On Liturgical Reform and Papal Authority

So, as he has a habit of doing, Pope Francis has set off a blogosphere fireworks display with a speech he made this past week to a conference of Italian liturgists.  As an aside, I note for the record the suggestion by one prominent Catholic blogger, who has spent a good deal of time in Italy, that his "mind reels in dread at the very notion of a room full of Italian liturgists." :)

Cutting to the heart of the matter, in the course of a typically verbose oration, the Pope declared that "we can affirm with surety and with magisterial authority that the reform of the liturgy is irreversible."   He thus used words traditionally associated with dogmatic statements of faith and morals, although he was speaking about liturgical rubrics, which are, by definition, disciplinary in nature, not dogmatic.

For those who may not know, "discipline" and "dogma" (or "doctrine, if you prefer) are terms of art in the Catholic Church. Disciplines are rules made by men, not matters of Divine revelation, and thus are subject to change. Conversely, dogma is grounded in Divine revelation and, by definition, cannot be changed. Why is this? Because God's law, like God, is eternal and immutable.  A good example of a Church discipline is the set of rules surrounding abstinence from eating meat during Lent, which has been modified numerous times over the centuries, while the mystery of the Holy Trinity, i.e., that we worship one God in three divine Persons, is a good example of a dogma.  It has not been, and cannot be, changed in any way since its revelation to humanity through Jesus Christ, although our understanding of the mystery of the Trinity has developed over time, and likely will continue to do so.  Contrary to some Modernist views, it is not possible for "development of doctrine" to effect a change in the essence of the doctrine.  Rather, development can only broaden and deepen our understanding of that essence.  Take a look at Blessed John Henry Newman's famous essay on the subject for more about doctrinal development.

Let us turn back, then, to the Pope's assertion "with magisterial authority" that "liturgical reform," in this case the replacement of the Tridentine Mass with the Missal of Paul VI, commonly referred to as the "Novus Ordo" Mass, is "irreversible."  As has so often been the case since the beginning of this pontificate, a flood of attempted explanations of this assertion has swept over the online Catholic world, with the usual division between those who attempt to justify it and those who criticize it.  For my money, Father Z's review (linked above) is the most satisfactory, although the commentaries by canon law expert Edward Peters and blogger Phil Lawler are also good.  Mr. Peters, as usual, analyzes the issue in great detail and with a canonist's eye.  Lawler comments from the perspective of an intelligent layman.  Both see, as I do, significant confusion arising from the attempt to apply "magisterial authority" to a discipline, rather than a doctrine.  I will simplify: It just doesn't work. Magisterial authority, in the sense of infallibility, is not applicable to discipline, only to doctrine. Period.

The "irreversible" label is further belied by the history of the Liturgy itself.  It has never been static, and with the sole exception of the huge changes imposed by Paul VI, has developed slowly, organically if you will, over the nearly two thousand-year history of the Church.  The change to the Paul VI Missal was, I am told by many who lived through it, wrenching and disorienting to say the least, and resulted in many, perhaps millions, leaving the Church entirely; this obviously was not the intended result, but it is a fact, and remains a major source of internal disagreement in the Church to this day.  It also was a matter of discipline rather than doctrine, fully within the authority of the Holy See, but by no means permanent, whatever the wishes of the Modernist/Progressive faction might be. I have no doubt that Francis, who has never been shy about his general disdain for people who prefer the traditional Mass, had them and the TLM in mind in saying what he said.  But the point is, no discipline of the Church is irreversible.  If that were the case, then Paul VI would have lacked the authority to impose the Novus Ordo over against the statements of Pope St. Pius V in his implementation of the Tridentine Mass, in the encyclical Quo Primum of July, 1570.  For more detailed analysis of this issue, go here.

