Q: I got a question about intinction. I think it is ok for a priest or deacon to administer Communion by intinction, that is, dipping the host in the precious blood and administering it to the communicant. May extraordinary CMs do this too?
==
A: Communion may be administered by intinction (GIRM 285, for example).
When GIRM 287 describes the practice, it says the priest distributes communion while a deacon or minister holds the chalice at his side. The communicant holds a communion plate.
That is quoted again in the norms for distributing and receiving communion under both kinds in the US (49).
What’s unclear is the whether communion ministers may administer communion by intinction. My opinion is that they may (though I said something different in 2018: https://paulturner.org/intinction/), that the reason they’re not mentioned in GIRM 287 is that it’s describing the normal way of distributing communion by intinction by saying how a priest does it.
Something similar appears in GIRM 161, which describes how a priest is to distribute holy communion: he “raises the host slightly and shows it to each.” We assume that a lay minister follows the same instruction, even though the rubric mentions only the priest.
I think that this logically applies to intinction. An extraordinary minister of holy communion may administer either the Body of Christ or the Blood of Christ. It doesn’t make sense for the minister not to have permission to administer both together.