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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