NANNARONI, MICHELE MARIA. - Dominican theologian, b. at the beginning of the 18th century, d. in 1771. By decrees of 18 Aug. 1775 and 22 Apr. 1776 the Holy Office condemned various anonymous or pseudonymous works of a eucharistic character, which really belonged to N.
They relate to the controversy over liturgical Communion keenly debated by Italian theologians in the 18th century, which found in N. its systematic theologian. It is a little-known question, called the controversy of Crema. It was debated whether there existed a real and formal distinction between the Communion received infra Missam (at which one has assisted and with particles consecrated in it) and Communion extra Missam, whether Jesus in the eucharist remains as victim, and as such produces his effects in the one who receives him, or remains in the manner of food with the relative effects recalled by the Council of Trent. N. seems to distinguish a threefold Communion: the "spiritual" Communion by which the faithful unite themselves to Jesus as victim in faith and love, the Communion mere sacramentalis (per modum Sacramenti) which the faithful make outside Mass with pre-consecrated particles, the "liturgical" Communion (per modum sacrificii), which is made with particles consecrated in it. Only the liturgical Communion is a real participation in the Sacrifice, a true communion because it alone repeats and completes the sacrificial action of the eucharistic Supper, it alone corresponds to ancient tradition, interrupted by the decay of faith and morals. Priests and faithful are in eadem linea ministers of the sacrifice, with the difference that only the priest is minister of the consecration, and offerer and consumer and therefore dispenser of the divine mysteries. Such common participation in the sacrifice founded in the Mystical Body derives from the common, though unequal, priesthood affirmed by St. Peter and by St. John in the Apocalypse. The faithful are true priests, not metaphorically; therefore the liturgical Communion both of priests and of the faithful is of divine-ecclesiastical precept. The faithful "except in cases of grave necessity" are obliged to communicate infra Missam, and priests "would make themselves guilty of grave sin, if they did not second this right." This doctrine, defended by Traversari (v.) and by Tamburini, was disseminated in Tuscan Jansenist literature by Scipione De' Ricci, and was particularly treated by N. in the two thick volumes condemned: Del pubblico divin diritto alla Comunione eucaristica nel sacrificio della Messa (Lugano 1774).
Bibliography5 works
Benvenuto Matteucci