Our bishop just proposed to priests that the common chalice be suspended until further notice due to health concerns with influenza and coronavirus. The pastor of St. Peter the Apostle Church here in Savannah has placed the following on the parish Facebook page. He went a step further by also suspending the Sign of Peace which the bishop made no comment and not even I have done!
Kudos to this concerned and scrupulous pastor!
32 comments:
I made my decision before the recommendation from the Bishop arrived.
And here is the rest of it:
"At present there are NO confirmed cases of coronavirus in the State of Georgia. These actions are being taken as precautionary measures.
When the threat of contagion is passed, these elements of the mass will be restored.
In terms of protecting ourselves from catching either the flu or the coronavirus, the Centers for Disease Control suggests:
“The best way to prevent illness is to avoid being exposed to this virus. However, as a reminder, CDC always recommends everyday preventive actions to help prevent the spread of respiratory diseases, including:
+ Avoid close contact with people who are sick.
+ Avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth.
+ Stay home when you are sick.
+ Cover your cough or sneeze with a tissue, then throw the tissue in the trash.
+ Clean and disinfect frequently touched objects and surfaces using a regular household cleaning spray or wipe.
+ Follow CDC’s recommendations for using a facemask.
+CDC does not recommend that people who are well wear a facemask to protect themselves from respiratory diseases, including COVID-19.
+ Facemasks should be used by people who show symptoms of COVID-19 to help prevent the spread of the disease to others.
+Wash your hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds, especially after going to the bathroom; before eating; and after blowing your nose, coughing, or sneezing.
+ If soap and water are not readily available, use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer with at least 60% alcohol. Always wash hands with soap and water if hands are visibly dirty.”
The chancellor, speaking for the bishop, wrote, "Brothers, Aware of current health concerns, Bishop Hartmayer strongly recommends that distribution of the precious blood during Mass be suspended until further notice."
Bee here:
Whhhaatttt?!!! THE Fr. Kavanaugh??????
FOMCL (Falling Off My Chair Laughing)
But, in all seriousness, I do think it is wise. I hope we all will be safe and well throughout this latest pandemic scare.
God bless.
Bee
Sorry to be a broken record, but until we return to kneeling for Holy Communion at the altar rail, the danger of passing germs at Mass will continue with or without these changes -- unless people do not go to Holy Communion. Communion in the hand makes passing germs virtually inevitable.
Meanwhile, we will not be changing anything in the East...letting the Divine Physician be Divine :)
Martin, I distributed communion to close to 60 people at mass this morning. 50 or so received in their hands. Maybe, just maybe, I touched 3 of those hands.
I suspect the number of Tongue/Lip contacts would be similar.
FOMCABIBLSH (Falling off my chair and breaking it by laughing so hard)
Good grief! I hope you were wearing plastic gloves!
We’ll discontinue Communion to the laity, but allow their Easter duty during Divine Mercy Sunday in Easterrtide.
Between coronavirus and the plunge in the Stock Market...are the end times closer than we think?
To heck with those, the fact that Mike as he likes to be called is more concerned and phobic about the Sign of Peace than me is a sign of the end times.
Fr. Fox I have to agree with you. I touch far more hands when placing the Host on the hand, especially the wide variety of ways people receive in the hand today.
I tend to touch fewer tongues, but when the communicant is standing a slightly taller than me, reaching up toward the mouth, I sometimes touch the tongue with the tip of my finger(s).
At the EF Mass at the Cathedral and our daily Mass where communicants kneel at the railing, reaching down to place the Host on the tongue eliminates entirely my fingers touching the communicant's tongue.
Allan and Martin, I'd be glad to give you guys a tutorial on how to give communion in the hand without touching the communicant's flesh.
And Allan, that you are surprised by my handshake decision shows that you haven't paid attention at all over the years to my posts about the imaginary dangers of the common cup.
I've said repeatedly that hands on doorknobs, bathroom flush handles, handshakes, handled hymnals are the culprits, if there are any, not the shared cup.
I'll believe you when you remove your church's doorknobs, lock the bathrooms, get rid of the hymnals and revisit your decision to discontinue the common chalice. And when you start providing latex gloves for all your members at Mass, that will speak volumes about your obsession.
And ultimately the fact that you might touch contaminated hands isn't the problem, the problem is bringing your contaminated hands to your mouth, nose or eyes even unconsciously.
Consciously drinking after several people is lunacy.
Dear Fathers McDonald and Kavanaugh
"Can't we all just get along?"
-Rodney King, late Republican Fundraiser
Allan, I know you want to believe that the common cup is a threat to human existence. It's not. Were that the case, we'd have read in the New York Times about the deaths of millions of people who share a common communion. Or, we'd read about it in the journals of epidemiology.
But, those reports just aren't there because . . . the contagion just isn't there.
The reason the CDC says, "Wash your hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds, especially after going to the bathroom; before eating; and after blowing your nose, coughing, or sneezing" is because that's where the problem lies.
I know you want to believe that your "common sense" trumps everything that the medical professionals have studied and written about. We see this quite a bit, including with the anti-vaxxers who have read three reports on FaceBook about the dangers of vaccines and conclude that all their study, which consists of twenty minutes of reading anecdotal accounts of the "dangers" of vaccines, is better than the decades of work of experts.
You're free to believe whatever you want. But your germ paranoia doesn't make you right.
I'm not obsessed with germs as you are, so I'm not going to, "...remove your church's doorknobs, lock the bathrooms, get rid of the hymnals and revisit your decision to discontinue the common chalice." That's what people like you with germ obsessions do, and I'm not one of them.
