Tuesday, April 26, 2005

The Cleansing of Vessels by Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion

The time limit of this permission has expired....
Now what?
Prot. 1382/01/L

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
In response to the request of His Excellency, the Most Reverend Joseph Fiorenza, Bishop of Galveston-Houston, President of the Conference of Bishops of the United States of America, made in a letter dated June 21, 2001, and in virtue of the faculties granted to the this Congregation by the Supreme Pontiff, JOHN PAUL II, we grant that in the dioceses of this same Conference, for grave pastoral reasons, the faculty may be given by the diocesan Bishop to the priest celebrant to use the assistance, when necessary, even of extraordinary ministers in the cleansing of sacred vessels after the distribution of Communion has been completed in the celebration of Mass. This faculty is conceded for a period of three years as a dispensation from the norm of the Institutio Generalis, edito typica tertia of the Roman Missal.

All things to the contrary notwithstanding.

From the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, March 22, 2002.
+ Jorge A. Cardinal Medina Estevez
Prefect

+Francisco Pio Tamburrino
Archbishop-Secretary
Doesn't this mean that now only priests and deacons may cleanse the sacred vessels? The permission was given to diocesan bishops to permit the practice for grave pastoral reasons.

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