Fr. Mankowski on Covid consecrations: The sort of thing I would post on Facebook...

This new blog is an experiment.

I made it so I can post little things I would want to share on Facebook (or even Twitter), if I were convinced it is the best way anymore.* I have not been sure how to start...

How about an email exchange, not too long ago, between some of us and Fr. Paul Mankowski SJ, RIP**  

I was pondering the slippage into even more irreverence and even sacrilege since Covid restrictions have been in place than what we were already used to.

Chappie A (let's call him Phil), in this email exchange, remarks: 

Here’s a striking line from the (astonishingly pettifogging) guidelines for reopening churches in the Boston archdiocese:

"During the consecration, hosts to be distributed should be placed on a second corporal to the side, so that they are not directly in front of the priest."

So will these hosts be consecrated or not?

Chappie B, Fr. Mankowski, replies:

OK, well let's suppose the paten on the main corporal is 14 inches directly in front of the celebrant, and the ciborium on the adjacent corporal is the same distance from the edge of the altar but at an angle of 42 degrees from the celebrant. 

The relevant trig function is sin θ = a/h, i.e. 1.4945 = h/14, whence h = 20.923. 

Assuming that consecratory power is inversely proportional to the distance between priest and consecranda, this means that the hosts in the ciborium are 66.9% the Body of Christ, and that ought to be enough for any docile Catholic.

And that about sums it up...  

*(I do have my main blog, Like Mother, Like Daughter, but there I like to post at least one picture, and I talk about a different sort of thing.)

**(Go here for my husband's remembrance of Fr. M. And here for mine.)