Wednesday, April 04, 2012

Lock up the hosts

An escalating wave of sacrilegious thefts of wafers strikes across Italy. 

The Archbishop of Monreale encourages parishes to lock up the Eucharist, with a green light from the Holy See.

The image of an empty tabernacle and the hosts being kept locked up elsewhere seems almost heretical. 

But in truth, keeping the Eucharist safe is well worth breaking away from the norm. 

There is nothing more sacred in the Church than the consecrated Host. 

Yet for months now, these violations and abuses have been taking place, one right after the other: from the two Muslims in Sondrio who received the host in their hands from a priest - only to put it in their pockets, to a barrage of sacrilegious thefts throughout Italy. 

It has become bad enough to justify a forceful and unusual act by a bishop, intended to set an example for others: keep the wafers in a protected place in the parish, just like people keep their jewels in a safe.
  
"It is correct to protect them from a serious threat – something decisive had to be done," is the talk heard in the Vatican. In short, the Holy See has approved the locking up of the hosts to prevent them from being stolen and used by satanic cults in their black masses. And even at highest levels of the Italian Conference of Bishops, a "hard line" against desecration finds full support. 

The canonist Cardinal Velasio De Paolis, current Director for the Pontifical Congregation of the Legionaries of Christ, who has long occupied top positions at the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura and various Vatican dicasteries, supports the "exceptional measure" initiated by the Archbishop of Monreale, Salvatore Di Cristina. 

In the face of the escalation of sacrilegious thefts throughout Italy, it is right to hide the consecrated hosts in a secure location, and to leave the tabernacles empty and open to prevent their being broken into. 

In canon law, explained the cardinal of the Curia, the desecration of the Eucharist is the worst thing one can do - a crime punished with excommunication "latae sententiae" reserved to the Apostolic See. 

"It is evoked 'ipso facto', that is, for the very fact of having committed it, and excommunication is automatic," De Paolis explains to Vatican Insider.
 
"The Host given in the hand instead of the mouth increases the risk of that it will be taken away, profaned, or kept for a sacrilegious purpose. But it is Jesus himself who performed this rite with the apostles," notes the cardinal. 

“The fact that the celebrant washes his hands before touching the bread in which Christ is present is not just a symbolic and spiritual act."

 So it is "appropriate that we do everything we can to ensure the utmost respect for the Eucharist." 

 The "exceptional but legitimate" decision of the Archbishop of Monreale does not, therefore, conflict with the laws of the Church. 

Especially since, in recent months, the map of the churches targeted in Italy has traced a red alert zone of "sacrilegious geography," in dioceses both large and small, in the south or in the far north.
  
Every case seems to go according to the same script, with the underlying signature of followers of the occult: sacristies cracked open by the tools of thieves, the theft of containers of hosts, tabernacles split in two. 

There have been pyxes stolen from the parish of St. John Bosco in Vasto, goblets with wafers that disappeared from the church of St. Vito in Paestum; wafers removed from the hospital chapel of Biancavilla (Catania), and a night raid on the parish of St. Catherine on the Ionian Sea (Catanzaro). 

Also targeted by the sacrilegious thieves was the sanctuary of the Madonna delle Grazie in Monza, and other places of worship in the diocese of Milan in Bereggio and Lentate sul Seveso. And their work was seen again at the Santissimo Nome di Maria in Fornaci Vecchia (Lucca), the church of St. Franca at Piacenza, and the Black Madonna of Monte Nero at Sant’Antonio di Gallura. 

They have attacked the diocese of Monreale with a particular fury, with four incidents within the last three months (Villagrazia Carini, Terrasini, Cinisi, Partinico).
  
From north to south, an unbroken chain of profanity is evidence of the boom of Satanist groups, recently discussed in a law enforcement report, powered by the Internet jungle drum. 

At Santa Croce sull’Arno at Montegranaro, near Ascoli Piceno, the incursions into sacred places have no other purpose than the theft of the wafers, casting the shadow of Satan onto many events in the news. 

"The Eucharist is the supreme good of the Church - canon 1367 of the Code of Canon Law speaks clearly on the subject," says De Paolis. "It is a crime to steal consecrated items from the tabernacle and to treat them impiously and blasphemously. Thus the protection of the hosts is a priority. If it is necessary to keep them locked up away from the tabernacle, the exceptional danger justifies an ‘ad hoc’ measure as a defensive reaction."