Tabernacle Key









Tabernacle Key


Question from on 06-06-2007:


Our new pastor keeps the tabernacle key on a hook under the altar, so
that people who may miss Mass can more or less help themselves to
communion. Our last pastor told us that lay people should never self
communicate and I remember the pastor before that saying that the
tabernacle key had to remain in the custody of the pastor or another
priest. Any canons on any of this?


Answer by Rev. Mark J. Gantley, JCL on 06-08-2007:

Canon 938, §5 states: "The person responsible for the church or oratory is to take care that
the key of the tabernacle in which the Most Holy Eucharist is reserved is safeguarded most
diligently." What you describe hardly fits that requirement.

The General Instruction of the Roman Missal #160 prohibits self-communication: "The
faithful are not permitted to take the consecrated Bread or the sacred Chalice by themselves."

Furthermore, Holy Communion is normally received during Mass. By means of exception,
Holy Communion may be received at a Sunday Celebration in the Absence of a Priest or
another approved rite (e.g., Holy Communion to the Sick in a hospital). Holy Communion is
never to be given without some rite being observed (Rite of Holy Communion Outside Mass).





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