Two Argentine bishops corrected
According to reports released by Argentine Catholic media, the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments held talks with the Archbishop of Mendoza and president of the Argentine Episcopal Conference, Marcelo Colombo, and with the Bishop of St. Louis, Gabriel Barba.
The Vatican would have reiterated that “the faithful have the freedom to commune according to the methods established by the Church, and this freedom cannot be restricted.”
The controversy began after Colombo publicly stated in 2025 that “in Argentina, communion is received standing,” appealing to the norms approved by the bishops’ conference.
In Mendoza there was also a particularly controversial episode in the Basilica of San Francisco, where a friar would have rebuked several faithful who were trying to kneel to commune. According to the information released, even a person would have been denied communion until he agreed to receive him standing and in the hand.
Favoring communion only in the hand
In the diocese of St. Louis, Bishop Barba also promoted guidelines to promote communion in hand, especially among the extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist.
The measure drew even more attention because that diocese had historically stood out for a strong traditional Eucharistic culture under the episcopate of Juan Rodolfo Laise, a well-known advocate of communion in the language.
Redemptionis Sacramentum made it clear
The Holy See had already made this question clear in the Redemptionis Sacramentum instruction, published in 2004 by the Congregation for Divine Worship.
The document expressly states that “every faithful always have the right to receive Holy Communion in the tongue” and adds that “it is not lawful to deny Holy Communion to any faithful solely because of the fact that they wish to receive the Eucharist on their knees or standing.”
For many Catholics, receiving the communion on their knees and mouths is a gesture of worship and reverence for the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
The Argentine case has thus reopened a debate that is still alive in the Church: how far Episcopal conferences and dioceses can go in the application of local norms when they conflict with liturgical rights universally recognized by Rome.