Thus, as I see it, many commenters have missed the boat on this one.  The "progressives" who are chortling about Francis putting the "Trads" in their place by whacking them with his "magisterial authority" are wrong, because magisterial authority has no application to liturgical norms.  But so are the Trads wrong, who claim that not only is Francis unable to render the "liturgical reform" irreversible, but also that Paul VI himself had no authority to enact the Novus Ordo Mass in the first place.  Any Pope or Council has the authority to change Church discipline, and that includes liturgical norms.  It's not the infallible Magisterium at work, so it can even be a mistake to do so, but it's licit and valid.  That's the nature of things.  So my advice is, take a deep breath, pray a Rosary, go to Mass (TLM or N.O., your choice), and chill.  The Apocalypse hasn't arrived just yet.

Laudator Jesus Christus!

Pope Francis and the Martyrs of Uganda: Missing the Point

It seems that every time our Holy Father goes on a trip anywhere, he sows confusion and concern as much as any good he does with his Apostolic visits.   In another post soon, I will discuss the truly scandalous interview he gave in his latest airborne press conference.  I use the term "scandalous" in the sense of the sin of scandal.  If you don't know what that is, please look it up in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

And just for the record, yes, I do believe the Holy Father does much good in his travels.  In spite of the serious issues Pope Francis creates with his unscripted comments, and even at times with scripted ones, as the Vicar of Christ on Earth he has a powerful charism, endowed by the Holy Spirit (or Holy Ghost, if you prefer).  I have no doubt that the Spirit works through Pope Francis in numerous ways, and not just when he administers the Sacraments.  This is not something to be demeaned or belittled in any way, and it is not my purpose to do so.  The unfortunate fact is that he also does much damage to the Faith and to souls, who need to be confirmed and supported in their faith, not led astray by a pope who seems at times to be incapable of coherent communication.

This post is concerned, as the title indicates, with the pope's homily during the Mass he celebrated this past Saturday for the Martyrs of Uganda, St. Charles Lwanga and companions.  These men, all of them quite young, were canonized in 1964.  As is usually the case with martyrs for the Faith, they died under horrid circumstances but remained faithful to the end, praying and singing hymns even as they suffered unto death.  Joanna Bogle wrote an article for Catholic Answers Magazine, published in May, 2008, describing the case of the martyrdom, which is very informative, although it contains a couple of typos in the online version, here.

The papal homily was, in and of itself, not problematic.  You can read the full text on the Holy See's website.   It was a moving tribute to anyone who makes the ultimate sacrifice for Christ and His Church.  The problem was not what the pope said, but rather what he did NOT say.  As Ms. Bogle's article explains, these men were not martyred simply for their adherence to the Christian faith.  The primary motivation of the king who murdered them was their refusal to submit to his demands that they engage in sodomitical acts with him.  Yet for reasons known only to him, the Bishop of Rome (as he insists on being called, in his often strained effort to demonstrate his own humility) chose to say not one single word about this critical fact.  Hence, the subtitle of this post, "Missing the Point."  In a world where whole nations are enshrining in secular law the oxymoronic notion of marriage between persons of the same sex, and engaging in legal and social persecution of anyone who dares to resist, the putative spiritual leader of the Church founded by Jesus Christ, the successor to St. Peter, threw away a perfect opportunity to teach the whole world the truth as revealed by God, that sodomy is always and everywhere an offense against nature, and therefore against God and our very essence as human beings made in God's image and likeness.  The heroism of St. Charles Lwanga and the other Ugandan martyrs stands for this truth, because it was their Christian faith, their Catholic faith, that gave them the strength to refuse the king's deplorable demands.  (Yes, I know, there were also Anglicans martyred at or about the same time and for essentially the same reason.  They deserve to be honored as well.  More than that, I will say only that in today's Anglican church, it is open to question whether they would even be considered martyrs.  It will soon be a moot point in any event, as Ross Douthat noted some time back, since the Episcopal church is in its death throes in the US, as is the Anglican Communion worldwide.)

