The single serve packets violate some deeply held tenets of the Catholic understanding of the Eucharist; that is why they are not used. Whenever there is a major outbreak of disease, or a bad flu season, U.S. Roman Catholic Churches usually suspend the distribution of communion wine. It’s been at least a month since we’ve had it in my area, and I have attended services at four different parishes in that time.
The deacon yesterday implored people not to touch one another during the sign of the peace; in fact they did not even say, “Let us offer each other a sign of peace,” at all. This is a mostly black church, and the peace part usually takes 10-15 minutes, because people are walking around hugging and kissing, not just shaking hands. You could see it took *a lot* of restraint from the parishioners,
. The priest must have used hand sanitizer a dozen times during the mass; before communion, he sent the altar servers around to pump a bit of sanitizer into everyone’s hands.