Introduction to Part II
This second essay continues the reflection begun in Part I on the Eucharist as sacrament: the conviction, rooted in Scripture, the Fathers, St. Thomas, and the Council of Trent, that Christ’s real and substantial presence comes to us through sign, and that the fullness of the sign matters. Here that theological question meets a concrete pastoral one. In 2026, a small number of American dioceses, among them the Diocese of Orange in January and the Diocese of Fort Worth in October, issued norms restricting the distribution of the Precious Blood to the faithful, limiting Communion under both kinds to particular occasions and, in both cases, withholding it at ordinary Sunday Masses.
I write as a priest of the Diocese of Orange, and I want to be careful and clear about the nature of what follows. The diocesan bishop is the chief liturgist and shepherd of the local Church, and the regulation of public worship, including Communion under both kinds, falls squarely within his canonical competence. The bishops who issued these norms acted within that authority, after consultation, and out of evident concern for reverence toward the Most Holy Eucharist. Their norms bind, and they are to be faithfully observed. Nothing in this essay is intended to question their authority, their good faith, or their devotion.
What follows is neither protest nor polemic. It is a theological reflection on a prudential judgment, the kind of reflection the Church’s own law recognizes as a legitimate service when offered with reverence toward her pastors. My purpose is to ask what the Church’s tradition, from Thomas to the General Instruction of the Roman Missal, teaches about the relationship between the doctrine of concomitance and the fullness of the sacramental sign, and to set the recent norms in that light. Concomitance is the teaching that, because the risen Christ can no longer be divided, he is present whole and entire, Body, Blood, soul, and divinity, under each of the Eucharistic species. Whoever receives the consecrated host alone, or the cup alone, receives the whole Christ.
In Part I, I argued, with Rita Ferrone, that the Church has never had to choose between symbol and reality, and that our real crisis is not a failure of doctrine but a failure of stewardship. Ferrone observed in passing that some American bishops have recently curtailed Communion under both kinds precisely in order to teach the doctrine of concomitance. This year that observation has become concrete. On January 9, 2026, Bishop Kevin Vann promulgated new norms for the Diocese of Orange, effective January 11, the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord. On October 1, 2026, Bishop Michael Olson issued a pastoral letter for the Diocese of Fort Worth restricting the chalice still further.
Because one of these is my own diocese, I want to be clear at the outset about what this essay is and what it is not.
The canonical frame
The Council calls the diocesan bishop the high priest of his flock (Sacrosanctum Concilium 41). The Code names bishops the moderators, promoters, and custodians of the liturgical life of their churches (can. 835 §1) and empowers them, within the limits of their competence, to issue liturgical norms binding on all (can. 838 §4). On this precise question, the General Instruction of the Roman Missal gives the diocesan bishop explicit authority to establish norms for Communion under both kinds (GIRM 283). The Code likewise recognizes the right, and at times the duty, of the faithful to make known their views on matters pertaining to the good of the Church, with reverence toward their pastors (can. 212 §3). It is from that perspective that the following reflection is offered.
What the norms say
The Orange norms permit the Precious Blood at weekday Masses, Monday through Saturday morning, at the discretion of the pastor and subject to practical conditions. They also permit it on eight named solemnities and in particular circumstances: for those with severe gluten intolerance, the newly baptized and newly received, first communicants, the bride and groom at a wedding Mass, deacons, those making profession or consecration, and religious communities at their conventual Mass. The norms then state that the Precious Blood may not be offered at Sunday Masses, on Holy Days of Obligation, or at any Mass with a large congregation. The stated reasons are that concomitance is poorly understood among the faithful, together with the practical cautions of Redemptionis Sacramentum 102 and the concern not to multiply extraordinary ministers.
Fort Worth goes further. Communion under both kinds is limited to a short list of occasions: ordinations, the Chrism Mass, Holy Thursday, the Easter Vigil, adult confirmations and first Communions, the Catholic bride and groom at their wedding, religious professions, Corpus Christi, convents and retreat centers, a new priest’s first Mass, and other celebrations only with the bishop’s explicit approval. There is no provision for ordinary Sundays or weekdays. The letter rests its case on concomitance, insisting that nothing is lacking when Communion is received under one species, and describes reception under both kinds as a fuller sign permitted in certain circumstances rather than the ordinary manner of reception.
Concomitance is a floor, not a ceiling
No one disputes the doctrine. Christ is received whole and entire under either species, and those who receive under one species are deprived of no grace necessary for salvation. The Council of Trent taught this in Session XXI, defending the validity of a long-standing Latin practice against those who denied it. Trent never taught that Communion under one species is preferable, nor that the fuller sign is a luxury to be rationed.
