Coronavirus in Mendoza: they forbade giving communion in the mouth and there was a rebellion in the diocese of San Rafael

Sergio Rubin

07/29/2020 - 16:22

• Clarín.com
• Society

The provision that communion can only be given in the hand, and not in the mouth , which governs as part of the provincial protocol for the prevention of the coronavirus for religious practices, caused a surprising rebellion on the part of the clergy and the faithful of the diocese of San Rafael , Mendoza, which led the bishop, Eduardo Taussig, to close the diocesan seminary .

The rebellion was led by the rector of the seminary , Father Alejandro Miquel Ciarrocchi - who finally resigned -, around half of the 80 diocesan priests and an undetermined number of faithful, who - in an unprecedented event - came to protest against the seminary, praying on his knees .

The demonstration determined the intervention of Justice and that the prosecutor Fabricio Sidotti imputed its organizer , Fernando Álvarez, for "violation of measures against epidemic" established in provincial and national decrees, a crime that has a prison term of six months to two years .

In announcing the closure of the seminary - which has 39 students - the bishopric reported that the drastic measure -which will take effect at the end of the year- "follows the precise instructions issued by the Holy See" and that the seminarians will be relocated to other seminars after a "path of discernment".

The diocese of San Rafael became the stage in which Bishop León Kruk was bishop –between 1973 and 1991- in an ultra-conservative bastion that despite subsequent attempts by the Argentine Church could not be fully aggiornated, although only part of the clergy and the faithful are part of the current protest.

The ultra-orthodoxy that Kruk faced - along with nationalist priests like Father Alberto Ezcurra - became very attractive to those who wanted the “security” of a strict doctrine and strict rules , to the point that in the 1980s the seminary became the largest in the country.

In fact, those who protested in front of the seminary announced that they were going to pray "so that through the intercession of their faithful servants, Monsignor León Kruk and Father Alberto Ezcurra, the Lord grant protection and fidelity to the seminarians, formators and all the clergy and community Catholic Church of San Rafael ”.

In May the temples of Mendoza had already been enabled to open for prayers, communions and confessions. (Photo: Orlando Pelichotti / Los Andes)

The diocese of San Rafael also hosted the Institute of the Incarnate Word (IVE), founded by the Argentine priest Alberto Buela, a very conservative community that opened one of its seminaries there and received many priestly and religious vocations, but did not join the protest. .

As the quarantine began to relax, Bishop Taussig said that in the new stage it was only possible to receive Communion by hand until the health emergency ended and asked them "strongly not to do violence to priests or ministers requesting communion in the mouth" .

"I beg you not to put them before the terrible pain of, for obeying the church and the current norms, not being able to give them communion," he asked. And he completed: "If someone is not in a position to receive communion in hand, know that he is not obliged to do so and can make spiritual communion. "

But a spokesman for the rebels said that receiving Communion in the mouth "is a right that only the Pope can suspend . "

The two positions

Although communion in the mouth or in the hand does not affect in any way its religious value or its spiritual effect (receiving the body of Christ), the most conservative sectors question that it is the parishioner himself who manipulates the consecrated host instead of the priest. They believe that communion in the mouth is more pious, allows only consecrated hands to touch it, prevents the loss of fragments and lowers the risk of desecration.

On the other hand, those who defend the option of receiving Holy Communion with the hand maintain that the fact that the lay person touches the Eucharist (the consecrated host) does not constitute any indignity, it is a sign of adulthood and contributes to hygiene and sanitation . Strictly speaking, in the first centuries communion was given in the hand, then it was passed to the mouth and in 1969 Pope Paul VI allowed both modalities. The Argentine Church joined in 1996.

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