Title XV: Of the Custody and Worship of the Most Holy Eucharist

§ 1. The Most Holy Eucharist, provided that someone is present who has care of it and regularly a priest celebrates Mass in the sacred place at least once a week:

1° Must be kept in the cathedral church, in the principal church of an Abbey or Prelature nullius, of a Vicariate and Apostolic Prefecture, in any parochial or quasi-parochial church, and in the church annexed to the house of exempt religious, whether of men or women.

2° Can be kept, by permission of the local Ordinary, in a collegiate church and in the principal oratory, whether public or semi-public, both of a pious or religious house and of an ecclesiastical college which is governed by secular clerics or by religious.

§ 2. In order that it can be kept in other churches or oratories, an apostolic indult is necessary; the local Ordinary can grant this permission only to a church or public oratory from a just cause and by way of act.

§ 3. It is lawful for no one to retain the Most Holy Eucharist with himself or carry it with himself on a journey.

Churches in which the Most Holy Eucharist is reserved, especially parochial churches, are to be open to the faithful every day for at least some hours.

With any contrary privilege revoked, in the religious or pious house itself the Most Holy Eucharist cannot be kept except either in the church or in the principal oratory; nor among nuns within the choir or the enclosures of the monastery.

§ 1. The Most Holy Eucharist cannot be kept continuously or habitually except on only one altar of the same church.

§ 2. Let it be kept in the most excellent and noble place of the church and therefore regularly on the major altar, unless another place seems more convenient and more becoming for the veneration and worship of so great a sacrament, with the prescription of liturgical laws observed as regards the last days of Holy Week.

§ 3. But in cathedral, collegiate, or conventual churches in which choral functions are to be performed at the major altar, lest an impediment be brought to ecclesiastical offices, it is opportune that the Most Holy Eucharist regularly not be kept on the major altar, but in another chapel or altar.

§ 4. Let rectors of churches take care that the altar on which the Most Holy Sacrament is reserved be adorned before all others, so that by its very furnishing it may move the piety and devotion of the faithful more greatly.

§ 1. The Most Holy Eucharist must be kept in an immovable tabernacle placed in the middle part of the altar.

§ 2. Let the tabernacle be skillfully constructed, solidly closed on every side, decently adorned according to the norm of liturgical laws, empty of every other thing, and guarded so diligently that the danger of any sacrilegious profanation is warded off.

§ 3. When some grave cause urges, approved by the local Ordinary, it is not forbidden that the Most Holy Eucharist be reserved at night outside the altar, yet upon a corporal, in a safer and decent place, with the prescription of can. 1271 observed.

§ 4. The key of the tabernacle in which the Most Holy Sacrament is reserved must be guarded most diligently, the conscience of the priest who has care of the church or oratory being gravely burdened.

Consecrated particles, in that number which can be sufficient for the communion of the sick and of the other faithful, are to be perpetually preserved in a pyx of solid and decent material, clean and well closed with its cover, covered with a white silk veil and, as far as the matter permits, adorned.

Before the tabernacle in which the Most Holy Sacrament is reserved, at least one lamp is to shine continually day and night, to be fed with olive oil or beeswax; but where olive oil cannot be had, it is permitted to the prudence of the local Ordinary that it be exchanged for other oils, vegetable oils as far as possible.

Consecrated hosts, whether for the communion of the faithful or for the exposition of the Most Holy Sacrament, are to be fresh and frequently renewed, the old ones duly consumed, so that there be no danger of corruption, with the instructions which the local Ordinary will have given concerning this matter carefully observed.

Those who devote themselves to the religious instruction of the faithful are to omit nothing so that they excite piety toward the Most Holy Eucharist in their souls, and especially exhort them that, not only on Sundays and feasts of precept, but also on weekdays within the week, they frequently, as far as it can be done, assist at the sacrifice of the Mass and visit the Most Holy Sacrament.

§ 1. In churches or oratories to which it has been given to reserve the Most Holy Eucharist, private exposition, or exposition with the pyx, can be made from any just cause without the permission of the Ordinary; but public exposition, or exposition with the monstrance, can be made on the feast day of Corpus Christi and within the octave in all churches during the solemnities of Masses and at Vespers; at other times, however, only from a just and grave cause, especially a public one, and with the permission of the local Ordinary, even though the church belongs to an exempt religion.

§ 2. The minister of exposition and reposition of the Most Holy Sacrament is a priest or deacon; but the minister of Eucharistic Benediction is only a priest, nor can a deacon impart it, except in the case in which, according to the norm of can. 845, Sec. 2, he has brought Viaticum to the sick person.

The Supplication of the Forty Hours is to be held every year, with the greatest solemnity with which it can be done, in all parochial churches and other churches in which the Most Holy Sacrament is habitually reserved, on days appointed with the consent of the local Ordinary; and if somewhere, because of peculiar circumstances of things, it cannot be done without grave inconvenience and with the reverence due to so great a sacrament, let the local Ordinary take care that at least for some continuous hours, on fixed days, the Most Holy Sacrament be exposed with a more solemn rite.