Joe Biden said that half the country's population has been killed by gun violence, more than all the wars combined. Get with it; we all have our own personal truths. My truth is as valid as anyone else's including the former Vice President.
Riiiiight. So, the belief of all those Catholics who don't believe that the Eucharist is the Body and Blood of Jesus is as valid as your belief that it is..
That's the ticket...
Father Kavanaugh:
And I will be glad to give you a tutorial on distributing Holy Communion to people on the tongue...kneeling.
Kneeling: that is the key.
When the communicant is kneeling, two things are at work:
1) The person is far more likely to be stationary, and as should be obvious, a stationary target is easier to hit than one in motion. Have you really not noticed how often people who receive the Eucharist standing are in motion? Do you have ushers grab them by the shoulders? I bet that goes over well.
2) The kneeling communicant almost instinctively looks upward, and concomitantly, has his or her mouth well open and tongue out. It's a lot easier to say quietly, "please put out your tongue," than to say, "please stand still, and then please open your mouth wide, and please put out your tongue. That's it!"
opinionem verum est
For communion in the hand , a dab of hand sanitizer can be used by the parishioners before receiving the sacrament. From my pews-eye view I already see a lot of people doing this.
Fr. Fox, I just celebrated our 9 AM ad orientem Mass in our chapel with Holy Communion kneeling at the rail. It is very easy to avoid touching any part of the tongue and mouth when giving Holy Communion to a kneeling communicant who receives on the tongue.
A few stand and receive in the hand and unless I drop the Host in their and or palm invariably they move their hand upward and some part of my hand or fingers touch their hand and if they are cupping their hands with a gap between them as many do no matter how often I say not to do so, I can't really drop the Host on them.
Fortunately we use the communion paten at all our Masses to catch Hosts that fall and our servers are pretty good at Catch!
And the battle for the last word goes on...
Martin, I find those who stand for communion as stationary as those who might kneel.
Allan, it is not necessary to "drop" the host into a person's hand to avoid touching said hand.
I'll be happy to schedule the tutorial at your's and Martin's convenience.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Chinese authorities identified the new coronavirus, which has resulted in confirmed human infections in China and a growing number of other countries, including the United States. Infected patients have also spread the virus to healthcare workers. The latest situation summary updates are available on CDC’s COVID-19 webpage.
There is no evidence of widespread transmission of COVID-19 in the United States at this time. Without sustained human-to-human transmission, most American workers are not at significant risk of infection. Exposure risk may be elevated for some workers who interact with potentially infected travelers from abroad, including those involved in:
§ Healthcare
§ Deathcare
§ Laboratories
§ Airline operations
§ Border protection
§ Solid waste and wastewater management
§ Travel to areas, including parts of China, where the virus is spreading
There is much more to learn about the transmissibility, severity, and other features associated with COVID-19 as the outbreak investigation continues. Infected people can spread COVID-19 through their respiratory secretions, especially when they cough or sneeze. According to the CDC, spread from person-to-person is most likely among close contacts (about 6 feet). Person-to-person spread is thought to occur mainly via respiratory droplets produced when an infected person coughs or sneezes, similar to how influenza and other respiratory pathogens spread. These droplets can land in the mouths or noses of people who are nearby or possibly be inhaled into the lungs. It’s currently unknown if a person can get COVID-19 by touching a surface or object that has the virus on it and then touching their own mouth, nose, or possibly their eyes.
I have probably made Fr McDonald physically ill. I also disagree with Fr Kavanaugh in that there is a threat to transmission from touching a person or object because the sputum could serve as the vector/mechanism of transmission. Essentially, the sick child in the pew in front of you is probably not following basic hygiene practices so is slathering his environment with germs.
Finally, and to draw the conversation back to the Mass qua Mass, this is an excellent chance to teach about communion and the efficacy of the single species, intinctured. And thumb the nose of Vatican II progressives.
rcg - I have ALWAYS maintained that transmission is a possibility from "touching a person or object." Sputum CERTAINLY can be a vector for sputum-borne contaminants.
The question isn't whether or not a disease can be passed by use of the common cup, but how likely it is to be passed this way. At the same time we have to take into consideration the likelihood of transmission by other means, such as those noted by the wise and learned Bishop Schneider.
Fr. McDonald hears "flu" and goes into a panic about communion by a common cup, but overlooks the other more likely means of transmission that he encounters every day.
The basis for this is 1) his germ paranoia, and 2) his desire to end the use of the common cup and go to intinction in order to stop people from receiving communion in the hand.
I do wonder if those who have no problem drinking from the common Communion cup, if they went to a bar, passed an empty table with a couple of mugs of half-finished beers would pick them up and finish them.
Anon at 7:58. There is a tradition in Shetlands to pass a half pint glass flask of whisky around to everyone you meet in Christmas and New Years Day. My friends, who live there, tell of starting with an amber liquid and ending with a clear one, apparently from the backwash. I suppose this was started before they found out about Edward Jenner.
Bee here:
Re Anonymous' comment of February 28, 2020 at 7:58 PM:
"I do wonder if those who have no problem drinking from the common Communion cup, if they went to a bar, passed an empty table with a couple of mugs of half-finished beers would pick them up and finish them."
After wiping the rim with the napkin that was left on the table, of course... :-)
God bless.
Bee
Hmmmm... that beer drinking idea WOULD save a lot of $$$$.
An American High Hopped IPA would sanitize the glass!
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