify as “just wars”.
As for the rest, it’s beyond time for Rome to start putting its affairs in order. It’s focused far too long on trying to keep people and parishes in the Church, when it’s beyond clear those people don’t intend to do a damn thing the Church says.
Believe me, even if the parishes weren’t aware of Redemptionis Sacramentum, the bishops certainly were – they submitted requests for clarification to Rome, and were told “yes, we really mean it.” If any bishop is not aware of the new rules by now, I would question their competence to hold their position.
Back in my Episcopalian days, occasionally the cup would run dry (keep the puns to yerselves!). I’d imagine the same procedure would be used as for that case: the priest would recite the relevant portion of the communion service again to bless more wine.
In my current Mormon days, we do something similar if we ever run out of bread or water: the blessing of the bread or water is repeated, everyone says “amen” at the end, and the passing of the Sacrament continues.
Wow, I spawned a thread! I feel so proud sniff
My original post already includes one of the ways you prevent disease: if you know you’re sick, you don’t drink!
Nah… it was not explicited, which is a different animal. In Catholic Spain we’ve been doing it for over 500 years and nobody ever thought of asking for permission or anything, and it’s not like we weren’t talking to Rome.
The only reason Rome put it in writing is because in the last 30 years or so they’ve been getting requests for permission and they got tired of asking “why in God’s own name are you asking for permission to do something nobody’s ever forbidden?”
The first altar girl in the USA was in the Diocese of Chicago in 1975. And yes, they asked for permission :rolleyes:
Ergh. I don’t have a Bible here, I’ll really have to find a way to bring my English Bible to work if I’m going to be reading things like this. You gave me a migraine. Apologies for the following “Bible for kids” version, I don’t like to search for biblical quotes online because they’re often the King James and I don’t understand that English.
Book of Exodus. Moses is told to prepare the People to leave Egypt. They must get together in groups, sacrifice lambs, eat the lambs and unleavened bread. The blood of the lambs must be used to mark the doors where the Jews are, so that when the Angel passes, he’ll recognize those houses and leave them be. Next day, all the firstborns of Egypt are dead, except those of the Jews, and Pharaoh yells at Moses to “get yourself and your filthy brethren out of my sight!”, which Moses promptly does. The Jews start their long trip home.
The Jewish feast of Easter commemorates this by following the instructions given to Moses, thus unleavened bread.
FFWD to the year 30: the Last Dinner is the Easter Feast that Jesus and his friends (the apostles) are celebrating. It is during this dinner that Jesus says “this is my Body, eat it to be with me; this is my Blood, drink it to be with me”, thus instituting Communion.
Because He used unleavened bread, we use unleavened bread. And wine with alcohol in it 
I need to add something to what Skammer says here, which is fully accurate. We do not do dogma, as a rule; our self-definition is by liturgy rather than by doctrine – we’re the people who use the Book of Common Prayer.
But it might be worthwhile to note two things there: the language of the Eucharistic Prayers, particularly the classic Cranmerian one that is our common heritage across the Anglican communion, implies a belief in the Real Presence, and the old 39 Articles of Religion, not mandatory on anyone these days, explicitly deny the validity of transubstantiation.
To translate that into less nuanced and theologically complex terms, this might be accurate: “We believe that, by the grace of God, Jesus Christ comes to be really present in the communion bread and wine. The Catholics hold a detailed Scholastic-philosophy explanation as to how that happens. We don’t.” As Skammer says, though, our preference is to be inclusive and allow as broad a range of views as possible, since Jesus did tell us to love our fellow man and did not tell us to demand theological orthodoxy as a condition of that love.
To deal further with what Bippy raised and Monty answered in part, the Prayer Book (p. 408 of the American BCP) details two means for consecrating additional communion elements if one should run out. However, in what’s the only Christian usage I know of of the Magick “Law of Contagion,” it is held by many theologians that the adding of unconsecrated wine to a chalice containing a bit of remaining consecrated wine, with the two of course mixing, causes the mixture to become consecrated. (I don’t propose to defend this POV here. ;))
Thanks Poly - I meant to explain the Anglican emphasis on liturgy vs. doctrine (or dogma) but forgot to put it in my post.
As far as running out of elements; I was using my Anglican experience as a reference and it seems that the rules from Rome are different. I know I’ve never seen us run out of either element, so either our priests have always purposefully consecrated more than they know they will ever need in a given Eucharist, or they have a way to consecrate additional wine at a minute’s notice without anyone noticing.
<-----howling with laughter. Raguleader, you surprise me. I am shocked that you let the cat out of the bag. Just as the Freemasons have their secret rituals, so do the Scientifically Fictional Jews (SFJ) - an ancient sect that split off from the Tribe of Levi and call themselves the Tribe of Ragu. They use boxes of matzoh’s tucked under an arm as a signal to others of their tribe.
Besides, now we all know just how fond Jews are of sci-fi conventions, and why.
Poly, thank you for that articulation. If, unlike the RCC, you do not rely upon a Scholastic-philosophic explanation for transsubstantiation, then is it quite literally a leap of faith? You do not need doctrine, you just believe it to be? -sigh- I do so admire this. ( in all seriousness )
As for the other doctrines coming from Rome concerning war, sex and politics, I love a great debate but please, can we not turn this particular thread into that debate?
It’s not soaked in rubbing alcohol, it’s just a white cotton cloth. I think the implication is that the alcohol in the wine would do the purifying.
Same here; not too many people take the wine so there is usually some left over, which the eucharistic ministers and/or priest finish. Occasionally he will have to get extra already-consecrated hosts from the tabernacle when there is an unusual number of folks receiving the bread.
Are there ever special protections taken against passing disease in hospital chapels? Is there dispensation to use individual chalices, or to use a real disinfectant wipe after each communicant sips?
I believe it is required in the Anglican church for any communion wine not drunk by communicants to be finished off by the clergy. Is the same true for other Christian groups?