Man Arrested & Charged for Attempting to Steal Consecrated Hosts on Nov 8, 2008

  • Thread starter Thread starter Suzanne_Sadler
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
The man is from Connecticut, yet the incident took place in a church in Florida. It doesn’t sound like a vacation activity, so I wonder what his story is… why do this so far from home?
 
This news story has a photo of (I presume) John Samuel Ricci but no new info. PHOTO
 
This may be purely coincidental, but the feast day of St. Martin de Porres, the patron of that church, was a few days prior to this attempt. St. Martin de Porres was half black. The day after his feast, Americans elected a mixed race president. Maybe this guy didn’t like that and connected the two.
 
It goes to show you how much we revere and hold sacred the Eucharist. I have no idea what his motives were but I remember reading about a guy doing awful things to the Eucharist on You Tube. It could have been that he intended to desecrate the Eucharist, or he could have been mentally ill, or just plain hungry.

The eucharist is the center of a Catholics life and it’s not surprising the parishioners responded as they did. Pray for him.
 
The article in the newspaper is inaccurate. I was at that Mass and I was the first one to stop him. The truth is he went to receive Holy Communion in the hand and he did not put the Holy Communion in his mouth. The priest then called out to him to place the communion in his mouth. He pretended to do so with his right hand while with his left hand he placed the Holy Communion in his left pocket. The priest also saw what he had done and was walking up to the man and asked him not to do that. The man then tried to run and I grabbed him and held on to him until others came to help me stop him from leaving with the consecrated host in his pocket. As I was holding on to him and he was struggling to get free…the priest came a little to close and the man did grabbed several hosts and proceeded to squash them in his hand. This man also had a weapon, a dart, which somehow made its way to the base of the statue of ā€œOur Lady of Graceā€, which is where the confrontation took place. This man was not hungry but from what he was yelling he is in need of help. Ironically, he rode his bike to church and in the front basket was a cupcake…uneaten.:irish3:
 
Lainey63
Thank you so much for clarifying what happened and thank you for being there at the right time and place. God bless you!
 
**parishioners stood in his way,ā€ the report said.

Ricci got angry, cursed at the parishioners and even pushed two of them to the ground, according to the report. One suffered minor injuries, while another was taken to the hospital complaining of chest pain.**

GOD bless these people and Thank you from another Catholic and all Catholics that love the Eucharist. Lainey(I have a niece named Lainey) I am so proud of you and your fellow parishioners.
 
This is such an odd story.:eek:

Glad it turned out favorably.
 
Is it my imagination or is this kind of thing starting to become a pattern? Ever since the Minnesota Prof’s desecration on his web site, (or maybe even the Florida Student’s stealing of the consecrated host) seems like desecration is becoming more common.

I too am SO PROUD OF YOU AND ALL THE PARISHIONERS AND PRIEST WHO FOUGHT TO SAVE OUR LORD FROM BEING DESECRATED YET AGAIN!!

GOD BLESS YOU AND ALL!šŸ‘
 
:curtsey: :curtsey: Thank you we all feel very good about what we did…and it lets me know that there is hope for me yet. I am usually quite the coward-so that saying God choses the weakest to do his will…is definitately true. Also, the last I heard they did identify this same man as the one who stolen the book. They think that this guy is somehow associated with satanic worship and this was done in order to perform a black mass. Some real strange things happened after the arrest. The bike that he rode to church was brought over to the fire station because the deputy couldn’t fit it in the trunk and a few hours later the chief went over to the church to get the priest because a snake had wrapped itself around the handlebars of the bike and stayed for a few hours after which it crawled up into a transformer and the transformer blew…so the priest went over to do a blessing…also another snake had tried to get into the church through the front doors and that one was killed also.

We have a fairly new priest at this parish and he is so holy-I have never met a priest like him before in my life and each time I see him he seems to grow in holiness-he was the one saying the mass and this man tried to attack him as well. There is a news clip on cbs4.com
 
Thanks Lainey!

