Communion in the Hand in Poland: A priest writes Plea to the archbishop of Warsaw (2005)
The archbishop of Warsaw, Józef cardinal Glemp, is resolved to introduce the hand communion in his archbishopric on the coming holy Thursday (2005). A Polish priest in the Germany writes his emminence a letter.
Praised Be Jesus Christ!
your eminence archbishop, cardinal Glemp!
If I may introduce myself. I am a priest and come originally from the diocese X in the south of Poland. For over ten years I've been working as a parish priest in a diocese in the Federal Republic of Germany. Here Ive become a day by day a witness of the breakdown of the Catholic church in Germany.
For seven years I've been a priest in my two rural communities. Although I try to give my best, church attendance has year to year become less and less in my parishes. Most believers are very old. I have many burials, only few baptisms and fewer and fewer weddings. Sometimes I ask myself and fear whether what is happening today in the Catholic church in Germany is the future of the church in Poland.
I believe that there are two causes for the situation in Germany: the non existence of the sacrament of confession and the disappearence of reverence for the Eucharist.
Therefore, I was horrified when I have read recently, that you, Eminence as archbishop of Warsaw, in your archbishopric will shortly introduce communion in the hand. What do you hope to gain from this step? A strengthening of reverence for the Most blessed Sacrament? A support of the belief in the real presence of Christ in the sacrament? Have you considered in which direction your archdiocese will move after this step?
An older woman told to me that the introduction of communion in the hand was not desired in our parishes by the common church people, but was put through by the priest at that time with the blessing of the bishop. The priest has married later.
The faithful would have even been rather surprised at the innovation. With the introduction of communion in the hand there was initially a visible split for the first time in the parish. Some outsiders, old people and simple church-goers continued with communion on the tongue. On top of it all a strong party of moderns developed who demanded more innovations.
From this split in my parishes I as a priest today can see nothing more. Today no one in my parishes receives communion on the tongue. I know that a family with children goes on Sunday somewhere to the priests of archbishop Lefèbvre.
In spite of my sermons and the first communion preparation there can be no comparison of the devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, as I've known it from my home parish in Poland with here in Germany. The faithful take the holy host from my hand, as if it were a postage stamp.
Of course it depends more on the internal desire than on the external action. But a heresy would be maintained to think that both do not hang together narrowly with each other. Otherwise one could abolish in the church all external acts of reverence.
When I am at home in Poland in Summer and concelebrate/distribute holy communion in my home parish, it is as though I'm on another planet and in another church. This is the honest truth. Would our Polish bishops like it when in twenty years the Polish Church looks like the German Church or no Church at all. ?
If you, your eminence, believe that with communion in the hand the Eucharistic devotion will thereby be increased in your archdiocese and the true presence of Christ will be understood by the sign of the bread by communion in the hand more deeply, then look at the Church in Germany. Here the hand communion was the first step in a deep abyss. Of this I can be a witness from my everyday parish work.
Your eminence, I do not know, how much longer I shall be needed in my dying parishes in Germany. I would return with pleasure again in my Polish native country. I hope that I do not find then at home the situation which I must experience today in Germany.
Eminence, is not still too late it to cancel your step. Sometimes it is necessary in the life to have more courage to rescind a wrong action than to carry out a new action. May this courage may be given to you.
I pray every day that the " year proclaimed by pope John Paul II of the Eucharist “ does not remain in Poland as the moment in memory in which you as an archbishop of Warsaw took the first step which led to the same sad state of affairs that now exists in the church of Germany.
The archbishop of Warsaw, Józef cardinal Glemp, is resolved to introduce the hand communion in his archbishopric on the coming holy Thursday (2005). A Polish priest in the Germany writes his emminence a letter.
Praised Be Jesus Christ!
your eminence archbishop, cardinal Glemp!
If I may introduce myself. I am a priest and come originally from the diocese X in the south of Poland. For over ten years I've been working as a parish priest in a diocese in the Federal Republic of Germany. Here Ive become a day by day a witness of the breakdown of the Catholic church in Germany.
For seven years I've been a priest in my two rural communities. Although I try to give my best, church attendance has year to year become less and less in my parishes. Most believers are very old. I have many burials, only few baptisms and fewer and fewer weddings. Sometimes I ask myself and fear whether what is happening today in the Catholic church in Germany is the future of the church in Poland.
I believe that there are two causes for the situation in Germany: the non existence of the sacrament of confession and the disappearence of reverence for the Eucharist.
Therefore, I was horrified when I have read recently, that you, Eminence as archbishop of Warsaw, in your archbishopric will shortly introduce communion in the hand. What do you hope to gain from this step? A strengthening of reverence for the Most blessed Sacrament? A support of the belief in the real presence of Christ in the sacrament? Have you considered in which direction your archdiocese will move after this step?
An older woman told to me that the introduction of communion in the hand was not desired in our parishes by the common church people, but was put through by the priest at that time with the blessing of the bishop. The priest has married later.
The faithful would have even been rather surprised at the innovation. With the introduction of communion in the hand there was initially a visible split for the first time in the parish. Some outsiders, old people and simple church-goers continued with communion on the tongue. On top of it all a strong party of moderns developed who demanded more innovations.
From this split in my parishes I as a priest today can see nothing more. Today no one in my parishes receives communion on the tongue. I know that a family with children goes on Sunday somewhere to the priests of archbishop Lefèbvre.
In spite of my sermons and the first communion preparation there can be no comparison of the devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, as I've known it from my home parish in Poland with here in Germany. The faithful take the holy host from my hand, as if it were a postage stamp.
Of course it depends more on the internal desire than on the external action. But a heresy would be maintained to think that both do not hang together narrowly with each other. Otherwise one could abolish in the church all external acts of reverence.
When I am at home in Poland in Summer and concelebrate/distribute holy communion in my home parish, it is as though I'm on another planet and in another church. This is the honest truth. Would our Polish bishops like it when in twenty years the Polish Church looks like the German Church or no Church at all. ?
If you, your eminence, believe that with communion in the hand the Eucharistic devotion will thereby be increased in your archdiocese and the true presence of Christ will be understood by the sign of the bread by communion in the hand more deeply, then look at the Church in Germany. Here the hand communion was the first step in a deep abyss. Of this I can be a witness from my everyday parish work.
Your eminence, I do not know, how much longer I shall be needed in my dying parishes in Germany. I would return with pleasure again in my Polish native country. I hope that I do not find then at home the situation which I must experience today in Germany.
Eminence, is not still too late it to cancel your step. Sometimes it is necessary in the life to have more courage to rescind a wrong action than to carry out a new action. May this courage may be given to you.
I pray every day that the " year proclaimed by pope John Paul II of the Eucharist “ does not remain in Poland as the moment in memory in which you as an archbishop of Warsaw took the first step which led to the same sad state of affairs that now exists in the church of Germany.
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