Confraternity of Catholic Clergy Proposes Friday, July 31, 2008 as Prayer Day in Reparation for Desecration of the Holy Eucharist

=====ZENIT, The world seen from Rome News Agency=====

Desecration of Host Not Seen as Free Speech
Confraternity Proposes Prayer Day in Reparation

HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania, JULY 30, 2008 (Zenit.org).- 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 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 anymore 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 Aug. 1, the feast of St. Alphonsus Ligouri, and to fast in "reparation for the sacrilegious desecration of the Holy Eucharist."

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This article is from the ZENIT news agency.