'You just gotta forestall that': Fauci discourages churches from distributing communion

Dr. Anthony Fauci, one of President Trump's leading medical advisers on the coronavirus pandemic, on Wednesday said that Christians who distribute communion during services should refrain from doing so.

"I think, for the time being, you just gotta forestall that," he said during an interview with America, a Jesuit magazine.

Fauci added that churches should limit the number of people who gather and that congregants should "absolutely" wear masks. He did, however, mention that individual churches should make decisions according to what is best for their members with regard to communion as they reopen.

"It depends on where you are," he said. "If you are in a region, a city, a county, where there is a significant amount of infection, I think with distributing communion, I think that would be risky. I'm telling you that, as a Catholic, it would be risky."

Fauci said that, in his mind, it does not matter if a priest sanitizes hands between each person: It is still unsafe.

"As many times as a priest can wash his hands, he gets to communion, he puts it in somebody’s hand, they put it in their mouth," he said. "It’s that kind of close interaction that you don’t want when you’re in the middle of a deadly outbreak."

Fauci, who attended both a Jesuit high school and college, said later in the interview that what he values most about his Catholicism is the education he received.

"I identify more, much more, with that than the concept of organized churches, religions," he said.