The redoubtable Father Z also has commented on the pope's omission from his homily of the facts of the Lwanga story.  I reproduce here his closing paragraph, which as always hits the bullseye:

"I saw some of the coverage of Pope Francis’ visit to Africa.  I am not a fan of the dancing and so forth and some liturgical choices (HERE etc.), but I will say this: African bishops still know the difference between a boy and a girl, they still know what male/female sexual organs are for and what they are not for, they still know that marriage is between one man and one woman, and now they really know how to scare German bishops."

Please do read Father Z's entire post and follow his links.  It will be worth your time.

Laudator Jesus Christus!

The Coming Tribulation? Or Just Another Day in the Life of the Church?

“I expect to die in bed, my successor will die in prison and his successor will die a martyr in the public square. His successor will pick up the shards of a ruined society and slowly help rebuild civilization, as the church has done so often in human history.”

Francis Cardinal George, former Archbishop of Chicago (d. 2015)


I have been silent in this space for a little over three months now.  So much has been going on in the Church, with first the Pope's trip to Cuba and the USA, the World Meeting of Families, and then the Synod on the Family, that I've spent all my "blog time" reading my favorite commentators (and commenting quite a bit myself on other blogs) leaving little or no time and inclination to write for my own.  Despite the wide and deep well of subject matter, it always seemed that I didn't have much to say that wasn't already being said by others. 

So after three months, if I am going to be serious about this endeavor, it's time to get back to work.  Here we go.

With all the noise generated by the Pope's trip (which I found rather disappointing, but maybe that will be grist for another post at some point) and the Synod on the Family (which was confusing, at best, but isn't really over until we get some kind of papal document, so we wait for that), I continue to be intrigued by one thread that seems to be running through many of the blog posts and comments I've been seeing: the idea that the Church is facing a crisis unlike any other in its history, and that the resemblance of the present situation to apocalyptic prophecies in 20th Century private revelations, especially Our Lady's appearances at Fatima and Akita, is strong enough to warrant the most serious concern.  The End is near!  Fear, fire, foes! Awake! (Apologies to J.R.R. Tolkien.)

Well, OK then.  It does seem clear to many (most?) of an orthodox mindset that the Church is indeed in a state of crisis, and I have a hard time disagreeing with such an assessment. See my August 10 post, for example.  To run through another brief summary of the "bad stuff":  In recent times we have witnessed the violent slaughter of many thousands of Christians (mostly Catholics and Orthodox) in the very birthplace of the Faith, together with wanton destruction of their churches and holy treasures, by barbaric Jihadists bent on eradication of everything and everyone that is not Muslim; the near total collapse of European Christendom; a seeming rush of North and South America to follow suit via declining Mass attendance, millions of annual defections to "evangelical" or "none" status, the enshrinement in secular law of false marriages and the concomitant state and media persecution of Catholics and Catholic institutions who refuse to affirm them; and a papacy that praises material heretics (e.g. certain German Cardinals) while excoriating as "pharisees" those who stand for traditional doctrine and practice, and which sometimes seems more concerned with pleasing the international secular media than with the salvation of souls and the preservation of the deposit of faith.  To be fair, at other times we hear strikingly orthodox statements and exhortations of the type to which we have grown accustomed over the past several pontificates.  (Confused?  So am I.)

Even so, however, is it really as bad as some maintain?  Stated another way, whatever the magnitude of the crisis, is it in fact unprecedented?  Or is it just another day in the life of the Church that Our Lord promised would prevail to "the close of the age" (Cf. Mt 16:18, 28:20), despite being constantly under attack? (Cf. Mt 5:10-11; 10:16-23).