Perhaps it’s time to rouse the Ancient Order of Hibernians from the pubs and press them into service again! 😃

I found this article from the source you posted:

Parishioners Tackle Man Who Stole Communion Wafers

"In a letter to the editor of the Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers, Father Molgano defended the church and its parishioners’ actions:

I am writing to respond to the article regarding the man who disrupted Mass in our Church on Saturday morning. The article described the incident as an ā€œattempt to steal a handful of communion wafers from the priestā€. It is important to understand that the ā€œhandful of communion wafersā€ was in actuality the Body of Christ and, by attempting to steal some and throw the remainder on the floor, the incident became so much more than simply theft. It was desecration of the Eucharist, of Christ Himself. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says ā€œThe Eucharist is ā€˜the source and summit of Christian Life.’…in the Blessed Eucharist is contained the whole spiritual good of the Church, namely Christ himself, our Paschā€ (part 2 section 2 chapter 1 article 3 paragraph 1324). Our parishioners were right to be ā€œenraged and offendedā€ as the very Essence of our faith was attacked. Furthermore, our people are well aware of the existence of satanic cults in the local area that require consecrated Hosts for their rituals.

We have just begun to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the Diocese of Palm Beach. The theme of our Anniversary celebration is ā€œA Eucharistic People.ā€ Part of the prayer for our Anniversary states, ā€œā€¦May we continue to share in that life of faith, hope and love, with each other and especially with the poor, the weak and the defenseless among us. Pour out your blessing upon us, rich in ethnic diversity, but one Body of Christ.ā€ As a Eucharistic people, we ask you to join with us in prayer for the spiritual healing of the assailant and for the recovery of the parishioners who were injured in this heinous attack.
Rev. James E. Molgano"
 
While we should always pray for our priest, I will add a few extra prayers for Father Molgano and the brave parishioners that defended the Eucharist. It appears that the good priest, based on all accounts here, is being attacked by the forces of the devil which seek to destroy the most holy.

I ask all on this board to say prayers for our priest and especially Father Molgano.
 
ā€œnot all Satanists are evilā€

Saint Michael the Archangel,
defend us in battle;
be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil.
May God rebuke him, we humbly pray:
and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly host,
by the power of God,
cast into hell Satan and all the evil spirits
who wander through the world seeking the ruin of souls.
Amen.
 
ā€œnot all satanists are evilā€ā€¦The one whom you serve is evil. People are not evil in themselves but rather chose to do evil and just because someone is not harmed physically or you can’t see the damage doesn’t mean evil hasn’t been done. You can do evil to yourself and not even know it. Such as lying to yourself and self-destructive behaviors. Your statement just confirms that you do in fact serve the father of all lies…you don’t even know what you do because you are being deceived. As a satanist-you know exactly what the consecrated host and the Sacramental Book is needed for… Let’s lay the cards on the table…and if you really don’t know perhaps you should do an honest investigation of satanism before you give of yourself totally to this religion. You owe it to yourself to search for the truth…you’re worth it.šŸ‘
 
ā€œnot all satanists are evilā€ā€¦The one whom you serve is evil. People are not evil in themselves but rather chose to do evil and just because someone is not harmed physically or you can’t see the damage doesn’t mean evil hasn’t been done. You can do evil to yourself and not even know it. Such as lying to yourself and self-destructive behaviors. Your statement just confirms that you do in fact serve the father of all lies…you don’t even know what you do because you are being deceived. As a satanist-you know exactly what the consecrated host and the Sacramental Book is needed for… Let’s lay the cards on the table…and if you really don’t know perhaps you should do an honest investigation of satanism before you give of yourself totally to this religion. You owe it to yourself to search for the truth…you’re worth it.šŸ‘
I appreciate your lovely post. You have a good heart. I’m not Satanist. I just defend everyone from stereotyping/prejudice (or try to)
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top