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Jimmy Akin corrects popular Franciscan YouTuber Fr. Casey Cole’s claim that it’s “not appropriate” to pray privately after Communion and that EVERYONE must sing the Communion hymn. Jimmy goes through the argument line-by-line and exposes the claim as a classic “pious little legalism.” Jimmy quotes parts of the General Instruction that Fr. Casey never mentioned and reveals what Rome actually says about post-Communion prayer. A powerful, fact-packed defense of your right to thank Jesus after receiving him in holy Communion!
TRANSCRIPT:
Coming Up
- COLE: Welcome to part two of my series, things that Catholic Church teaches that Most Catholics don’t know.
Alright, let’s see it.
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Howdy, folks!
We’re in our second year of the podcast now, and you can help me keep making this podcast for years to come—and get early access to new episodes—by going to Patreon.com/JimmyAkinPodcast
Introducing Fr. Casey Cole
Today, we’re going to be talking about a young Franciscan friar named Fr. Casey Cole. He’s about 36-years old and very active on social media.
He has a YouTube channel called Breaking the Habit—an obvious pun on the fact that he wears a Franciscan habit, though why he would choose a channel name suggestive of breaking something connected with the religious life has always been a mystery to me.
Not a good sign.
36 is quite young for a priest, since you can’t even be ordained until you are twenty-five.
And Fr. Cole himself wasn’t ordained until 2019, so he’s only been a priest for 6 years.
That means he doesn’t have a huge amount of experience on the job, and it’s always a good idea to be careful in what you claim when you’re starting out in a field.
Let’s see how well Fr. Casey does.
Fr. Cole on Music
Today, I’m going to be interacting with a video he made, so let’s go back and see how he began it.
- COLE: Welcome to part two of my series, things that Catholic Church teaches that Most Catholics don’t know.
Okay, so the subject is supposed to be things that the Catholic Church teaches. In other words, matters of doctrine.
- COLE: Let’s talk about music.
Okay, well, if we’re going to be talking about music, this may be a pretty short conversation, because the Catholic Church doesn’t teach that much about music.
It teaches that music can be used to glorify God, but beyond that it doesn’t have a lot of teachings about music.
It has more disciplines about music—laws and regulations about how it is to be used—but very few teachings.
Surely someone like Fr. Cole would know the difference between a doctrine and a discipline, right?
- COLE: According to the general instruction of the Roman missal, singing is of great importance in the mass. Leaders should give, do consideration for the culture of people and the abilities of each liturgical assembly.
Okay, the General Instruction of the Roman Missal is not a teaching document. It’s a legal or regulatory document that governs what is supposed to happen at Mass.
You’ll also see this document referred to as the GIRM—based on the initials of its title: General Instruction of the Roman Missal, G-I-R-M or = GIRM.
Here in America, the GIRM also contains adaptations that the U.S. bishops have approved for how Mass is to be celebrated in this country.
The Roman Missal itself is the book of prayers that the priest uses at Mass.
And its General Instruction is a document at the front of the book that contains instructions for what the priest and others involved in the Mass are supposed to do.
As the name suggests, it contains instructions for how you are supposed to celebrate Mass.
It’s thus a document that deals primarily with disciplines—how Mass is to be celebrated—not doctrines or things that the Church teaches.
It refers to some doctrines, but they are not principally what it is about.
It is thus a mistake to just quote from the GIRM and portray it as something the Church teaches.
We’re only a few seconds into Fr. Cole’s video, and he’s already setting us up for a problem.
He’s misframing the issue by portraying what he’s about to say as a matter of Church teaching.
That means his audience—who presumably know less about these matters than he does—will think that if they have a disagreement with what he says that they’re disagreeing with Catholic doctrine.
That’s both false and pastorally irresponsible.
Even if he’s right about what he says, it is inappropriate for a priest to portray a Church regulation as a matter of Christian doctrine.
So we’re already off to a bad start.
Fr. Cole’s Complaint
Now let’s get to Fr. Cole’s complaint—the thing that he’s got up his nose and wants to get out.
- COLE: The communion hymn is not supposed to be a solo or time for personal reflection, but rather is meant to express the communicants union in spirit by means of the unity of their voices to show joy of heart and to highlight more clearly the communitarian nature of the procession to receive communion. For this reason, the song begins as soon as the priest receives communion and continues for as long as the sacrament is being administered to the faithful. It also means that after receiving communion, the most appropriate action for the congregation is to participate in the song, not to take time In private prayer is time for communion, not individual devotion.
