Yesterday the Zenit website reported on a survey that have been undertaken in the United States about the attitude of the laity to communion in the hand and other related Eucharistic practices of the contemporary Church. Although I am often suspicious of the value of public opinion research on issues that don’t always come down to a simple affirmative or negative this has been apparently the largest survey that has been undertaken of lay opinion. The results are actually encouraging for those of us of a traditional frame of mind. It does of course depend where the survey was taken because as we know the church in the US shows great extremes of opinion and practice in a way that is perhaps less evident in this country. The report was commissioned by a clearly conservative group but the results are striking. That being so it is perhaps all the more surprising to read it on Zenit which often seems to be very much the voice for current Vatican orthodoxy.
What the survey, the largest so far conducted with regular worshippers, suggests is a desire for greater reverence for the Eucharist, not by only by favouring reception on the tongue but also in externals such as genuflecting and avoiding the use of lay ministers. There was a desire to re-establish in churches the centrality of the Tabernacle. Only a minority of respondents were attending the pre-Conciliar liturgy. The US bishops are being forwarded the report as part of an initiative on the part of those who commissioned it to restore reverence for the Eucharist.
The article can be seen at Communion in the Hand or in the Mouth? Results Are Published of the Largest Survey in the U.S. on the Eucharist
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