Phoenix diocese's limit on wine a major change in Mass

Michael Clancy
Arizona Republic
Sept. 23, 2011

The Phoenix Diocese will stop offering consecrated wine for Communion at most Masses, a change considered one of the most fundamental to Roman Catholic Church customs in decades.

A diocesan statement said the change was being made based on Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted's understanding of the church's new translation of the Mass, called the General Instruction of the Roman Missal, and other church documents.

However, no other diocese in the country is known to be following suit, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops told The Arizona Republic.


An effective date has not been announced.

The change will be one of the most significant in the Roman Catholic liturgy since the 1970s, when the distribution of wine was approved for the United States.

For many Catholics in the '70s, that change to Communion - the central act of worship in the Catholic Mass - represented a greater role for laypeople, who for the first time in centuries were able to take both forms of Communion, bread and wine, and help distribute it. Before, the use of wine was reserved only for clergy.

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The change in practice by the Phoenix Diocese stirred an immediate controversy among priests, deacons and laypeople. Wine will be limited to only special occasions.

"The majority of priests were stunned and aghast at the announcement, and I hear some are planning to meet to see how best to respond," said the Rev. James Turner, pastor of St. Thomas More in Glendale. "While the bishop has the authority to make this policy change, there is no scriptural, theological or sacramental rationale that makes any sense."

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Sister Mary Ann Walsh, spokeswoman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, is not aware of another U.S. diocese enacting such a restriction, although she noted that local bishops have the authority to do so.

The Rev. Al Schifano, a top church official in the Diocese of Tucson, said that Bishop Gerald Kicanas encourages Communion using both bread and wine and that the diocese will not change that under the new Mass translations.

The Rev. Anthony Ruff, a professor at St. John's University in Collegeville, Minn., called the move a step backward.

"It's sad to see," he said, because the move separates the church further ecumenically from others and gives up "the gains we've made in the last half-century in our understanding of liturgy and sacraments."

Catholic members of the community were as divided as the priests.

"I would think these church leaders would be more concerned about the droves of people leaving the Catholic Church as well as the worsening shortage of priests," said Dennis Kavanaugh, an attorney who attends Resurrection parish in Tempe. "These issues are much more substantial to the long-term health of the church rather than reinstating medieval rituals and directives."

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Olmsted declined a request for an interview. The diocese issued a statement and a question-and-answer sheet to explain the move.

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