Okay, so that’s what Fr. Cole’s complaint is: People are coming back from Communion and praying rather than going back to their seat and singing.
As he said:
- COLE: After receiving communion, the most appropriate action for the congregation is to participate in the song, not to take time in private prayer.
Now, as you might imagine, Fr. Cole got some pushback for this.
In a followup video, he interacts with a comment that said, “Don’t agree. After receiving the Host, meditate,” and he says:
- COLE: So I’m seeing a lot of comments like this on my last video. Comments that are pretty troubling and pretty wrong and I think need to be addressed. What I said in the video is that after receiving communion at mass, it is actually not appropriate to go back to your pew and to have a private devotion. That is not the time for meditation or your own personal prayers.
Here Fr. Cole blends together some different concepts.
The term Private Devotion is often used to refer to specific devotions like saying the rosary.
The term Meditation is used to refer to a form of prayer in which one reflects on God or things he has done or revealed.
And Personal Prayer is a more general term that can include any form of prayer you personally choose to engage in.
Fr. Cole blends these together, and note that he has strengthened his complaint.
Originally, he just said that it was “the most appropriate action” for the congregation to participate in the song.
- COLE: The most appropriate action for the congregation is to participate in the song.
That leaves open the possibility that it would be less appropriate, but still appropriate, to pray privately.
But now he says that it’s flat out not appropriate to engage in personal prayer
- COLE: After receiving communion at mass, it is actually not appropriate.
So he’s very firm in his opinion. He’s not backing down.
And he characterizes the opinions of others on this point as “troubling” and “wrong.”
- COLE: Pretty troubling, and pretty wrong.
So, just how wrong are those who disagree with Fr. Cole?
Let’s get into it!
From the Congregation’s Perspective
Let’s start with why people gave Fr. Cole pushback in the first place.
It’s widely held among pious Catholics that it’s a good idea to take at least some time after Communion to pray and thank God.
Ordinary church members won’t know what documents to cite to back this up, but they’re right.
The Church does encourage people to take time after Communion for personal prayer and thanksgiving.
A document from 1980 titled Inestimabile Donum states:
Inestimabile Donum 17
The faithful are to be recommended not to omit to make a proper thanksgiving after Communion.
This is something that the faithful do on their own initiative, separate from what the liturgy itself requires. It is a voluntary act of thanksgiving, and the document goes on to explain when they may do it:
Inestimabile Donum 17
They may do this during the celebration with a period of silence, with a hymn, psalm or other song of praise, or also after the celebration, if possible by staying behind to pray for a suitable time.
So it’s up to the faithful to choose when they perform this recommended act—either during the celebration or after it.
For our purposes, the question then becomes, how soon after receiving Communion can you make an act of thanksgiving, and for many ordinary Catholics, an obvious time is as soon as you get back to your seat.
At that moment, you don’t have any pressing duties to distract you, you’ve just received your Lord in holy Communion, and so this is an appropriate time to thank him.
But according to Fr. Cole, that’s not the case. You do have pressing duties to distract you from saying thank you.
- COLE: After receiving communion, the most appropriate action for the congregation is to participate in the song.
So according to Fr. Cole, you’re supposed to get back to your seat and then presumably pick up the hymnal, look up the correct hymn, and then start singing again.
Or maybe you’re not supposed to do that.
Maybe—before leaving your seat to receive Communion—you’re supposed to leave your hymnal face up in the pew so that you don’t have to open it and find the hymn again when you get back.
Or maybe you’re not supposed to do that, either.
Maybe you’re supposed to take your hymnal with you as you go up to receive Communion.
After all, Fr. Cole quoted the GIRM as saying:
- COLE: The Communion Hymn is not supposed to be a solo or time for personal reflection, but rather is meant to express the communicants union in spirit by means of the unity of their voices to show joy of heart and to highlight more clearly the communitarian nature of the procession to receive Communion.
Okay, so if the Communion hymn is meant to express the communicants union of spirit by means of the unity of their voices due to the communitarian nature of the procession to receive Communion and if that means that every single communicant needs to be singing the Communion hymn, and if you don’t have the Communion hymn memorized —whatever it happens to be—then you better take your hymnal with you so that you can sing during the line to receive Communion.
And good luck managing the hymnal if you choose to receive Communion in the hand, as you are allowed to do.
At least if you’re receiving on the tongue, you can snap the hymnal closed and stick your finger in it to keep your place.
