READER ALERT: Day of Reparation Proposed After Professor Desecrates Host

Desecration of Host Not Seen as Free Speech: Confraternity Proposes Prayer Day in Reparation
JULY 30, 2008

HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania- The Confraternity of Catholic Clergy is proposing Friday as a national day of prayer and fasting in the wake of the desecration of the Eucharist by a Minnesota professor.

Father John Trigilio, Jr., the president of the confraternity, a U.S. association of 600 priests and deacons, sent out a statement this week asking Catholics "to join in a day of prayer and fasting that such offenses never happen again."

Paul Myers, a professor of biology at the University of Minnesota at Morris, says he desecrated the Eucharist by piercing it with a rusty nail, then he threw it into the trash.

The self-professed atheist wrote about the incident on his blog and posted a photo of the desecrated host.

The statement of the Confraternity of Catholic Clergy said it found the actions of Myers "reprehensible, inexcusable, and unconstitutional. His flagrant display of irreverence by profaning a consecrated Host from a Catholic Church goes beyond the limit of academic freedom and free speech."

"Attacking the most sacred elements of a religion is not free speech any more than would be perjury in a court or libel in a newspaper,"added the text.

Father Trigilio told ZENIT that the congregation is asking the faithful to make a holy hour before the Eucharist on August 1, the feast of St. Alphonsus Ligouri, and to fast in "reparation for the sacrilegious desecration of the Holy Eucharist.




Copyright (c) 2008 Zenit News Agency. All rights reserved.