UPDATED! OKLAHOMA CITY: Lawsuit v Satanic event, Consecrated Host turned over!

UPDATE 21 Aug afternoon:

I received an email that the consecrated Host has been delivered up to Archbp. Coakley.

I hope there was only one and that this event is being shut down by prayers and public sensibility.

_______ ORIGINAL Aug 21, 2014 @ 9:37 _____

I read at the National Catholic Register that His Excellency Most Reverend Paul Coakley, Archbishop of Oklahoma City has brough a suit against the people who would perpetrate a public Satanic event, a black mass.

OKLAHOMA CITY — Attorneys for the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City filed a lawsuit at noon today [20 Aug] to stop the satanic black mass that organizers are planning to stage next month in the Oklahoma City Civic Center Music Hall.

The lawsuit asks the Oklahoma County Sheriff‘s Office to retrieve the consecrated host that the event‘s organizers claim to have, and return it to Oklahoma City Archbishop Paul Coakley. The lawsuit also argues that the consecrated host was obtained under fraudulent circumstances, and thus it must be returned to the archdiocese.

“Our contention is that they are in possession of stolen property,” Archbishop Coakley told the Register. “They cannot complete their satanic ritual without a consecrated host, and they have no means of acquiring one except through theft. We are asking the court to order them to return it immediately to me.”

Archbishop Coakley added that the archdiocese, in consulting with the attorneys who filed the lawsuit, formulated a sound argument rooted in canon and civil law.

“We are trusting the court will recognize that and act accordingly,” the archbishop said. “We hope this is a way that we can prevent the desecration of the Eucharist from taking place by removing from their possession what they have obtained illegally, that is the consecrated host.”

Michael Caspino, [I met him during the recent Napa Institute conference.  A stand-up guy.] one of two attorneys who filed the lawsuit on behalf of the archdiocese in Oklahoma District Court said the legal argument for the case is simple: “A consecrated Eucharist belongs to the Church.”

Caspino, the CEO and partner at the Busch & Caspino law firm in Irvine, Calif., told the Register that the Church has exercised “dominion and control” over the Eucharist for more than 2,000 years. The lawsuit provides information on Church processes set up to safeguard the consecrated host.

The Satanists procured the consecrated host by illicit means, theft or fraud,” Caspino said. “We are simply asking the court to return the stolen property to its rightful owner, the Roman Catholic Church.”

Named as defendants are Adam Daniels, an Oklahoma County resident, and Dakhma of Angra Mainyu, a group that has rented the Oklahoma City Civic Center’s 88-seat City Theater to stage the black mass on Sept. 21. Daniels, a member of Dakhma of Angra Mainyu, has told various media outlets that a friend mailed him the consecrated host, and that it will be desecrated, “stomped on” and destroyed during the satanic ritual.

Daniels, who has been involved in organizing public Satanist events in Oklahoma City since 2010, is a registered sex offender.

Contacted by the Register, Daniels struck a defiant tone. He called the lawsuit “frivolous” and said it was meant to intimidate him from holding the black mass. He said the archdiocese’s efforts will backfire.

“It will not work. We are not cancelling. We are moving forward,” said Daniels, who also threatened to “sue everybody I can sue” for defamation of character. He added that the court has 14 days to serve him with the lawsuit.

“They have two weeks to serve me, if they can find me,” Daniels said.

[…]

The Legal Argument

The legal argument in today’s lawsuit partly frames the consecrated host issue as a matter of property rights. It essentially argues that the Catholic Church, through its sacramental theology and code of canon law, sets the conditions for how the Eucharist is consecrated, distributed to the faithful and reposed. Anyone who deliberately obtains a consecrated host under illicit circumstances, either through sneaking it through the communion line or outright stealing it, violates the Church’s legal right to regulate its internal life.

“The Church is asking for the protection of its most basic right, namely not to have its sacraments used inappropriately. In civil law, Archbishop Coakley is acting as a responsible steward of the Eucharist. The Church enjoys the same protection of civil law that any other entity would enjoy,” said J.D. Flynn, a canon lawyer based in Lincoln, Neb.

