I read the article. As an ex-Protestant, I'm not unduly impressed by the business of receiving the host on the tongue only. The main thing is to take the host.
I also looked askance at the following paragraph -
Then there is also the fact that during the Church's 2,000-year history there were no proven cases of contagion due to the reception of Holy Communion.
My first thought was that when there was no scientific way of proving where the contagion originated, where is the proof for the validity of this statement? But while I decided to do a bit of reading on the Black Death, I came upon the fact that an estimated 42-45% of priests died during the Black Death, compared to a generally agreed concensus of 30% of the general population.
Priests and the Black Death - Medievalists.net
The reason was that the priests were deliberately putting themselves in danger by visiting all the sick and dying in their homes.
It seems the plague shook the church to the core. People wanted to know why? If it was for sin, then it seemed a vicious and haphazard judgment. It probably played some role in paving the way for the Protestant Reformation 150 years or so later, as the new generation of priests who replaced those who died were not as well formulated, with subsequent abuses.
Since cloisters were particularly hard hit, with some being wiped out altogether, I'd be a bit wary of sweeping statements like those of Bishop Schneider about there being no "proof" of contagion due to the reception of Holy Communion.
In my opinion, incidents like the Black Death don't do much to help our claim "God is love". It struck right when the Church had it's strongest influence in history.
And viruses are around all the time. If I caught the flu for instance, I don't think my first suspicion as to how I got it would be the Communion Host.
