A Florida priest is accused of biting a woman right through a dispute at Sunday Mass and may well be charged with battery.
The woman attended a ten a.m. provider at St. Thomas Aquinas Church in St. Cloud on Sunday and attempted to take Communion, the Diocese of Orlando mentioned.
She had a temporary dialogue with the Rev. Fidel Rodriguez, who advised her she hadn’t taken the right kind steps to safe Communion and despatched her away with a blessing, the diocese mentioned in a commentary.
The woman returned for a provider two hours later and once more attempted to take Communion, and when Rodriguez requested her whether or not she had carried out the prerequisite of Confession required by means of the Catholic Church to obtain the Eucharist, she advised him “it was not his business,” in accordance to the diocese.
Rodriguez, who did not have any information or information about the woman’s background, presented her Holy Communion, the church mentioned.
“At that point, the woman forcefully placed her hand in the vessel and grabbed some sacred Communion hosts, crushing them,” the diocese mentioned. Rodriguez, who had just one loose hand, struggled with the woman “as she refused to let go of the hosts.”
The church mentioned the woman then driven Rodriguez, who “bit her hand so she would let go of the hosts she grabbed.”
She was straight away requested to go away.
Police investigated the incident on the church in St. Cloud, which is ready 30 miles south of Orlando, and a charging affidavit accused Rodriguez of battery.
The woman advised police that Rodriguez attempted to “ram” the wafer into her mouth after he changed into disenchanted along with her for no longer having finished the important steps to take Communion, in accordance to a police record.
She accused him of grabbing and biting her arm as she attempted to take a wafer he was preserving, the record mentioned.
Rodriguez advised police that she attacked him first and that he was trying to give protection to the sanctity of Communion, in accordance to the police record.
He advised police that the woman driven him and would not let pass of the tray and that “the only way he thought to extract her from it was to bite her arm,” the police record mentioned.
Police mentioned witnesses equipped video of the incident.
The Diocese of Orlando mentioned Rodriguez spoke back in some way that was aimed “to protect the Holy Communion from this sacrilegious act.”
“While the Diocese of Orlando does not condone physical altercations such as this, in good faith, Father Rodriguez was simply attempting to prevent an act of desecration of the Holy Communion,” it mentioned.
The Eucharist, the church mentioned, “is considered ‘the source and summit’ of worship and faith.”
“It is not something a person can arbitrarily demand and is certainly not a mere ‘cookie’ as the complainant called it,” the diocese mentioned.