Flynn told the Register that canon law spells out what is appropriate and inappropriate reception of the Eucharist. Anyone who discards a consecrated host, or retains it for a sacrilegious purpose, incurs an automatic excommunication that can only be redressed by the Holy See.

“If anyone obtains the host for sacrilegious purpose, they are violating the tenets by which the Eucharist is governed in the context of our Church,” Flynn said. “And the right of free exercise of religion allows us to administer the Eucharist in the context of the governing documents of our Church.”

The five-page lawsuit, as well as an accompanying declaration written by Dominican Father Joseph Fox, an expert in canon law, explain the theology behind the Eucharist and the various disciplines the Church has developed over its 2,000-year history to ensure the integrity and protection of consecrated hosts.

For example, the documents say that only a validly ordained priest can consecrate the Eucharist, and that ministers of Holy Communion need permission to take consecrated hosts outside a church building for specific pastoral purposes.

Father Fox writes that the Catholic Church “maintains ownership of all consecrated hosts throughout the world,” and that to Catholics, the consecrated host, making the person of Jesus Christ himself physically present, “is the most sacred, respected and revered thing in the world.”

The defendants, the lawsuit adds, “do not have consent or authorization” from Archbishop Coakley — who is tasked to safeguard the Church‘s property — to possess a consecrated host outside the church. The lawsuit is seeking a court order that the defendants not consume, damage or profane the consecrated host, if they indeed possess one.

[…]

Read the rest there.

I hope that this lawsuit produces some positive results.

The legal approach, the argument that the Church is the owner of the Eucharist, which is property, is interesting.  You might recall that a while back I commented favorably about something written by Fishwrap’s Phyllis Zagano (HERE), who had said that what these loons were planning was “vandalism of religious property“.  At the time I expressed reservation about that approach.  This lawsuit in OK turns on it.

Finally, from the NCReg article

Archbishop Coakley has previously asked that the Prayer to St. Michael the Archangel be said at the end of every Mass, beginning on the Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord on Aug. 6 and continuing through the Feast of the Archangels on Sept. 29. [I don’t think they should stop doing it.  As a matter of fact, they should reinstate the Leonine Prayers after all Masses.] The archbishop has also requested that individual Catholics and parishes make Eucharistic holy hours “to avert this sacrilege and publicly manifest our faith in the Lord and our loving gratitude for the gift of the Holy Eucharist, the source and summit of our lives.”

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68 Comments

  1. jfk03 says:

    The simplest measure to prevent desecration of the Holy Eucharist in the future would be to require communion on the tongue. There is no way that the Church can prevent people from walking away with consecrated hosts when they are distributed on the hand.

  2. LarryW2LJ says:

    jfk03:

    Common sense! But who uses or has it anymore?

  3. APX says:

    “They have two weeks to serve me, if they can find me,” Daniels said.

    […]

    If he’s a registered sex offender, he’s going to have to report any change of address, which must be public. If he doesn’t, he will end up arrested, back in jail, and served his court papers anyways.

  4. APX says:

    Jfk03

    It’s just as easy to steal the Eucharist.

  5. Suburbanbanshee says:

    Reduce, probably. Prevent, no. As many people have pointed out, stealing for this purpose was invented back when it was everybody communicating by tongue, there were fewer communicants, and the accidents of the wafers were a lot more melt-in-your-mouth than today.

    Nothing that goes into your mouth has to be swallowed and digested. I don’t see any way to prevent that, unless you’re suggesting that priests should routinely adopt the practices one uses when giving a dog a pill. In which case I think you’re going to need more servers.

  6. Suburbanbanshee says:

    Anyway, is this treating Our Lord as property? Or is it treating the accidents like real estate property that we administer for Our Lord, Who is onsite as it were?

  7. YoungLatinMassGuy says:

    Hate to say it, but Satanists know more about the Church, and are even more honest about the Church, than almost anyone else on planet Earth.

    They want to perform a black MASS. They don’t want to perform a black Methodist service, or a black Lutheran service, or a black Hindu service, or a black Sikh service, or a black Buddhist service. It’s a Mass. They want to desecrate the Eucharist.

    It’s not that they know what the Eucharist is. Satanists know Who the Eucharist is.