But good luck if you choose to receive in the hand—a procedure which the General Instruction envisions as taking both hands. GIRM 41 says:
General Instruction of the Roman Missal 41
Holy Communion under the form of bread is offered to the communicant with the words “The Body of Christ.” The communicant may choose whether to receive the Body of Christ in the hand or on the tongue. When receiving in the hand, the communicant should be guided by the words of St. Cyril of Jerusalem: “When you approach, take care not to do so with your hand stretched out and your fingers open or apart, but rather place your left hand as a throne beneath your right, as befits one who is about to receive the King. Then receive him, taking care that nothing is lost.”
So good luck managing the hymnal if you’re receiving in the hand on Fr. Cole’s model, where every single communicant is supposed to be singing the Communion hymn.
I mean, if you’re obligated to start singing again after you’ve received Communion, you’d certainly be obligated to sing the Communion hymn before you’ve received Communion so that the unity of your voice with the others’ can highlight more clearly the communitarian nature of the procession to receive Communion.
Of course, nobody does anything like this at Mass.
People don’t receive Communion with the hymn book in their hands or under their arms.
They don’t bring the hymn book with them as they process in line to receive Communion.
They may or may not sing as they go up to receive Communion—and my impression is that most of them do not sing.
They’re too focused on walking in line and not bumping into the person in front of them.
What all this reveals is that Fr. Cole has failed to think through the process of receiving Communion from the point of view of the ordinary faithful—both in terms of their natural desire to thank their Lord as soon as possible and in terms of the mechanics of what his interpretation of the text would require people to do.
“A Pious Little Legalism”
What Fr. Cole is advocating is what I call a pious little legalism.
This is a term I coined years ago to refer to situations where one person—or a group of people—propose a rule and insist that others follow it if they are among the truly pious.
Specifically, Fr. Cole has made up a rule that is nowhere stated in the text to the effect that every single person needs to be singing the Communion hymn if it is physically possible for them to do so.
Obviously, they can’t do so when Communion is in their mouths, but otherwise they need to be singing. As he says in his second video:
- COLE: It is important that everyone sing. It is not just a concert for the choir. It’s not just an opportunity to hear beautiful music, but rather by raising our voices, they become one further symbolizing what we are receiving.
So that’s the rule that Fr. Cole is making up, because the text nowhere says that every single person in Church needs to sing this.
That’s his pious little legalism.
Pious little legalisms happen in all kinds of contexts—both Catholic and non-Catholic.
The reason is that pious little legalisms are ways of reinforcing solidarity with a particular group.
They serve as tribal identity badges that indicate you’re with the really spiritual people.
In a non-Catholic context, a Calvinist might say that if you don’t accept all five of the five points of Calvinism, then you aren’t truly spiritual and have a “man-centered” Gospel.
And a non-Calvinist might say that if you do accept all five of the five points of Calvinism, so that you hold God picks certain people to go to heaven for no discernible reason and lets everyone else go to hell, then you have a monstrous view of God and a defective sense of true spirituality.
Those two views at least concern matters of doctrine that can be either true or false, but the same attitude appears when it comes to disciplines rather than doctrines.
In a Catholic context, pious little legalisms occur like, if you prefer the Traditional Latin Mass, you’re a troglodyte who isn’t thinking with where the Church is now.
Or, if you don’t prefer the Traditional Latin Mass, you have abandoned true spirituality.
Or—a step down from that—if you receive Communion in the hand rather than on the tongue, you’re not truly spiritual.
Or, if you receive Communion on the tongue rather than in the hand, you’re not truly spiritual.
Pious little legalisms abound because they’re a way of signaling your solidarity with a particular tribe.
They are also ways of making yourself feel good by looking down on other people.
They thus violate the ethic Jesus taught us whereby we need to love our neighbor—not look down on them just because they’re doing something different than we do.
I’ve had a lot of experience with pious little legalisms.
I lived through the liturgy wars of the 1990s. Fr. Cole is too young to remember those, but I remember them.
And some of the most aggressive purveyors of pious little legalisms were liturgists who insisted that things be done according to their preferences, whether the law required that or not.
There was a joke at the time that some folks may remember: What’s the difference between a liturgist and a terrorist? Answer: You can negotiate with a terrorist.
Even some bishops got in on the act and started telling the faithful of their diocese things like they weren’t allowed to kneel for Communion, or to receive on the tongue, or they were required to remain standing when they got back to their seat, or things like that.
Even though the law didn’t require any of those things.
And, thank God, the Vatican vindicated those who wanted to express their personal piety in these ways.
But what Fr. Cole is doing is following in the over-zealous liturgists’ footsteps in bossing people around with a pious little legalism—an interpretation that insists on a rigid uniformity that goes beyond what the law says.
