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How Should the Tabernacle Key Be Handled?

Question:

Can a layperson have a permanent key to the tabernacle in order to get hosts to take to homebound people?

Answer:

The Code of Canon Law:

The person responsible for the church or oratory is to take care that the key of the tabernacle in which the Most Holy Eucharist is reserved is safeguarded most diligently (can. 938 §5).

General Instruction of the Roman Missal:

The one tabernacle should be immovable, be made of solid and inviolable material that is not transparent, and be locked in such a way that the danger of profanation is prevented to the greatest extent possible (314).

Nullo Unquam Tempore

The key of the tabernacle, in which the Most Holy Sacrament is kept, should be guarded with the utmost diligence, its custody resting as a grave burden of conscience on the priest who has charge of the church or oratory.

The key of the tabernacle must be most diligently kept by a priest. All the cautions mentioned up to the present will be in vain, if the chief caution, namely, the safe-keeping of the key of the tabernacle be neglected. . . . The key must be kept by the rector at home, or always carried about by him, care being taken against losing it; or let it be kept in the sacristy in a safe and secret place, under lock and key, the second key being kept by the rector as above. . . .

If he leaves the key in the sacristy under another key; he can give this latter to the sacristan during such time as he is absent and the key of the tabernacle may be needed.

The documents of the Church are very clear that there are not to be other keys to the tabernacle floating around. The actual key to the tabernacle must always be kept at the church. If someone has need of the tabernacle key, then it should be kept in a location under another key or code that the individual can have access to rather than keeping the tabernacle key. After all, if the person holding onto a key were to lose it, it is easier and simpler to change where the tabernacle key is kept than to change the lock for the tabernacle.

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