American bishops will discuss Communion in the hand during an executive session at their general meeting in Chicago from May 3 to 5.
The discussion was requested by "a number of bishops" through the National Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee on the Liturgy, according to Fr Thomas Krosnicki, associate director of the committee's secretariat.
Last November. the NCCB Ad• ministrative Committee refused a request from a Boston, couple that Communion in the hand be allowed as a means of preventing swine flu. The bishops had debated the question at general meetings in 1970 and 1973 but balloting did not give it the needed two-thirds majority.