Glass Chalice

Document Title: "Glass Chalice
Question from on 02-13-2007:
Our parish uses clear wine stem classes as communion cups. In fact, my brother has the exact set the church has in his china cabinet. Now our parish is using these same glasses as chalices for Mass. They are just average old wine glasses. Is this appropriate?
Answer by Colin B. Donovan, STL on 04-27-2007:
Its not only NOT appropriate it is a condemned practice because of the risk of profanation of the Holy Eucharist. Glass breaks and glass stemware falls over. Anyone who would allow this or cooperate with it would be morally responsible for any profanation of the Sacrament that results. Willful profanation, and one could make a case that foreseeable profanation is willful, might be guilty of an excommunicable offense reserved to the Pope. Here is what the 2002 General Instruction says,

328. Sacred vessels are to be made from precious metal. If they are made from metal that rusts or from a metal less precious than gold, then ordinarily they should be gilded on the inside.

329. In the Dioceses of the United States of America, sacred vessels may also be made from other solid materials that, according to the common estimation in each region, are precious, for exa"