Who May Conduct a Communion Service?

by Admin · October 8, 2024

(CNS photo)

Question: Is an Extraordinary Eucharistic minister of Holy Communion allowed to conduct a Communion service and distribute Holy Communion without a priest or deacon being present?

Answer: The norm is that bishops, priests and deacons distribute Holy Communion by virtue of their office as ordinary ministers of the Body and Blood of the Lord. However, in the absence of a priest or deacon, laypersons may be appointed to lead the prayers and distribute Communion, using hosts that were already consecrated at a previous Mass by a priest — but this is permissible only in cases when no priest is available to celebrate Mass.

A Communion service, or “Sunday service in the absence of a priest”, is correctly understood as the Liturgy of the Word followed by the distribution of Holy Communion.

It is not a Mass but a sharing in the previous Mass, much like when the sick receive Communion in a hospital ward.

No homilies may be preached by a layperson without the express permission of the local bishop. The lay person who takes a leading role in the Communion service must take care to ensure that confusion about the nature of the service is avoided.

A 2004 document issued by the Congregation for Divine Worship, Redemptionis Sacramentum, counsels that in cases when both a priest and a deacon are absent to distribute Communion, it is preferable that it “be distributed among several faithful rather than having a single lay member of the faithful direct the whole celebration alone. Nor is it ever appropriate to refer to any member of the lay faithful as ‘presiding’ over the celebration.”

Many remote parishes, especially in Africa, South America and Asia, receive a priest only every few weeks or even months. The faithful in these areas have long become used to Communion services as being a norm in their sacramental lives.

However, with diminishing numbers of vocations in Europe, many priests now have to serve more than one parish. Frequent Communion services are thus becoming a routine for local Catholics even in regions where once there was a surplus of clergy.

Asked and answered in the August 2024 issue of the Southern Cross magazine