Because it’s obvious that the law does not envision every person at Mass be singing the Communion hymn unless they physically have the host in their mouths.
People can and do stop singing it when they’re on their way up to receive Communion, and if they can refrain from singing then, they can also refrain from singing when they get back to their pew.
In such a moment, they might find it conducive to their personal spirituality to take a few moments to say a thanksgiving to the Lord Jesus Christ for allowing them to receive him in holy Communion.
What the Law Says
Or maybe I’m wrong. Maybe Fr. Cole is right.
So let’s see what the law actually says.
Fr. Cole read you a few quotations of it, but here’s the full passage from the GIRM:
General Instruction of the Roman Missal
- While the Priest is receiving the Sacrament, the Communion Chant is begun, its purpose being to express the spiritual union of the communicants by means of the unity of their voices, to show gladness of heart, and to bring out more clearly the “communitarian” character of the procession to receive the Eucharist. The singing is prolonged for as long as the Sacrament is being administered to the faithful. However, if there is to be a hymn after Communion, the Communion Chant should be ended in a timely manner.
Care should be taken that singers, too, can receive Communion with ease.
- In the Dioceses of the United States of America, there are four options for singing at Communion: (1) the antiphon from the Missal or the Psalm from the Graduale Romanum, as set to music there or in another musical setting; (2) the antiphon with Psalm from the Graduale Simplex of the liturgical time; (3) a chant from another collection of Psalms and antiphons, approved by the Conference of Bishops or the Diocesan Bishop, including Psalms arranged in responsorial or metrical forms; (4) some other suitable liturgical chant approved by the Conference of Bishops or the Diocesan Bishop. This is sung either by the choir alone or by the choir or a cantor with the people.
However, if there is no singing, the antiphon given in the Missal may be recited either by the faithful, or by some of them, or by a reader; otherwise, it is recited by the Priest himself after he has received Communion and before he distributes Communion to the faithful.
So that’s what the law for the United States says, and we should note a few parts of it.
Remember, Fr. Cole was emphatic that
- COLE: It is important that everyone sing. It is not just a concert for the choir. It’s not just an opportunity to hear beautiful music, but rather by raising our voices, they become one further symbolizing what we are receiving.
But notice that paragraph 86 says that Care should be taken that singers, too, can receive Communion with ease.
Whoa! Care should be taken that the singers . . . too can receive Communion with ease? That means the text is envisioning the singers as being a group of people that are different from the ordinary communicants.
That means that the very paragraph that Fr. Cole was quoting envisions there being a choir that is different from the ordinary communicants—a group called the “singers”—and provisions for them receiving Communion also need to be made.
So it may be that—in a given church—only the choir is singing what the GIRM calls “the Communion Chant.”
So the text envisions the idea that some people—the singers—are singing the Communion chant but other people are not.
And we can go further, because there are other parts of the text that Fr. Cole didn’t read you.
Now, remember, he said:
- COLE: It is important that everyone sing!
But in paragraph 87, which deals with United States law, it mentions several options for singing at Communion.
Most of these are options like the antiphon from the Missal or the Psalm from the Graduale Romanum, the antiphon with Psalm from the Graduale Simplex, and a chant from another collection of Psalms and antiphons.
These are things that only specialists like a choir director would know about, and that only choir members would typically sing.
They’re not found in a typical hymnal.
So if one of these options is being used, the congregation would not be expected to sing at all.
And this is made explicit, because after paragraph 87 lists the options for singing at Communion, it says: This is sung either by the choir alone or by the choir or a cantor with the people.
So the first option named is for the singing to be done by the choir alone, and only after that does it mention the option of having it sung by the choir or a cantor with the people.
So if it’s done the first way, the choir alone sings, and the people stay silent. That’s a direct contradiction of what Fr. Cole said.
It just not true that
- COLE: It is important that everyone sing!
No, it’s not. As the text Fr. Cole is quoting from makes explicit, it is permitted for only the choir to sing at Communion time.
This is just Fr. Cole imposing a pious little legalism that not only goes beyond but actually contradicts what the law says.
Then the paragraph goes on to say this: If there is no singing.
Double woah! Based on what Fr. Cole said, the Communion hymn is so important that everybody needs to sing it, and it is actually not appropriate
- COLE: Actually not appropriate.
for anyone to take a few moments to silently thank their Lord in prayer.
But here the GIRM indicates that there is an option for there to be no singing at all.
So what is supposed to happen if there is no singing at Communion?
The antiphon given in the Missal may be recited either by the faithful, or by some of them, or by a reader.
So the faithful may together recite the antiphon.
