www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall desecration of Eucharist!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PZ_Myers#Eucharist_controversy

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/07/the_great_desecration.php#more

this man claims to have received consecrated Hosts from other athiests.

This should convince anyone that it was and is wrong to permit "communion in the hand" without overwhelming reasons.

Fr. Serge

what a sad man.

Fr. Serge,

I don't find this a convincing reason at all. What is to stop someone from holding it in one's teeth until they walk out of church? If one wants to desecrate Christ in the Sacrament there is really very little we can do about it, short of adopting some very weird measures.

Fr. Deacon Lance

Father Deacon Lance:

I have to agree. I've seen people take the Host out of their mouths on the way back to their pews and have heard of people finding Hosts in the pews and book racks after Liturgy.

Maybe intinction is the answer. A relatively dry Host is easier to make off with than one that is intincted.

BOB

FATHER SERGE:

Father bless!!

Forgive me for disagreeing with you. May I suggest that there are no valid reasons?

Asking for your blessing and continued holy prayers,

BOB

It is important for the priest and deacon to guard the chalice.

Isn't guarding the Eucharist part of the ordination to the Diaconate?

The idea of giving Holy Communion to every Tom, Dick, and Harry who approaches is ridiculous. Priests should be able to use discernment. Without proper discernment, desecration can more easily occur.

This is why the Eastern way of communion is the best. It's not like a potato chip laid in your hand. It's the body and blood of Christ put directly into the communicant.

A potato chip laid in your hand? Ouch.

With all due respect, if this jerk-head wanted to descrate the Eucharist at an Eastern Church, (save for the parishes where priests demand you confess to them, or demand paperwork of some sort) it would have been just as easy for him to recieve, walk away, and (God forgive me, I hope no one reading this gets any ideas!) spit the Eucharist into a container of some sort and do the very same thing that Meyers did.

But rather than seize upon an opportunity to make a case for the superiority of one distinctive practice over another, maybe we should be praying for this mans conversion and making reparation for this crime with our prayers and penance.

It's easier to desecrate a dry wafer placed in the hand, than a piece of bread soaked in wine that is placed directly in the mouth. The logistics of the practices speak for themselves.

And again, easier or no, seizing on an opportunity to present the superiority of something just seems out of place when discussing this sad, sad episode. Easier or no, any "Hot Dog" (I really want to use a word we don't use on this forum!) who wants to go out of his or her way to do something this evil, is going to do it.

Can we agree to pray for this man?

Making fun of how others confect the Eucharist is a definite no-no on the Forum, I should hope.

That said, there are ways for the priest to be reasonably sure of whom he is communicating.

Fr. Serge

Echoing Father Serge, I am issuing a warning here to the posters on this thread. This is not a discussion of the superiority of one method of distributing the Holy Mysteries over another. It is a posting about the desecration of the Lord's holy Body and Most Precious Blood, something we can all be upset and mourn over.

That being said, any further irreverent remarks about the Latin Host will cause this thread to be closed and some posters lose privileges.

BOB

I think in all fairness to the priests, that it's easier for a priest in a small church, or one with a stable congregation, to know whether or not to give communion to someone. In some of the huge parishes, it's virtually impossible for the priest to know everyone. Include visitors, and it is impossible.

I'll throw my biretta into this discussion...

At my assignment here in Gettysburg, we have alot of visitors, especially during the summer months; perhaps half of the congregation during some Masses. We have have four English-language Masses between the Vigil Mass and the three day Masses. Another two Masses are in Spanish.

I'll talk about the English-language Masses.

I thank God for peripheral vision because whenever I give Communion to someone in the hand I watch that they place it in their mouths. I have never had to tackle anybody (yet) or headlock them - I've heard about it happening ! I have kept one person (I'd never seen him before or since) from intincting the Sacred Host himself, which is strictly forbidden; I wasn't sure if he was Protestant or mentally slow - please don't take any offense at that, but that was my immediate read of the situation. There are other times where I'm pretty sure that I gave Communion to non-Catholics, but there was nothing I could do short of an immediate interrogation before 400 people, as I did not have a moral surety about it.

I have come to this conclusion: we have got to get back to the "rail" and on the tongue. The question for my generation is, though, how do we do this without throwing everybody into a panic and loosing parishioners, because now in the Latin Church not only will they leave the parish, but now they think nothing of going to the Episcopal or Lutheran Churches (because they're just so close) - what they say. Those are the people whose souls need saving the most!

We have lost much in the West in the last 40 years. The big question now is how do we get it back... I scratch my head about that one.