NANNARONI, MICHELE MARIA. — Dominican theologian, born at the beginning of the eighteenth century, died in 1771. By decrees of 18 August 1775 and 22 April 1776, the Holy Office condemned various anonymous or pseudonymous works of a Eucharistic nature that in fact belonged to N.
They concern the controversy over liturgical Communion, vigorously debated by Italian theologians in the eighteenth century, and in which N. was its systematic theologian. This is a little-known question, called the controversy of Crema. The issue was whether there existed a real and formal distinction between Communion received infra Missam (at which one had been present and with particles consecrated therein) and Communion extra Missam; whether Jesus, in the ciborium, remains as a victim and as such produces his effects in the one who receives him, or remains as food, with the corresponding effects recalled by the Council of Trent. N. seems to distinguish three kinds of Communion: «spiritual» Communion, by which the faithful unite themselves to Jesus the victim through faith and love; mere sacramentalis (per modum Sacramenti) Communion, received by the faithful outside Mass with pre-consecrated particles; and «liturgical» Communion (per modum sacrificii), received with particles consecrated therein. Only liturgical Communion is real participation in the Sacrifice, true Communion, because it alone repeats and completes the sacrificial action of the Eucharistic Supper; it alone corresponds to the ancient tradition, interrupted by the decline of faith and morals. Priests and faithful are in eadem linea ministers of the sacrifice, with the difference that the priest alone is minister of consecration, and is therefore offerer, consumer, and dispenser of the divine mysteries. This common participation in the sacrifice, founded on the Mystical Body, derives from the common, though unequal, priesthood affirmed by s. Pietro and s. Giovanni in the Apocalypse. The faithful are true priests, not metaphorically; therefore liturgical Communion, both for priests and for the faithful, is of divine-ecclesiastical precept. The faithful, «except in cases of grave necessity», are obliged to receive Communion infra Missam, and priests «would incur grave sin if they did not uphold this right». This doctrine, TRAVERSARI, AMBROGIO (v.) and Tamburini, was disseminated in Tuscan Jansenist literature by Scipione De' Ricci, and was treated particularly by N. in the two substantial condemned volumes: Del pubblico divin diritto alla Comunione eucaristica nel sacrificio della Messa (Lugano 1774).