After all, the Arian heresy had most of the bishops in the world in its grasp at one point, and it took not one, but two ecumenical Councils (Nicea and Constantinople) to put it to rest.  (See here.)  In fact, legend has it that the Council of Nicea included the spectacle of Saint Nicholas (yes, that Saint Nicholas) punching out the heresiarch himself, in full view of the entire assembly.  Indeed, one could argue that at least a stepchild of Arianism survives to this day in certain quarters, where Modernists (see extensive discussion of Modernism here) insist upon a distinction between "the historical Jesus" and "the Christ of faith."  The former, these enlightened scholars solemnly inform us, was merely a man, albeit a wise man and great teacher, while the latter, the Son of God co-equal and consubstantial with the Father, is a mythical construct of a self-interested Church fearful of "reason and truth", which virtues the Modernist claims as exclusively his own. We beg to differ.

In any case, there were other serious heresies throughout the early Church, not to mention two major schisms, first the departure of the Eastern churches in the Eleventh Century A.D., followed by the Protestant revolt in the Sixteenth.  Finally, let's not forget how close Christendom came to being swallowed up by the Muslim hordes, not long after Luther and Calvin took their toys and went home.  The Battle of Lepanto, at which a massive Ottoman fleet bent on the sack of Vienna was defeated by a coalition put together by Pope St. Pius V, was a close-run thing, and many (including St. Pius V) believed the victory to have been secured only through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin. (See here.)  Now, those were crises!  Can today's situation match up, and more importantly, are we really on the verge of the Last Days?

In my view, the most likely answer to both queries is "no."  Nevertheless, it is not hard to understand why people are fretting.  I find myself doing it too, more often than I care to admit.  See that August 10 post again, for example.

Of course, I wasn't there for any of the events just listed, so I don't know what it was like for the lay faithful in those times.  But it seems pretty certain that most of them, given the absence of any sort of rapid communication over long distances and the general illiteracy of the vast majority of the population, didn't even know anything was wrong.  Taking the Arian case for example, if your average layman was told by his bishop that Jesus was not really a God-man, but a mere creature given great power by God the Father, he probably just shrugged or nodded and kept praying, and going to Mass on Sundays and Holy Days.  Ignorance was bliss, one might say with some degree of assurance.

For better or worse, we no longer have this luxury.  In our day and age, when even the most trivial matters can gain world-wide attention via social media in a matter of minutes or hours, we have immediate access at any given moment to more information than, until very recently, even the most industrious seeker of knowledge could have acquired in a lifetime.  We know of many things occurring in the Church at large and in the Holy See in particular that were never before open to all the world as they are now.  Frequently, the result is information overload, and unless we are very careful we can find ourselves, in the classic idiom, unable to see the forest for the trees.  In a more recent idiom, we suffer from "TMI", or "too much information."  In this light, it seems prudent to keep in mind the following:

First, we have the aforementioned guarantee of Jesus himself that his Church will survive until his return, and we should take some comfort in the fact that the Church has survived for nearly two millennia despite all the challenges She has faced.  This is not something to be taken lightly.  No human institution has ever lasted more than a few hundred years, and most didn't make it that long.  Only a Divine institution could still be around after this much time.  God is in charge; let him take care of it!

Second, recall the vast time scale of the Church and of Salvation History.  Even if we go back to the very dawn of humanity, we are only talking about a few thousand years.  This is nothing in the sight of God.  Man has a natural tendency to view all things through his own extremely limited lens, where around eighty years is an average lifetime and even a single hour, if spent with, say, an extremely boring speaker, can seem interminable.  When we add up all the bad news available to us now, we conclude rather easily that things could not possibly ever have been worse, so the end must be near.  But in the "big picture", we exist in a blink of God's eye.  Father John Zuhlsdorf, a/k/a Father Z, a prolific and excellent blogger of traditional bent, recently exhorted his readers:

I am trying to take the longer view.  I remind myself that each pontificate is a parenthesis in the long history of the Church and of our Salvation.  This parenthesis will close one day and another will open.

Wise advice from a wise and holy priest.

Third, recall and heed the advice Jesus gave the Apostles just before his Ascension:

So when they had come together, they asked him, "Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" He said to them, "It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has fixed by his own authority.  But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth." Acts 1:6-8 (Emphasis supplied.)

