CONTROVERSY of C. — This is the usual designation for a Eucharistic controversy that unfolded in the 18th century and originated from the following incident. In 1737, a canon, Giuseppe Guerrieri, celebrated Mass daily at an altar in the cathedral of C., giving Communion during Mass to his penitents. This practice caused a delay that made it impossible for other priests to celebrate all the Masses assigned to that altar; consequently, the administrators of the legacies forbade Guerrieri from continuing this custom.
Guerrieri, presumptuous and inclined to novelty, wrote a pamphlet that seemed to betray a subtle infiltration of Lutheran thought, arguing for the existence in the faithful of a genuine right to receive Communion with the particular consecrated Hosts in the Mass they attended, rather than in a previous Mass (earlier, even in C., another pamphlet by Cesare Benvenuti [1669–1746], *Sacerdos ad altare celebrans in Missa privata* [1726], had appeared, dealing with the right to communicate at every Mass with the particular Hosts consecrated in them, deriving this from the unrestricted desire expressed by the Council of Trent in Sess. XXII, c. 6). He therefore maintained that the will of God should take precedence over the will of testators. After being refuted, he replied. Unyielding even in the face of episcopal admonitions, he left C. to seek support in Bergamo and Milan. Thus the dispute flared up: whether, under grave necessity, a priest is bound to communicate and the faithful are bound to receive Communion at the Mass they wish to attend.
A Cassinese monk, Fr. Oronzio Stabili, defended the thesis with patristic references. The discussion was referred to the Holy Office by the Bishop of C., Benedict XIV, who took the matter in hand and decided against Guerrieri’s position with the encyclical *Certiores* to the bishops of Italy on 13 November 1742. Cardinal Querini commented on the encyclical in two pastoral letters, which helped to mitigate the controversy; contemporary theologians such as G. L. Berti, G. B. Gattico, R. Sala, and F. Berlendi also took note of it in their works.
In 1766 in Rome, Pasquale Copeto, prompted by a series of publications and disputes on the subject, returned to the question, which was then taken up and carried to its final conclusions in 1770 by the Dominican Fr. Nannaroni (v.). He became the systematic theologian of the controversy, writing either anonymously or under the pseudonym Anastasio Teofilo. His works, first proscribed by the Bishop of C., were denounced by him and placed on the Index together with other pamphlets (decree: 18 August 1775). They asserted that liturgical Communion, during Mass, is an intrinsic, natural, inseparable, and substantial part of the sacrifice of the Mass, without which it cannot be perfect, and that priests are bound by a divine-ecclesiastical precept to administer it in the current celebration, except in cases of grave necessity or for Viaticum. The faithful therefore have an equal right to receive II. Communion outside Mass is described as “a private repast from the reservoir of consecrated Hosts,” introduced by the Jesuits, not in accordance with ecclesiastical tradition, and therefore to be abolished.
Fr. Giuseppe Maria Elefante, also a Dominican, refuted these claims. In Padua an anonymous supporter emerged, but the doctrine was espoused and defended in 1779 by Fr. TRAVERSARI, AMBROGIO (v.), a Servite, whose work was condemned (decree: 3 December 1781). Fr. TAMBURINI, PIETRO (v.) in Pavia professed the same ideas and skillfully insinuated them even into the publications favored by Scipione de’ Ricci, Bishop of Pistoia, and into the decrees of the Pistoiese synod, Sess. IV, on the Eucharist. In 1794, the 28th proposition of the bull *Auctorem Fidei* condemned this theory (Denz.-U., no. 1528), and in Italy the matter was no longer discussed. Only among the people and the clergy did a preference for Communion during Mass remain, in keeping with liturgical spirit, without excluding Communion outside Mass.
— V. tav. L.