Cardinal Robert Sarah: Take-away Communion Practice Is Not Acceptable

The Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church, Cardinal Robert Sarah, opposed the proposal for a take-away offering of the Holy Communion, in which communicants would be placed in plastic bags, performed by a priest, and then laid out so that believers could take them themselves. This option was discussed in connection with the risk of contracting COVID-19.

'No, no and NO. I do not know who invented this absurdity, but if the forced abstinence from the Eucharist is indeed suffering, then you cannot bargain about how to get Communion after all. We can only receive communion in a proper way, worthy of God, who comes to us, ”said Cardinal Sarah in his interview to the Italian portal Nuova Bussola Quotidiana. “The Eucharist should be treated with faith and the greatest respect, we cannot treat it like an ordinary object, we are not in a supermarket. This is complete insanity. '

Catholics believe that after the re-fulfillment of the host, the Lord Jesus Christ is personally present in the Eucharist - reminds the site Ruskatolik.rf. Cardinal Sarah remarked that no man would pack the person he loves in a plastic bag. the impossibility of accepting the sacrament of the Eucharist cannot be its desecration. It is really a matter of faith: if we believe in the Eucharist, then we cannot treat it in an unworthy way. ' Holy Communion, said Robert Sarah, is not a right or an obligation, but a great gift from God, which should be received with 'reverence and love.'

The Guinean cardinal, in an interview with an Italian journalist, noted that many things have spread that are difficult to accept as the norm - in particular, this concerns the masses broadcast on television and online. “The Lord God became incarnate, became flesh and blood, He does not belong to virtual reality,” said the Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments. In addition, this approach disorients the priests: instead of performing worship, focusing on God's presence, he is looking at the camera, as if during some kind of show.