It is not for us to know when the Last Days will come.  In the meantime, we share in the Great Commission given by the Lord here and in Mt 28:18-20.  See next point.

Fourth, there are only a few things we lay members of the Church Militant can do, and we ought to be doing all of them anyway.  We can share the Gospel of Christ with the world.  We can obey the Commandments.  We can pray, a lot.  We can fast.  We can perform the corporal and spiritual works of mercy.  We can (must!) continue going to Mass on Sundays and Holy Days.  We can attend weekday Mass.  We can go to Confession regularly.  Cardinal Burke has encouraged us to stay faithful!  The great Twentieth Century Saint Pio (Padre Pio) frequently advised everyone to "Pray, hope and don't worry."

If we do all these things, we can rest assured of Christ's promise: the Church will prevail over the gates of Hell, and those who persevere will be saved.  In the end, it doesn't really matter when the Great Tribulation and the Second Coming will occur.  What I do know is that my Day of Judgment is coming, and even assuming I survive to a ripe old age, it's coming a lot faster than I like to think about.  The same applies to every one of us, regardless of age.

I conclude with another Scriptural quote, one of my favorites:

"Let not your hearts be troubled; believe in God, believe also in me.  In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?  And when I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.  And you know the way where I am going." Thomas said to him, "Lord, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?"  Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me.  If you had known me, you would have known my Father also; henceforth you know him and have seen him." Jn 14:1-7.

Laudator Jesus Christus!

Communion In The Hand vs. On The Tongue--Does It Matter?

While I am anything but the World's Biggest Fan of the "Crux" blog run by John L. Allen, Jr. of the Boston Globe, occasionally a friend will send me something from that site, or I'll encounter an interesting piece on New Advent or some other aggregator site, and will give it a read.  Just today I received via email a link to an interesting commentary on Crux, by Mathew N. Schmalz, on the seemingly endless debate about what is the "better" way to receive our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament--on the tongue or in the hand?  It's worth reading and considering, and has a good brief review of the history of communion in the hand in the USA, as well as the author's experiences in other countries.  Mr. Schmalz concludes his reflection as follows:

"Debating Communion in the hand versus Communion on the tongue does raise important issues. But all too often, it has become a way, on both sides, of judging people we do not know. In doing so, we can distract ourselves not only from the miracle what is happening in front of us, but also from the miracle that is happening alongside of us.
And so what is it about Communion in the hand versus Communion on the tongue?
As always, the problem is with our own sinful selves."

Nothing to argue with there, really, although I might add that part of the problem is the choice itself, which the Church could take care of by revoking the indult given to the US Bishops years ago.  More on that below.

My friend also e-mailed this link, to a post from several years ago by one of my favorite Catholic bloggers, Father John Zuhlsdorf (a/k/a "Father Z.")  It raises what I think is a serious issue, that of the fragments or crumbs which tend to fall from the hosts used in most Catholic churches in the US (based on both personal experience and some research), even if all concerned are exercising due care.  Fr. Z demonstrates photographically that crumbs/fragments are likely to be present in one's hand merely by having the consecrated host placed there by the priest or Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion.  I'd venture to say that darn near nobody ever licks or otherwise removes any fragments from the palm of their hand after consuming the Sacrament, so those fragments, each of which contains the whole and entire Presence of Christ, end up getting dropped somewhere between the place of reception and the communicant's pew.  That is with the exception, of course, of those communicants who bolt directly for the parking lot upon receiving.  Their fragments could even end up outside.  (More on my view of early departure from Mass in a subsequent post, perhaps!)

The friend who sent me these articles commented that he stopped receiving in the hand after seeing Fr. Z's photographs. I can understand that.

