St. Philip did advocate going to confession at least as often as one received the Blessed Sacrament, but he was an advocate of daily confession as well as daily Communion (at the discretion of one’s confessor etc.)

But we do have women volunteers who are religious sisters and who serve as Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion.

I’m going to download “The Emasculation of the Priesthood” immediately.

Blessings to all of you.

Why? because there just can’t be that many people in need of Communion. Does it constitute an emergency if a person cannot receive Communion every day or even every week? Call me a Jansenist (and I am), but the reception of Holy Communion on a daily or weekly basis is a privilege, not a right.

How many of these people who are receiving Communion even on a weekly basis are having their confessions heard? That’s where the real emergency is, the real urgent need and necessity: there need to be more priests hearing confessions. Again, call me a Jansenist, but once upon a time, there was this not so Jansenistic guy by the name of St. Philip Neri who told his Oratorians to confess at least as often as they planned to receive the Sacrament.

Here’s a case of urgent need and necessity, though: you find out from the television that the hospital is going to be crushed by a meteor in exactly 15 minutes time. There’s no chance of getting everyone out, so the more feeble patients decide to make their peace with God, and every able bodied man (who has recently confessed and hopes to die in the service of God) makes a rush on the tabernacle to carry the the Lord’s Body to as many of the Catholic patients as he can before the building is in smithereens. Now that is an extraordinary minister of the Eucharist!

The matter of where such people would fall on the clergy/laity divide would still need find-tuning, I concede. But at least Acolytes and Lectors of this variety would have an “order” to do what they do.

Btw, many traditionalists in the past have objected to the permanent diaconate. Well, one big objection — that it would lead to a married priesthood — does not seem to have materialized. In Novus Ordo parishes, the deacon sometimes is the voice of reason. Maybe this is because he has a real job and so hasn’t become totally addicted to the type of flattery and casual deceit that many people direct at priests? Or perhaps it’s because he tends to be married and unambigously heterosexual? Or is it the fact that the deacons have generally formed their spirituality without the dubious “benefit” of seminary training? Perhaps the biggest change in my life was the result of a homily delivered by a permanent deacon during a parish retreat; I never heard our priest talk that way.

The Church has done just that… (and perhaps you knew that and were being ironic.)

Institution in the ministry of Acolyte is a required step to the priesthood and the diaconate, it is reserved to men and they are delegated on a special but more permanent basis to distribute Communion when neccesary.

See Ministeria quaedam:

“The acolyte is appointed in order to aid the deacon and to minister to the priest. It is his duty therefore to attend to the service of the altar and to assist the deacon and the priest in liturgical celebrations, especially in the celebration of Mass; he is also to distribute communion as a special minister when the ministers spoken of in the Codex Iuris Canonici can. 845 are not available or are prevented by ill health, age, or another pastoral ministry from performing this function, or when the number of communicants is so great that the celebration of Mass would be unduly prolonged.”

They’re not clergy, however, I think for one reason that the clerical state is historically linked to the right of support from the Church (and prohibition on engaging in trade), which these lay ministers are specifically excluded from in the motu proprio. Presumably now the Pope could change this, for, with the restoration of the permanent diaconate clerics (deacons) commonly do engage in trade, and derive their income mostly from that, and Lectors and Acolytes could be placed on a similar footing, at least those that are engaged in extensive pastoral ministry beyond just showing up to read on sundays. See Canon 281.

Ah, and therein lies the rub — “necessity,” “urgency.” At least one synod called it presumption for a priest to delegate to a layperson or woman the task of administering Holy Communion to the sick. But that synod is unnamed and, in any case, its decrees (if not the rationale for them) have been superseded by the current Church discipline on this particular issue.

Of course, St. Thomas is right — only priests with their consecrated hands have a right to administer the Sacrament. But today, due to lack of priests and disinterest, one really could argue that there is some “necessity” or “urgency” to finding more people for the job. However, “extraordinary ministers” needn’t be the solution. You would think that the Church could at least create a “minor order” for the role of distributing Holy Communion. By taking this minor order, these folks would be in some sense “ordinary” ministers of the Sacrament in the absence of a priest. They would also be “clergy” in some sense, analogous to the status of permanent deacons (who’d also do for distributing the Sacrament). In order (hah!) to keep this ministry somehow united to the priesthood, it could be restricted to men (as the original minor orders were) and made mandatory as a step toward the diaconate (ditto above). Also, there could be a restriction on the age of the applicants and the numbers permitted per parish. This would prevent, among other abuses, every 18-year-old applicant at college chaplaincies from being made an extraordinary minister upon request.

Additionally, it stands to reason that a similar rule for “extraordinary” ministers should apply as does for altar servers. If you can’t have a priest perform the job, you should have someone who could become a priest, i.e. a man.

Many bring it to perhaps one person who cannot make it to the Church. Many bring it to nursing homes where a number of patients need to be visited.

And many, like me, have a volunteer ministry at a large hospital where twice a week I spend six-seven hours each day visiting patients in their room, praying with them and giving them Holy Communion if they desire it and I deem that they can physically consume the host.

There are other Catholic volunteers who also are Extraordinary Ministers there, most of them with lesser time commitments than I have made. We can bring Communion to the patients seven days a week.

There is a full time Catholic priest chaplain at the hospital and he also visits patients, some of whom are in hospice care, some in intensive care, many in long term care, some in psychiatric care and other conditions seen in large hospitals. He is available for Anointing of the Sick and Confessions upon request. He says Mass that is open to the public and televised to the rooms for patients to view at noon. And he has administrative duties over other chaplains and volunteers of other faiths. A volunteer retired priest says an early morning Mass that is televised also.

And of course he needs to find a replacement for himself when he is unable to be present for Mass or the Sacraments.

You do have me thinking about my unconsecrated hands and how I handle the Body and Blood of Our Lord.