“Frankly, I think they are dead wrong. I don’t think that Communion in the hand is safer than Communion on the tongue. Here’s why.

Let’s leave aside that Communion in the hand increases by orders of magnitude risk of profanation of the Eucharist. Leave that aside. Think only about the infectious disease angle.

In my experience of nearly three decades of distributing Communion in both ways, on the hand and on the tongue, to whole congregations on the hand nearly exclusively with a few exceptions, and also to whole congregations on the tongue nearly exclusively with no exceptions during the Novus Ordo and no exceptions at the TLM, is that rarely – rarely – do my fingers come into contact with tongues but very often, nearly always, there is contact with my fingers and hands.

Let me repeat: When distributing Communion directly on the tongue, I rarely, rarely, have any contact with the tongue. When distributing on the hand, there is often, quite often, contact with the communicant’s fingers or palms.

I’ll add this. If people hold their hands properly to receive on the hand, that helps a lot in avoiding contact. If people don’t receive on the tongue properly that increases the risk of contact.

When both ways are done properly, whereas there is still often contact by Communion on the hand, there is virtually never contact with the tongue.

Therefore, I don’t buy for a moment that pushing for Communion on the hand reduces the risk of spread of disease. I think that proper Communion on the tongue is safer.”