During these apostate times, priests have made a habit of inviting lay people to come up to the altar and serve as ‘lay Eucharistic ministers’ at Mass.
However, in the Catholic religion there is no such thing as a ‘lay extraordinary minister’ or ‘lay Eucharistic minister.’ This is a farce. This practice has no precedent in the 2000-year history of the Church and today’s bishops are doing wrong by allowing this farcical aberration to become commonplace throughout the Church.
What this promotes is widespread sacrilege against the Eucharist since only the hands of a duly ordained Catholic priest may touch the Body of Christ in Holy Communion. Lay people are not authorized to touch the Eucharist with their hands, let alone administer it at Mass.
The Council of Trent makes it clear:
“To priests alone has been given power to consecrate and administer to the faithful, the Holy Eucharist.”
In his Redemptionis Sacramentum, Pope John II says that lay extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist may not be appointed and if they are appointed, they are not to be used.
“If there is usually present a sufficient number of sacred ministers for the distribution of Holy Communion, extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion may not be appointed. Indeed, in such circumstances, those who may have already been appointed to this ministry should not exercise it. The practice of those Priests is reprobated who, even though present at the celebration, abstain from distributing Communion and hand this function over to laypersons.” (Chapter 7, article 157)
The pope furthermore states that the Sacred Host is not something that lay persons may touch. “To touch the sacred species and to distribute them with their own hands is a privilege of the ordained.” (Dominicae Cenae, Feb. 1980)
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