ministers of Holy Communion, November 20, in which she used the word "democratisation" and said that it "must dimish respect where children are concerned ... if more or less anyone can give Holy Communion it must make it more ordinary."
The fault is in bad catechesis, not in the ministry. If catechesis produces the impression of a quasi-magical transformation of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ without any attempt to relate the real presence to the gospel, then the "spell" may well be broken if someone not given the "magical" powers is involved in the distribution.
The divorce of Eucharistic doctrine from the total message of the gospel is highly dangerous. It can place a real barrier between the people and Christ's sacramental presence.
The truth of the Eurcharist has been the subject of books and meditations, but one is constantly drawn back to the facts that the Father loves us unconditionally, forgives us freely and that Jesus is the Incarnation of that fact, and that the Eucharist is the sign which Jesus left us (to which we crowd to the altar rails each Sunday) confirming that mystery.
That presence of Jesus is as real, if not to the same degree of excellence, in the Christian community of which all the baptised are members.
Therefore there is no diminishment of the Eurcharist if it is distributed by "more or less anyone" who has been annointed with chrism which — as St Ambrose pointed out — is the oil with which kings are annointed. Richard Green New Barnet Harts