    They Know that the Eucharist IS Jesus.

    Whether they acknowledge it or not, they know it. Why else would they go to such trouble?

    Now if only more non-Catholic Christians, more non-Christians, and probably most importantly, more Catholics could come to the same realization, we’d be in better shape.

  8. While I am praying and hoping something will stop this evil, I’m not convinced this legal strategy will do it.

  9. DavidJ says:

    jfk03, unfortunately it’s not a 100% guarantee that distributing (nigh) exclusively on the tongue will prevent things like this from happening. That being said, it wouldn’t be a bad thing to do anyway!

  10. Iacobus M says:

    Given that the the only purpose of the so-called “black mass” is obscene mockery of the most holy rite of the Catholic Church, shouldn’t this be covered by the “hate crimes” laws that seem so popular today? At the very least, Oklahoma City should have refused from the beginning to rent out public property for such a hateful purpose

  11. Bosco says:

    Yes. The converse is true.

    If a Satanic Mass may only be conducted using a Host consecrated by a Catholic priest, then to advertise the event as a genuine ‘Satanic Mass’ without being able to produce proof such a consecrated Host will be used during the event constitutes likely commercial advertising fraud perpetrated on the public.

    If it is not a fraud, and a genuinely consecrated Host is to be used, then the priest who performed the consecration must identify himself and attest to it, thereby asserting his bona fides and inevitable legal culpability.

  12. Mike says:

    “. . . shouldn’t this be covered by the ‘hate crimes’ laws that seem so popular today?”

    While this sort of anti-Catholic aggression would certainly fall under current “hate speech” proscriptions, I predict it will be a matter of days before the Sorosmedia discover what non-zombies have known all along, which is that such laws fall afoul of Amendment I to the United States Constitution.

  13. While eliminating communion in the hand would not 100% eliminate the problem of someone walking away with the Eucharist, it would certainly reduce the chances. Preventing even ONE profanation is worth it…and preventing even one satanic ritual the means to desecrate the Eucharist overrides, I think, any self-indulgent desire on the part of a lay person to handle the Sacred Species.

    There is a reason it was forbidden back in the early Church. And mankind’s predeliction for evil or ignorance has not changed. Just do away with it…in the meme of not letting the perfect become the enemy of the good.

  14. Marissa says:

    These are the fruits of the Americanist heresy.

  15. Uxixu says:

    Definitely should return to near-exclusive Holy Communion at the rail. Zero tolerance never makes sense, particularly for certain disabilities but hard to see any place in the hand is desirable that reflects a reverence in the Real Presence.

    I’m not so sure about the Leonine prayers. The Ite should be THE dismissal. I’d much prefer cathedrals, if not diocesan parishes resume recitation of the Office / Hours in choir with intentions against these blasphemies.

  16. Legisperitus says:

    I suppose the courts would just laugh if they called it kidnapping. But I guess property is the default analysis when the law doesn’t recognize someone as a person.

  17. acricketchirps says:

    Agree with BDB. But when you say, “Preventing even ONE profanation is worth it,” you seem imply by those last two words that there are good reasons for Communion in the hand which would have to be foregone.

    I can’t see how we’d be giving up anything even the tiniest bit of good were bishops to outlaw and proscribe Communion in the hand.

  18. MarkJ says:

    I called the OK City Civic Center to let them know how offended I was at their allowing this to take place. The woman claimed that they could not discriminate. I asked her if it was not a hate crime, and she didn’t see it as one. She said if they did not allow the satanists, fhen they could not allow Christians either. I finally said to her how bizarre it was that satan, the father of lies snd author of all evil, was put on an equal footing with God. We need to change our laws…

  19. TWF says:

    Uxixu:
    No reason why parishes can’t recite both the Leonine prayers AS WELL as the Divine Office. The Second Vatican Council called for parishes around the world to celebrate the Office, or at the very least to celebrate Sunday Vespers, but parishes that do so are few and far between. One of the many legitimate reforms of Vatican II that those who implemented the reforms completely ignored.

