(LifeSiteNews) — In a recent interview on Pints with Aquinas, Fr. John Perricone shared a stunning personal encounter with St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Asked what was the worst evil she had witnessed in her decades of heroic service to the poorest of the poor, the saint replied: “Communion in the hand,” adding, “What dishonor to Our Blessed Savior.”

The account went viral. Critics responded by circulating old photographs purporting to show Mother Teresa both receiving and distributing Holy Communion in the hand. The clear implication: Fr. Perricone must have been mistaken — or worse.

But the priest who heard those words directly from the lips of the saint is not backing down.

There’s a photo of Mother Teresa receiving Communion in the hand.

Does this mean the priest who said she called it the greatest evil she ever saw was lying?

I asked him myself… 🙏 pic.twitter.com/nPNKFFpsTb

— John-Henry Westen (@JhWesten) April 30, 2026

I reached out to Fr. Perricone myself about the growing controversy. He stands by his testimony without reservation. “I don’t know what to say,” he told me, “except the saint spoke that unsparing judgment.”

Fr. Perricone also sent me a personal photograph of himself standing beside Mother Teresa, taken during the years he knew her.

The photographs being used to challenge Fr. Perricone’s account show Mother Teresa serving as an extraordinary minister of Holy Communion to her sisters and novices. Under Church law (Canon 910 §2 and the General Instruction of the Roman Missal), laypeople and religious may distribute the Eucharist only when there is a genuine need and insufficient priests or deacons. This was a daily reality in Mother Teresa’s missions around the world when priests were not present.

WATCH: Mother Teresa told priest Communion on the hand was ‘worst evil’ she’d ever seen

The other image does not show Mother with Holy Communion in her hand, only it seems she is reaching for it. The photo may have been taken as she was folding her arms as she would do when receiving.

These images do not prove she preferred Communion in the hand as the normative practice, nor do they contradict her devastating assessment of the practice when it is treated casually. In fact, the Missionaries of Charity were instructed to receive Holy Communion only on the tongue.

Critics also ignore a well-documented abuse that St. John Paul II himself repeatedly lamented: many priests have forced the faithful to receive Communion in the hand, even when they clearly requested to receive on the tongue. This violation of the faithful’s rights has been condemned by the Church for decades.

Even the Pope John Paul II, who inherited the indult for Communion in the hand that had been granted by his predecessor Pope Paul VI, grew increasingly concerned about the loss of reverence. He ultimately decided that at all papal Masses, and inside St. Peter’s Basilica, Holy Communion was distributed only on the tongue.

His successor, Pope Benedict XVI, continued and publicly formalized this practice. In a November 2009 Vatican document (now available only via archive), the Office for the Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff stated that, “in continuity with the teaching of his Predecessor,” Benedict XVI began distributing Communion on the tongue while the faithful knelt, starting with the Solemnity of Corpus Christi in 2008.

It is noteworthy that that very document was removed from the Vatican website in late 2020 under Pope Francis.

Mother Teresa spent her entire life in intimate contact with the suffering Christ in the poor and in the Blessed Sacrament. Her “unsparing judgment” on the casual handling of the Eucharist should encourage us to spread a true and proper devotion to Our Lord in the Holy Eucharist and encourage friends and family to receive Him in the most reverent way possible.