As for myself, I've floated back and forth on this practice since my entry into the Church (ten years ago next week!)  At my original parish, where I went through RCIA, we were not even told we had a choice; had it not been for my "auxiliary" education in the faith via EWTN, Catholic Answers and independent reading, I would not have known anyone received other than in the hand prior to actually seeing people do it at Mass.  (Remember, we Candidates were not there to watch the communion process until the Easter Vigil itself.)  I have read all sorts of commentary from both perspectives, including issues such as those raised by Fr. Z and by the writer on Crux, as well as hygiene, reverence, tradition vs. indult, the "throne" theory attributed to St. Cyril and endorsed in word, at least, by Pope Benedict XVI, in the book Light of the World, although he normally required receipt on the tongue when he celebrated Mass, and probably others.  I've also seen commentary such as appears in the comments on Fr. Z's post about the type of host used--the thin white kind vs. the larger and slightly darker colored ones like we use at my current parish.  Many say the small, white ones are less prone to leaving particles, but I wouldn't know about that; I do know they dissolve quickly and don't require chewing, which is another issue that seems to get folks excited.  

In any case, my thought process has always been centered on showing the reverence I believe we all should show to the Lord's Presence in the Blessed Sacrament.  Once I learned the teaching of the Church on the Real Presence, I was so captivated by it that showing great reverence just seemed like the only logical thing to do.  That doesn't mean I think I'm smarter than anyone else or have some special gift of discernment; on the contrary, one of the things that attracted me initially to the Church was the much greater sense of reverence I saw at a Catholic Mass as compared to the Protestant (mostly Methodist) services to which I was accustomed.  Some adherents of the TLM greatly disparage today's "Ordinary Form" as having very little reverence in comparison with the TLM, but the OF was all I knew when I started my journey, and it can be celebrated with great reverence, indeed. 

Deep down, I think showing proper reverence doesn't depend on whether one receives in the hand or on the tongue, although I appreciate the argument that says only ordained clergy or properly trained lay ministers should handle the consecrated host. I also am aware that a fair number of folks who might be called "traditionalists" believe that communion in the hand was an intentional effort on the part of "modernists" to strip the Church of belief in the Real Presence.  They maintain (and I have not researched the history here) that immediately after the Protestant separation, Luther and others adopted the practice of communion in the hand precisely as a means of demonstrating rejection of the Catholic doctrine.  But I'm not getting into all of that here.  The Church still teaches Transubstantiation and the Real Presence, so if communion in the hand was an attempt to change that, it has failed, at least so far.

To me, what is most important is a person's general demeanor.  In the Sacred Liturgy, every movement and posture of the priest, deacon(s), lay ministers and faithful is intended to be meaningful, because we are physical persons, and how we move and act is part and parcel of what is in our hearts--it both reflects what is there, and helps to form us into better disciples.  I remember reading a while back about one of our separated brethren saying that if he believed what the Catholic Church teaches about Jesus' presence in the Eucharist, he would crawl on his belly up to the foot of the altar to receive Him.  And, in principle, he's absolutely right.  Now, obviously, having everyone prostrate themselves to receive Holy Communion would make things a bit difficult logistically, but it's the same principle that underlies the practice of the communion rail in the TLM, and there are times when I wish we could go back at least to that manner of distributing Communion, even within the Ordinary Form rite.  

This next part I say somewhat reluctantly, in light of the passage I quoted above from the Crux article, so I'm trying not to be sinfully judgmental here, in the sense of inferring from exterior actions what is in someone's heart:  I especially tend to wish for a return to the communion rail when I see people at Sunday Mass bopping up the aisle as if they were in line for a burger and fries, casually receiving the Eucharist without even a minor bow of the head, and then walking away as if the whole thing were sort of boring, and gee, I'm glad THAT's over with, now what's for brunch?  It's entirely possible that these folks are solid believers who do all they can to live out the faith in their daily lives, but you'd never know it from the way they treat Holy Communion.  There is also a very good chance that the reason they don't show more reverence is that nobody ever taught them otherwise.  And that's really sad.