  20. pigg0214 says:

    I can easily see the judge dismissing the Bishop’s lawsuit under the pretense that the Catholic Church does not abide by the same Canons and discipline sited in the lawsuit. Thus, if you don’t keep your own house, why should I be obliged to, you obviously don’t believe what you are standing in front of me trying to defend. The problem then becomes credibility. I hope this forces our prelates to be more faithful to WHO they are supposed to be defending. I speak here in general terms and not of any particular individual, especially of His Excellency Most Reverend Paul Coakley.

  21. Johnny Domer says:

    The chief argument I could see being raised against the Church’s position would be that the Church offers the Eucharist to the public freely. The Church’s position–that it isn’t simply offered to the public freely and without conditions–would be easier to maintain if the Church’s pastors applied more rigorous liturgical and canonical discipline, and actually preached substantively about when one may or may not receive Communion

    1. If Bishops actually followed Canon 915, this might be helpful. I’m imagining a cross examination of a bishop (not any specific one). Attorney: “Do you have rules regulating to whom the Eucharist may or may not be given?” Bishop: “Yes.” Attorney: “But do you follow those rules? Here’s a rule that says you can’t give Communion to manifest public sinners–do you follow it?” Bishop: “Weeeeeeeeeeell…Cardinal Burke does…” Attorney: “So is your ‘liturgical law’ actually law that you must follow, or just guidelines?” Bishop: “Weeeeeell…”

    2. If Catholic parishes explicitly laid down the conditions for reception of Communion in, for example, their parish bulletins–that reception of Holy Communion is only available to baptized Catholics who are in the state of grace–the legal argument might be easier to make. Attorney: “Do you have rules for when persons may receive Holy Communion?” Priest: “Yes.” Attorney: “Where are those rules posted?” Priest: “Uuuuuuuuuuh…nowhere?” Attorney: “Do you instruct your people as to who may or may not receive Communion?” Priest: “Uuuuuuuuuuuuh…I tell them to be the light of the world sometimes.” Attorney: “You claim your Church teaches that those in mortal sin can’t go to Communion unless they go to Confession first. How often do you tell people about this, or urge them to go to Confession?” Priest: “Uuuuuuuuuh…I mean, Fr. Z tells them to go all the time, but…”

  22. Cordelio says:

    Following on Father Martin Fox’s comment, I am also not convinced that this legal strategy will succeed. In fact, I think it’s virtually certain not to succeed unless the Archdiocese has enough evidence to affirmatively allege that the consecrated Host was taken from one of its churches (and it might not succeed even then).

    In part because of this very low likelihood of success, this lawsuit makes me uneasy. In fact, asking the U.S. courts to rule in a case like this seems like a potentially greater threat to the Church’s right to regulate its own internal life. It would be a different matter if this was a Catholic country that legally recognized the supremacy of the Church is these affairs, but as it is once we concede the principle that the U.S. courts have jurisdiction to decide who has ownership over consecrated hosts (except perhaps on the basis of the host specifically originating from a particular church), that concession could be very harmful in other circumstances.

  23. Bender says:

    The Eucharist is the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ.

    This is basic stuff in Catholicism.

    As such, a consecrated Host – the Eucharist – is not an article of property. You can’t own the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ. The very idea is absurd and contrary to every teaching on the Real Presence. No human can assert ownership over Jesus as if He were mere chattel.

    An unconsecrated host, being merely a kind of bread, can and is property. But once it is consecrated it is no longer possible to be a species of property. And to claim that the Host still is property and that can be owned – that anyone can own the Body of Christ, the Divinity of Christ – is among the highest kinds of hubris that one can imagine.

    Words mean things. Words like “property” and “own” mean things. Clearly, anyone who would claim that the Eucharist is property capable of being owned is someone who really hasn’t quite thought through the ramifications of his too-cute-by-half argument.

    We have enough people who do not believe in the Real Presence. Arguing that the Eucharist is a mere thing does not help.

  24. gracie says:

    I hope I’m wrong, but I can’t see this lawsuit succeeding. Once you hand over your property to someone else there’s always the possibility of that property being destroyed. Think of lending your lawnmower to your neighbor. Yes, it’s still your property; yes, he should take care of it but if he doesn’t at the most it ends up in small claims’ court if you want to be reimbursed (And what’s the monetary value of a Consecrated Host?) I would think the court will say that in this case it’s even more problematic because you’re not *lending* your property; you’re *giving it away*. At that point doesn’t it belong to the person you giving it to?