Concomitance answers the question, “Is anything essential lost?” It does not answer the question, “Is anything significant lost?” A whispered “I love you” is wholly valid. No one concludes from this that we should prefer whispers.
Here St. Thomas, whom the Orange norms rightly cite, is instructive. The norms quote his reply that nothing is lost when the people receive the body without the blood, since the priest offers and receives the blood in the name of all (ST III, q. 80, a. 12, ad 3). But in the body of that same article, Thomas first states the principle: from the side of the sacrament itself, it is fitting that both be received, “quia in utroque consistit perfectio sacramenti,” because the perfection of the sacrament consists in both. His reason for permitting the people to receive under one kind is entirely practical: the danger of spilling the Precious Blood amid a growing multitude of the faithful, young and old. Thomas treats restriction as a prudential concession, not a theological ideal. The ideal is both species.
The Church’s present law says the same in modern language. Holy Communion, the General Instruction teaches, has a fuller form as a sign when it is distributed under both kinds, for in this form the sign of the Eucharistic banquet is more clearly evident (GIRM 281). The scholastic axiom holds that sacraments cause by signifying. The sign is not decoration around the grace; it is the very way the grace reaches us. That was the whole burden of Part I.
Teaching the sign by diminishing it
The Orange norms report that pastoral experience reveals a poor grasp of concomitance, citing the question parishioners ask: “When will the wine come back?” I take the concern seriously; the word “wine” signals that catechesis is needed. But I would read the question more generously. It may also reveal a sound sacramental instinct in our people, a sense that something of the banquet’s fullness has gone missing from the Lord’s table. It has.
The remedy for poor catechesis is better catechesis, not a poorer sign. To withhold the cup in order to teach that the cup is not strictly necessary is to teach the doctrine of concomitance at the expense of the doctrine of sign. Ferrone calls this self-defeating, and I agree. Our people do not learn the meaning of a symbol by being deprived of it.
The Lord’s Day
Unlike Fort Worth, Orange norms permit the cup at weekday Masses, where the faithful are fewest, and withhold it on Sunday, when the parish gathers in its fullness. Sunday is the primordial feast day, the weekly Easter, the foundation and kernel of the whole liturgical year (SC 106). It is the day the most committed Catholics assemble in obedience to the precept of the Church. Under these norms, those faithful receive the lesser sign.
The norms’ own list of exceptions also shows that the principle at work is not theological. Easter Sunday is permitted, though it is a Sunday. Several of the permitted solemnities, including Mary, Mother of God, the Assumption, All Saints, the Immaculate Conception, and Christmas, are ordinarily holy days of obligation, though holy days are otherwise excluded. If the fuller sign is fitting on Easter Day, it is hard to see why it is unfitting on the Second Sunday of Easter. The operative principle is the size of the congregation, which is a practical matter, and practical matters admit of practical solutions.
The practical concerns deserve practical answers
The cautions of Redemptionis Sacramentum 102 are real and legitimate, and every pastor should weigh them. But the documents frame them as considerations that apply in particular circumstances, not as grounds for a blanket rule. The U.S. bishops’ Norms speak of the need to avoid obscuring the role of priest and deacon as ordinary ministers as something that might, in some circumstances, justify limiting the cup. The Orange norms themselves give pastors a thoughtful checklist for discerning whether their parish can distribute reverently: the configuration of the church, the size of the congregation, trained ministers, the likely response of the faithful, and the avoidance of spillage. That is precisely the right approach. Yet the norms then foreclose its application on the one day it matters most.
The concern about extraordinary ministers is also separable from the question of the cup. If ministers are too many, the remedy is to involve deacons and concelebrants more fully and to form ministers well, not to diminish the sign for the whole assembly. However, practically speaking, most parishes have a limited number of ordinary ministers, hence, the diocesan provision for extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion.
Finally, there is the witness of experience. For decades, since Bishop Brown extended the cup to every Mass under normal conditions and this continued until the Covid pandemic understandably withheld it, the Diocese of Orange offered the cup at Sunday Mass. Our ministers were trained, our parishes developed protocols, and our people were formed. All of the suffragan Dioceses in the Province of Los Angeles continue to do so. I am not aware of documented evidence that the practice failed here.
Becoming capable of symbol
At every Mass, the priest repeats the Lord’s words over the chalice: “Take this, all of you, and drink from it.” Concomitance assures us that the faithful who do not drink are not defrauded of grace. However, it does not make the Lord’s invitation any less an invitation.
Guardini and Francis asked how we might become capable of symbol again. We will not get there by teaching our people that the sign is dispensable. We will get there by letting the sign speak in all its fullness, on the day the whole Church gathers, at the table where the Lord still says, all of you.
With thanks to Liturgy and Truth and Monsignor Arthur Holquin, S.T.L., where this article originally appeared.
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