Or some of them may recite the antiphon, leaving everyone else silent during this time.
Or even just the reader may recite the antiphon, again leaving everyone else silent.
Or else: it is recited by the Priest himself after he has received Communion and before he distributes Communion to the faithful.
So we’ve got a bunch of perfectly legitimate options here where people are silent.
Nobody at all is singing on these options.
Some people—maybe just the reader and maybe just the priest—may say the Communion antiphon, but that doesn’t take but a few moments.
After all, the text envisions the priest saying it after he has received Communion and before he distributes Communion.
So Communion may take place totally in silence. Not only is no singing happening, but everyone is silent after the Communion antiphon has been recited.
Fr. Cole’s demand that we all sing the Communion hymn is thus refuted by the text of the GIRM itself.
Rome Confirms
But there’s more that we can say about this, because back around the year 2000, some liturgists started telling people that they had to stand when they got back from Holy Communion.
So Cardinal Francis George, who was then the chairman of the U.S. bishops’ committee on liturgy submitted a Dubium—that is a =Doubt, Question—to the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments in Rome.
Here’s what he asked:
Dubium: In many places, the faithful are accustomed to kneeling or sitting in personal prayer upon returning to their places after having individually received Holy Communion during Mass. Is it the intention of the Missale Romanum, edition typica tertia [that is, the current Roman Missal], to forbid this practice?
So the question is whether people are forbidden to kneel or sit in personal prayer upon returning from Communion.
Here’s how the Congregation replied:
Responsum: Negative, et ad mentem [No, and for this reason]. The mens [reason] is that the prescription of the Institutio Generalis Missalis Romani, no. 43, is intended, on the one hand to ensure within broad limits a certain uniformity of posture within the congregation for the various parts of the celebration of Holy Mass, and on the other, not to regulate posture rigidly in such a way that those who wish to kneel or sit would no longer be free.
So, the Congregation was asked whether it was okay for people to kneel or sit in private prayer when they return from Holy Communion, and the Congregation said yes!
The Roman Missal just isn’t trying to regulate what people do when they get back from Communion that rigidly.
This—in addition to what we saw from the GIRM—indicates that Fr. Cole is misinterpreting the text when he insists that you need to return and start singing a Communion hymn.
Conclusion
So I’m afraid that Fr. Cole’s videos are pretty troubling and pretty wrong.
- COLE: Pretty troubling, and pretty wrong.
He’s spreading a pious little legalism in these videos. He’s not telling you what the law says, though he may be telling you what he wishes it said.
It’s just false to say that:
- COLE: After receiving communion at mass, it is actually not appropriate to go back to your pew and to have a private devotion. That is not the time for meditation or your own personal prayers.
Yeah, that’s wrong. It is a legitimate option to go back and engage in personal prayer.
You don’t have to start singing the Communion hymn.
In fact, there may not even be a Communion hymn, as we saw.
And you’d think that Fr. Cole—as a priest—would know this, that he’d be familiar with what the GIRM that he needs to use as a priest actually says—both in the paragraph he quoted and in the paragraph that immediately follows it.
But we don’t need to accuse him of deliberately suppressing what these paragraphs actually say.
There’s a famous principle called Hanlon’s Razor which says, “Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.”
Or, as people sometimes paraphrase it today, never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence.
So I don’t want to accuse Fr. Cole of malice, but it’s important that social media influencers—especially those who are priests—are careful and not at all incompetent in what they say.
It’s important, before you start telling people that they can’t do something or shouldn’t do something, that you read the law slowly and carefully and completely and think about what it does and doesn’t say.
It’s also important that you look to see if there have been rulings on the law and what it does and doesn’t mean.
And you should always be precise.
For example, one shouldn’t say things like:
- COLE: This is not my own personal opinion but comes directly from the general instruction of the Roman missal, the official teaching of the church on how to celebrate mass.
Yeah, not a teaching document, dude.
You also need to read the document correctly and be aware of the surrounding interpretive history that the Vatican has provided for it.
We want to tell people what the law actually says, not what our personal opinions are.
In fact, later in his second video, Fr. Cole says this:
- COLE: A lot of times with liturgy, people have very strong opinions that are based on personal preference and not actually on church teaching.
Again, not a teaching document, but go on.
- COLE: But at some point you have to realize that you either don’t know what the church teaches or you’re being obstinate in rejecting it.
Yeah. Those would seem to be the two options, wouldn’t they, Fr. Cole?
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VIDEO SOURCES:
On the terminology of Communion “Chant” and Communion “Song/Hymn”