Q: When standing and receiving Communion in the hand should it be placed in the mouth immediately or should the communicant first step to the side?

GIRM 161 has: “The communicant replies, Amen, and receives the Sacrament either on the tongue or, where this is allowed, in the hand, the choice lying with the communicant. As soon as the communicant receives the host, he or she consumes the whole of it.”

The 2004 Instruction Redemptionis Sacramentum has in n. 92: “However, special care should be taken to ensure that the host is consumed by the communicant in the presence of the minister, so that no one goes away carrying the Eucharistic species in his hand.”

Balthasar Fischer has “You take a short step to the side” (Signs, Words and Gestures, Liturgical Press, 1990, page 75). Peter Elliott has “they should step to one side before placing the Host in the mouth” (Ceremonies of the Modern Roman Rite, Revised Edition, 2005, page 124, footnote 86). He discussed an objection he received about this: “If the communicant receives the Host at once in front of me, I know it has been consumed. Otherwise, when the communicant steps to one side, I cannot see what is happening, and theft of the Eucharist is made easier.” (Liturgical Question Box, Ignatius Press, 1998, page 112).

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A: GIRM 161 is the only piece of legislation I know on this, so in spite of commentators and customs, the communicant is to consume the host “as soon as” receiving it. There is no instruction to step to the side first.