    The *only* way to fix this problem is to get rid of Communion on the Hand and go back to Communion on the Tongue. Even though a person could remove the Host from his mouth afterwards, it would be very unlikely because the Wafer starts breaking up pretty fast, lessening the chances of having an intact one for later use.

    The question is, do bishops have the commitment to protect the Blessed Sacrament?

  25. wmeyer says:

    Adam Daniels, according to an article on Women of Grace, now claims the host was given him by a priest from “overseas”, said priest having been the one to consecrate that host. He also claims this priest is a friend of his. That would seem to me to suggest that the priest in question has not reduced the claims in the suit, for how could he licitly “give” the consecrated host to such a person?

  26. Charlie Cahill says:

    Reintroducing communion on the tongue would not solve the problem.
    I have seen people take it out of their mouth,look at it and put in back in their mouths.In one case a kid started to put it in his pocket until I asked him to swallow it which he did.
    I think the only way that ‘might ‘ work is to have ushers or others watch until the hosts has been consumed.
    But that may not be possible.

  27. frjim4321 says:

    Very clever approach.

    I will be hopeful that this approach is successful.

    Obviously COTT is not a corrective to this whatsoever. Further COTT I find COTT unpleasant because it is so unhygienic. Fortunately there are very few (1 -2 %) here who still embrace that anachronistic practice.

    I can’t believe the hall owners rented out the hall for such a disgusting purpose. Would they rent out to the KKK?

  28. MAJ Tony says:

    I think the whole case here rests on fraudulent reception. At communion, you are given the species with the understanding that you will “take and eat” and not “take and do some other thing besides.” If you do the latter, you are perpetrating fraud. That said, in order to prove fraud, a Church would have to prove somehow that the satanists actually had a consecrated host. That might not be too difficult, if the satanists expressed the notion that they had such. Of course, there’s the issue of whether or not the court even wants to touch the case.

  29. wmeyer says:

    I remain happily anachronistic, frjim, and I see many more than the 1-2% you cite.

  30. KM Edwards says:

    You can (and I am encouraging you) all sign a public on-line petition to OK City officials to halt this outrage . The goal is 100,000 protest petitions by Sept. 21. Sign it today!! Anyone can sign here to STOP the “Black Mass”

    http://www.tfpstudentaction.org/stop-black-mass-oklahoma-city.html

    Several TFP Student Action volunteers are preparing to drive to Oklahoma to stage a prayerful act of reparation right in front of the Civic Center where the sacrilege is planned.

  31. KM Edwards says:

    @gracie
    “Think of lending your lawnmower to your neighbor.”
    I respectfully disagree with this perspective. This is more like a relative or neighbour who is familiar with you abuses your trust and takes your lawnmower against your express wishes and gives it to someone who plans to trash it. Finding out where your lawnmower is, and the intention of the one in possession of it to trash it, you ask for it back and they refuse. You definitely have legal recourse to reclaim your property before it gets trashed.

  32. KM Edwards says:

    @gracie
    “Think of lending your lawnmower to your neighbor.”

    No, this is not a correct way to view the legal situation. This is more like a relative or neighbour who is familiar, who you gave your lawnmower to for a specific use, decides, against your express desires and intentions, to give your lawnmower to a 3rd party who intends to trash it. You request the 3rd party to return your property before they trash it, and they refuse. One definitely has legal recourse to retrieving the property.

    And while the faithful may wonder how appropriate it may be to consider the Lord’s body and blood as “property”, from the perspective of the Church being the Body of the Lord, in actual and spiritual fact, I believe it is very appropriate to see the Consecrated Host as part of the Church (notably its Head) and therefore very much a part of the Church’s “property” just as much as my nose and eyes are part of “my property”.

