Please Don’t Shake My Hand?
In an interesting development the Catholic Archdiocese of Winnipeg, Manitoba here in Canada has banned handshaking to reduce the risk of contracting the H1N1 influenza virus, also known as swine flu.
The story was covered on Sunday in a CBC.ca story titled Winnipeg Churches Ban Handshakes over H1N1.
In addition to the ban on handshaking, the churches are removing public holy water fonts at the entrances of the churches, and worship spaces will be disinfected after each service. Brilliant! I think this is well done. Good church marketing – remember marketing is good public relations and this is all sensible, good public policy.
Unfortunately, all the “good” of this gets derailed for me. This ban and associated changes seem outright ridiculous in the shadow of the churches continuing the practice of a shared chalice for the wine during communion:
“during communion, chalices “will be aggressively wiped after each communicant.”"
Aggressively wiped? You’ll disinfect the pews after the service but you’ll aggressively wipe the chalice?
Please understand that I am not specifically picking on the Catholic church here (I grew up Catholic and still respect the denomination).
It is not until “Stage 2″ of their plan that the church leaders will address the chalice issue:
“The archdiocese said Stage 2 of its pandemic plan — when the virus begins to kill people in high-risk populations — will mean the suspension of communion from the chalice and communion wafers being placed on the tongue.”
What? It is not till people begin to die that you’ll stop this practice? How hard would it be to start distributing the wine in paper or plastic cups? You know, those little ones. Wouldn’t that be better for everyone regardless of the H1N1 situation?
I guess I am looking at this whole thing from a logical perspective. If you are going to publicly announce a plan to encourage health in your congregations would the chalice not be the first place to start? Marketing and PR turn bad quickly when your organizational policies make little logical sense.
Maybe I am off base here – so if you have an opinion on this, please share it in the comments section below – I’d really like to know what you think.
Image via Flickr: Randy OHC
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