At the end of it all, it may well be that the loss of some particles of the Blessed Sacrament, and thus the Presence of the Lord, is unavoidable even when everyone is careful, regardless of whether communion is given in the hand or only on the tongue.  However, if I were Czar of the Universe (to quote my professor of contract law way back when),  I would prefer to see it standardized, even if for no other reason than to shut off the frequently uncharitable debate.  And going a bit further in the line of reasoning, it makes sense to me that the fewer people who touch the consecrated host, the more likely it will be that such loss can be avoided.  Again, as noted, I'm not convinced that it's in any way "bad" for us ordinary lay Catholics to touch the Blessed Sacrament with our grubby hands, as long as we treat it as what it is, the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ.  I just think it's a mathematical certainty that when we all receive in the hand, more little pieces which are the substance of the Lord Jesus will be dropped on floors or on the ground and walked on, unknowingly, by lots of other people than would be the case if everyone received on the tongue.

So, as Czar, I would opt for receipt on the tongue only, and require the use of patens. Also, to shut down another sometimes contentious discussion, this one about hygiene at Mass, if the Precious Blood is to be administered to the faithful, it should be by intinction only.  The USCCB could do this, simply by declining to follow the indult (exception) granted back in the oh-so-silly 1970's.  Maybe they could spend some time studying this instead of issuing all sorts of political statements on issues beyond their expertise.  Or the Holy See could revoke the indult, though I suspect that's not an issue very high on the Pope's radar at the moment.  Either way, I bet that after the usual period of wailing and grinding of teeth that erupts whenever a change in liturgical norms occurs, everyone would get used to it and life would go on.

Of course, if communion in the hand were to be abolished in the USA, priests and Ministers and communicants would all need remedial training on how to make receipt on the tongue work smoothly, as too many people don't really know how to, for lack of a better term, present a proper "target" so the priest or extraordinary minister can place the host on the tongue without actually touching the tongue with their fingers.  That's yucky, even if you don't have a communicable disease to spread around (and if you do, you should probably just stay home, anyway.) Also, I suspect that since in my experience about 95% of communicants receive in the hand, the EMHC's themselves are not very adept at placing the host, either.  Time to practice!  Pizza afterwards!

That's my little contribution to this discussion.  Thanks for reading.  Laudator Jesus Christus!

UPDATE--March 24, 2015:

A friend and RCIA colleague at my parish went and did some research on this issue and came up with the following:

Thomas Aquinas in ST 77:4 states:

“Nevertheless, a distinction must be made between each of the aforesaid corruptions; because, when the body and the blood of Christ succeed in this sacrament to the substance of the bread and wine, if there be such change on the part of the accidents as would not have sufficed for the corruption of the bread and wine, then the body and blood of Christ do not cease to be under this sacrament on account of such change, whether the change be on the part of the quality, as for instance, when the color or the savor of the bread or wine is slightly modified; or on the part of the quantity, as when the bread or the wine is divided into such parts as to keep in them the nature of bread or of wine. But if the change be so great that the substance of the bread or wine would have been corrupted, then Christ's body and blood do not remain under this sacrament; and this either on the part of the qualities, as when the color, savor, and other qualities of the bread and wine are so altered as to be incompatible with the nature of bread or of wine; or else on the part of the quantity, as, for instance, if the bread be reduced to fine particles, or the wine divided into such tiny drops that the species of bread or wine no longer remain.”

This still needs to be reconciled with the practice of rinsing the ciboria on the altar to capture the particles left in the bottom of the vessel after Communion, as great care is required by the Church to be taken by the priests and deacons to ensure these are not lost.  I think that is fairly easy to do, since it is obvious that when particles reside in the sacred vessels, they are in fact part of the consecrated species.  However, once removed from the altar, if reduced to "fine particles", then Aquinas is saying it no longer remains the body and blood of Christ if it can no longer be recognized as bread.  

Makes sense to me.  

Laudator Jesus Christus!