  33. TWF says:

    Fr. Jim,
    Communion on the tongue is much more widespread than 1-2% in many parts of the world. Regardless of its prevalence, or lack thereof, in the US/Canada, it remains the universal norm of the Latin Church…COTH remains an indult only, not the legal norm. That suggests that the Church hierarchy, or at least Rome, still considers COTT the ideal. I don’t think it has to be unhygienic – if the priest knows how to drop the Host “just so”.

  34. Uxixu says:

    @Charlie Cahill: “I think the only way that ‘might ‘ work is to have ushers or others watch until the hosts has been consumed.”

    I think many/most parishes DO this, usually with Ushers (I would love to see Minor Orders Ostariis ordained and/or instituted (whatever we call it, they never received imposition of hands) to that, and other purposes instead, but it’s doable)…

    Communion on the tongue, kneeling at the rail, would just makes it that much easier to spot.

  35. Kathleen10 says:

    There is no way to protect Jesus from priests who would “give” a consecrated host to those who worship Satan.
    Communion on the tongue is no guarantee.
    Neither is an altar rail.
    I know this is going to sound bizarre, but I have long wondered about this. I attended a Protestant church services many years ago and their communion practice was in disseminating little, tiny cups of wine, like, a thimble.
    Making the Precious Blood the primary mode of receiving Holy Communion, which our local parish churches hardly offer, ever, would pretty much eliminate the “kidnapped Jesus” problem. Coming up to the priest or EMHC, the person is given a thimble of the Precious Blood, they consume, they leave. It would be extremely hard for anyone to retrieve that and make it not seem silly to even the goons who would attend a Black Mass, who would then be desecrating what appeared to be spit. Kind of takes the fun out of it.
    If we really want to address this problem, and put protecting Jesus as our supreme priority, it will take something on this order, definitely a departure from tradition but a response to an evil situation.

  36. Lori Pieper says:

    I don’t think Communion on the tongue would do anything at all to reduce the possibility of theft. If someone receives in the hand, but doesn’t consume the Host on the spot, as they are meant to do, but pockets it or otherwise secrets in on his person, it will (at least it should) be spotted by the priest or EMOHC, or the altar server, and the person can be caught and either corrected or deprived of the Host. That’s why I doubt anyone would attempt to steal the Host in this fashion. You don’t steal while you are being watched. (And yes, Ministers of Holy Communion should be vigilant!)

    On the other hand, I recall that several years ago, while there was a rash of hosts being stolen and desecrated on YouTube, those who stole them said they had removed the Hosts from their mouths after receiving; that’s about the only way you can do it without being caught. Receive and put the host in your mouth – or let the priest put it there, it doesn’t matter, then back in your pew, when no one’s looking, get out your handkerchief, pretend to cough or sneeze into it, and slip the host from your mouth into it instead. Even if you are seen, no one can tell you haven’t already swallowed the host. And this isn’t really that clever of a plan – even the dumbest satanists could think of it. (And those YouTube desecrators, from all evidence, were dumb teens). The Host won’t dissolve that quickly, if you are careful.

    There are lots of reason that can be adduced for COTT, but this isn’t one of them.

  37. APX says:

    Kathleen,

    Every single tiny thimble that held the Precious Blood would have to be properly purified, then there is the risk of spillage.

    Two possibilities: Use intinction for reception, or communion on the tongue host consumed at the communion rail by a priest and mouth inspection to make sure it’s consumed.

    I remember a priest literally chasing down some guy at Mass and violently grabbing at his arm to stop him when he walked away with a host.

  38. Marissa says:

    I can’t remember who the story was about – but I was listening to a lecture on Audio Sancto about a woman who took a consecrated host out of the church somehow (many centuries ago, so it was on the tongue). Apparently she tried to crush it or break it and when she fell asleep, she dreamed of the Child Jesus, bruised and bloodied. Her horrified realization upon awakening changed her life from that moment on. If someone can remember the name of this woman, please help, I can’t remember if she became a saint or not. But it’s important to note that human beings will always wound the Lord, no matter how much we try to protect Him. And sometimes those who wound Him so severely learn a great lesson from His suffering.

  39. Grateful to be Catholic says:

    The Archbishop won! The satanist has agreed to give up the Consecrated Host!
    http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=22361

  40. bj says:

    Wonderful news, Grateful to be Catholic!

