"Compulsory Intinction" At Our Lady Of Walsingham

Wikipedia has this to say about intinction:

It is one of the four ways approved in the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church for administering Holy Communion under the form of wine as well as of bread: "The norms of the Roman Missal admit the principle that in cases where Communion is administered under both kinds, 'the Blood of the Lord may be received either by drinking from the chalice directly, or by intinction, or by means of a tube or a spoon' (General Instruction of the Roman Missal, 245). As regards the administering of Communion to lay members of Christ's faithful, the Bishops may exclude Communion with the tube or the spoon where this is not the local custom, though the option of administering Communion by intinction always remains. If this modality is employed, however, hosts should be used which are neither too thin nor too small, and the communicant should receive the Sacrament from the Priest only on the tongue" (General Instruction of the Roman Missal, 285b and 287).

"The communicant must not be permitted to intinct the host himself in the chalice, nor to receive the intincted host in the hand. As for the host to be used for the intinction, it should be made of valid matter, also consecrated; it is altogether forbidden to use non-consecrated bread or other matter."

I can speak only from the perspective of being an Episcopalian between 1981 and 2011 as far as intinction applies to Anglicans. As far as I know, it became common in TEC after the rise of the AIDS epidemic, when communicants became concerned that they might contract it by sharing the chalice. Without going into the details of AIDS transmission, as far as anyone could tell, this was false delicacy, but intinction was adopted around 1985 as a "solution" to the "problem". A visitor notes,

The problem is not present with a shared chalice because the smooth finish on the chalice permits the minister to wipe the lip clean with a purificator and the consecrated wine contains enough alcohol to kill any remaining germs.

However, intinction was always optional in the TEC parishes where I attended mass. Beyond that, in contradiction to the Catholic rule, TEC communicants always received the host in the hand. They then had the option of placing it directly into their mouths or waiting for the priest or deacon to follow with the chalice. The TEC-ers would then dip the host in the chalice themselves and consume it.

About 2005, Bp Bruno stopped that practice in the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles and said if you want intinction, leave the host in your hand and wait for the priest or deacon to pick it up and dip it himself and then place it on your tongue.

But it was always optional, just if you wanted it, you signified by leaving the host in your hand. Or you could take the host in your hand (or in a few places on the tongue) and sip from the chalice. Or, if you had a problem with wine, as my correspondent noted, you could simply kiss the chalice -- or for that matter just touch your lips to the chalice and pretend to sip. But compulsory intinction takes away all the options.

Once I went to TEC mass in Rochester, NY, where they ran out of hosts. The priest assured all that communion in one kind was still valid. A visitor with an interest in canon law notes,

With respect to your comment in today’s post, the Council of Trent, defending the custom of distributing only the consecrated bread to the congregation against the objections of the Protestant reformers, infallibly stated that our Lord is wholly present in both the consecrated bread and the consecrated wine (a dogma known as “concomitance”), and thus that it is sufficient to receive either element. The Second Vatican Council upheld this dogma in the sacred constitution Sacrosanctum concillium on divine worship, but then decreed that “communion under both kinds may be granted when the bishops think fit, not only to clerics and religious, but also to the laity…” (No. 55).

No. 281-287 of the General Instructions to the Roman Missal contain the current norm for distribution of holy communion under both elements during mass.

The most prevalent practice is the one in which the processions go to two stations — one with the consecrated bread and another with the consecrated wine — affording each parishioner the option to receive either form or both forms, according to individual choice. This option readily accommodates alcoholics for whom even a sip of consecrated wine might be a problem, and it also accommodates people with Celiac Disease, for whom the gluten in the consecrated host can be a very serious problem. This practice also permits each communicant to receive the host either in the hand or on the tongue, according to personal preference.

But the instructions also permit a single station in which the minister of communion intincts the consecrated bread into the consecrated wine, then places the host onto the communicant’s tongue. Communion in the hand is not an option with this method.

Regarding how this is done at OLW, my correspondent reports, "They have attractive gold (or silver) vessels. Please excuse the analogy but it's like a bowl of dip set in the middle of platter of Fritos Both mounted on the same stem. The priest or minister of communion takes one of the hosts surrounding the wine, dips it and puts it in the kneeling communicant's mouth. Obviously you could not take this in your hand. I'm thinking someone who does not want to receive the wine could whisper "no wine" to the priest and he would not dip but rather put the dry host in your mouth. But I've never seen anyone make such a request."

While all this is canonically OK, it seems to me that on one hand, it's less sanitary, given the explanation above, and also false delicacy, also for the reasons given above. But I suppose it's lah-de-dah and highly appropriate for a parish where people come dressed as the Cleavers and wearing veils in the appropriate colors.

Not to everyone's taste.