Posted on 11/12/2008 5:03:13 PM PST by tcg
– A 33 yr old man from Connecticut named John Samuel Ricci is now in Police custody. His bond was set at $2,000 and he will stay in the Martin County Jail until he appears in Court on Dec. 11, 2008.
He attempted to steal consecrated communion hosts from the priest while he was standing in line to receive the Eucharist on Saturday, November 8, 2008 at St. Martin de Porres Catholic Church in Jensen Beach, Florida.
Reports from the Martin County Sherriff’s Office indicate that he was cornered by six or seven parishioners who detained him until Police arrived at the Church. The priest and a parishioner were injured in the scuffle which ensued.
Ricci has been charged with battery, theft and disruption of a Church service. He was the last one in the line to receive the Eucharist at the Saturday Morning Mass. All of the other communicants had returned to the pews.
(Excerpt) Read more at catholic.org ...
I want those people on my next flight!
Heck, charge him with kidnapping, too.
A strategy revealed.
We're better than Wayne County. Really.
How can one “steal” a wafer that is given to one? Once the priest puts it on to his tongue, it belongs to him. And please don’t come around with the silly notion that it is a “crime to steal God.”
By committing other crimes......."Ricci has been charged with battery, theft and disruption of a Church service".
He wanted them all.
It's simple, actually. One is given the consecrated Host for purposes of worship and Holy Communion. When the priest says "The Body of Christ" and a person responds by answering "Amen," that person is presenting himself as a worshipper. If he is not in fact a worshipper, he is guilty of fraud.
It would be analogous to these situations: If volunteers were given equipment to fight a forest fire, and instead took them home as souvenirs, that would be fraud.
If medicines were being given out for immediate consumption in a health crisis situation, and people were standing in line to pocket them and take them elsewhere for re-sale, that would be fraud.
If family and friends of a fallen soldier who perished in battle were being given items of his property as mementoes, and somebody presented himself amongst the friends, got some of the soldier's precious personal photos and letters and then darted across the street and burned them as part of a jeering anti-military "symbolic action," that would fraud.
I think the law would determine that if an item was given out for a particular purpose, and a person presented himself to receive it while concealing his true intended use of the item, which he knew to be offensive to the giver, fraud occurred upon reception of the property.
I wonder why the various Prop 8 protesters have not been charged with disrupting a religious service?
Yikes - I’m usually the last guy in line at my church!
“..but some people are a little more progressive and just have it placed in their hands.”
I guess that you disapprove of Extraordinary Ministers of Communion? Bring your disagreement up with your pastor and see what he says.
A priest or Eucharistic minister presents the concecrated hosts to all participants in Communion, yes. But they hold all of the hosts in a dish or bowl of some kind, they don't just grab a handful.
It sounds like what happened was, this jerk grabbed the bowl from the the priest, with the hosts.
Two Catholic churches in Vermont and one in Berlin, New Hampshire have been broken into in the last 2 weeks.
In all, the consecrated hosts have been stolen.
Any others?
As long as your people recognize you, you're OK. It's the stranger they need to beware of. The guy who steps in behind YOU.
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There can be a number of reasons for stealing or desecrating the Host. Hatred of religion or general mischief are two. Satanism is another. In a case like this of disrupting the Mass publicly, it’s likely either to be a nut case or a gay pride protestor. Or an Obamamaniac.
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