  41. suedusek says:

    I suppose we should trust that the consecrated host was REALLY turned over. But what if he kept it and passed off an unconsecrated host in its stead? Why would we trust Daniels and the other organizers? I’m suspicious. Sorry. Will continue to pray on this one.

  42. Uxixu says:

    @Kathleen10 consecrated vessels are required to touch the Precious Body and Blood of Our Lord so these “thimbles” would all need to be consecrated at a least gilt if not of wholly precious material themselves. Far easier to just not give Communion to the laity (remember that frequent Communion even every Sunday is a relatively recent phenomenon from St Pius X in SACRA TRIDENTINA in 1905). It was apparently still somewhat rare in the first few editions of Fortescue (in 1917-1920) as it’s an exception.

  43. Uxixu says:

    @suedusek On that same line of thought, I wonder if they even had a consecrated host to begin with versus making or acquiring an unconsecrated host, which would be much easier.

  44. Father G says:

    Deo gratias! How happy I am to read the update!

  45. frjim4321 says:

    Hope the report can be verified.

  46. DavidJ says:

    I’m not sure I believe a self-professed Satanist who decided that desecrating a Host in a blasphemous ceremony decided to give it back. Charity in all things, and I hope that this is sincere.

    However…

  47. gracie says:

    For those who say that people can hide/take out later Hosts from the mouth and save them:

    Even though this mode definitely would cut down on abuses; it is still true that it is possible for someone to receive the Host and then remove and hide it. There *is* one surefire, simple way to resolve this problem: namely, only give out the Precious Blood at Communion – perhaps with a teaspoon or even an eye dropper so that the Blood quickly will be lost in the saliva before it can be spit out. I realize this will not appeal to some of the readers here but – if we’re looking for the least abusive way of giving out Communion – frankly, that’s it.

    Those who can’t tolerate wine or are alcoholics would need to notify the priest ahead of time and then at Mass he first would go to them and give them a *microscopic* piece of the Host which would be a soggy mess within a few seconds so that it could not be retrieved for anything. If a person is visiting or doesn’t have time to notify the priest, he can make a Spiritual Communion. God will understand and surely bless him for his thoughtfulness.

    I realize that these measures may seem extreme but am presuming that those who reject Communion on the Tongue are sincere in wanting to protect the Blessed Sacrament at all costs. If that is so then, honestly, only the most stringent rules will work.

  48. AdIesumPerMariam says:

    I am also of the belief that they returned an unconsecrated host, and that at the last possible minute, they’ll reveal this and desecrate Him…

  49. Lori Pieper says:

    I agree, I think it’s an unconsecrated host. Otherwise, why would they give it up so easily?

    Unless it’s because Daniels has already been in trouble with police because he’s a sex offender and doesn’t want to stir anything up. It’s possible his defiance was just bluster.

    We just nee to wait and see what happens, I guess.

  50. SaintJude6 says:

    Fr. Jim,
    Consider my whole family anachronistic. And we attend a parish where everyone receives on the tongue, kneeling at the rail. No sauntering up to the EM in flip-flops and popping it back like a cracker. We used to attend a parish where almost everyone received in the hand. And unsurprisingly, there was also a problem with disbelief among the parishioners in the real presence.

  51. Lori Pieper says:

    Hmm. The WSJ article quotes Daniels as saying: ““I don’t feel like wasting thousands of dollars fighting over a cookie.” This sort of indicates to me that he’s not a real Satanist. Because a real Satanist would actually care if a Host is really consecrated, wouldn’t he? He has to believe there’s some real spiritual power there for him to invert. They are even saying that they are “toning dwn” the BM ceremony. No one who thinks they are celebrating a real ceremony says that.

    I don’t know what relationship, if any, there is between this bunch and the group of atheists that tried to stage the Black Mass at Harvard (which they actually called a “re-enactment”), but their attitudes seem to be similar. They are atheists trying to make some sort of statement, or who just want to harass Catholics.

  52. Moro says:

    A round of thanks and applause is more than deserved for the bishop and this legal team. I have been saying for a long time the Church in America needs to stop bending over and start fighting back in the courts, because that’s one of the few things our enemies understand and you’ll see them cower quickly. Don’t limit it to consecrated hosts, but also slander and libel against the Church, etc.

