Priests Alter Mass Rituals for H1N1 Season

Dec. 9, 2009— -- In his latest television appearance, the Very Rev. David O'Connell, the president of the Catholic University of America, shared a painful story of when the H1N1 flu hit close to home.

Appearing on CNN on Nov. 21, O'Connell said his brother, who teaches at the Nazareth Academy High School in Philadelphia, was diagnosed with H1N1 and pneumonia in both lungs. He entered the hospital and shortly after went into respiratory arrest. He was put into a medically induced coma. He's so weak that he has to relearn to walk.

"It's been a nightmare," said O'Connell.

To help prevent similar pain among other Catholics, O'Connell said many dioceses have started avoiding the use of a communal cup and handshakes during Sunday services. In some areas, bishops have gone as far as to ban those practices until the threat of H1N1 infection lessens.

In Raleigh, N.C., for example, Bishop Michael Burbidge sent out a letter on Sept. 11, asking all churches in the diocese "out of abundance of caution" to avoid the sign of peace (handshakes or hugs) during mass and stop taking communion from the cup. The changes went into effect in the first week of October and have no expiration date.

At St. Michael the Archangel Catholic Church in Cary, N.C., when the Rev. Michael Spurr prepares for holy communion, he readies 10 golden dishes filled with wafers representing the body of Christ -- and a chalice of wine representing the blood. He takes a wafer off the plate and a drink from the chalice, then passes the golden plates to church volunteers who distribute the sacrament to the congregation. The chalice, however, remains on the altar.

The practice is unusual for St. Michael's, where both sacraments, the wafer and the wine, are usually offered to everyone.

Burbidge's call to churches went out after he -- like many other U.S. bishops -- checked with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, which offers suggestions on its Web site to dioceses about handling the H1N1 outbreak.

"Some recommendations are really a response to the concerns of the faithful," said the Rev. Rick Hilgartner, the associate director of the U.S. Bishops' Secretariat of Divine Worship. "Both [the sign of peace and the use of the communal cup] are optional elements of mass to begin with, so we aren't doing anything outside the normal realm of the application of the rules that are already in place."