  53. Chon says:

    Lori Pieper, since Satan is the father of lies, why should we believe this Satanist when he calls it a cookie? And it seems he is toning down the ceremony because he no longer has the consecrated host.

  54. Martlet says:

    When you have Catholic priests who are members of satanic groups – and I am afraid they do exist – all this discussion of Communion in the hand versus on the tongue is irrelevant. I’m not sure about the lawsuit, but I am sure about prayer. I will be posting – and praying – the Prayer to St Michael on my FB page every morning for the next month.

  55. VexillaRegis says:

    Hmm. I think they gave up too easily. Something isn’t right here. Did they cancel the black mass?

  56. Grateful to be Catholic says:

    If the satanist returned an unconsecrated host, what can he do now? He can’t go on with the Black Mass without admitting that’s what he did, in which case the law suit would be reinstated and he might even find himself charged with contempt, which could mean jail time or a fine. His lawyer will advise him not to get in that position.

  57. JonPatrick says:

    Fr. Jim, I guess if you feel communion on the tongue is unhygenic, then you must be against the reception of the Precious Blood, and also shaking hands at the sign of peace, all of which transmit germs.

    A the Mass I attend, 100% of the 200 or so people receive on the tongue via that anachronistic practice the church followed for the last 1700 years or so until here in the US it was changed via a sleight of hand by then-Bishop Bernardin and his cronies at the NCCB, a vote that violated all of the Vatican’s procedures on how this Indult was to be applied.

  58. Kerry says:

    To suppose if only the Church did this, or did that is, borrowing T.S. Eliot’s words, “Dreaming of systems so perfect no one will need to be good”. “Dreaming of systems” belongs to the progressives (sic.) Teaching people to be good, “Be thou perfect…”

  59. Venerator Sti Lot says:

    gracie (et al),

    Another sweeping prudential measure against recipient Host-abusers would be some kind of incorporation of features of Byzantine practice whether with portions of leavened Lamb and Prosphora, or by varying and expanding features of Roman liturgical practice, so that the Faithful are given by spoon consecrated morsels intincted to the point of saturation and beyond. This would also leave quite clear the difference between consecrated and unconsecrated Bread.

    Martlet’s observation is in keeping with the ‘performance’ (or whatever it may be accurately called) of Black Masses by renegade priests in the past (during the reign of Louis XIV, for example): preventing that requires other sorts of vigilance.

  60. Lyons says:

    Does an individual Bishop in the US have the authority to forbid Communion in the hand in his diocese?

  61. Salvelinus says:

    I hate to throw water on the discussion for how we “prevent this from ever happening” but who’s to say it still won’t happen?
    I mean, can one “trust” a Satan worshipping sex offender at his word that he actually returned the consecrated host, and not just the wafer that they practice with?

  62. Salvelinus says:

    And yes, I’m also one of those “anachronistic” blokes also, I suppose…

  63. robtbrown says:

    frjim4321 says:

    Obviously COTT is not a corrective to this whatsoever. Further COTT I find COTT unpleasant because it is so unhygienic. Fortunately there are very few (1 -2 %) here who still embrace that anachronistic practice.

    In so far as Communion in the hand has been promoted as the practice of the Early Church, it would seem even more anachronistic.

  64. Mary Jane says:

    Folks, Fr Jim’s pattern is to pop into a thread, make an inflammatory comment, back away, and watch the reactions fly. Best way to deal with this is to ignore (easier said than done, I know).

  65. KateD says:

    I’m inclined to not trust that the satanist returned the actual Eucharist. However, the open performance of a black mass has been prevented and the precedence has been set for stopping future black masses.

    Kathleen10 – At the Byzantine Divine Liturgy, the Eucharist is intinctured and administered by the Priest who drops the Eucharist into the backward tilted head of the communicant via a small spoon. I believe intincturing in the Latin Rite is an abuse? At anyrate, though nothing is fool-proof, it seems like it would be very difficult to abscond with the Eucharist from a Byzantine Divine Liturgy.

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