Catholic Clergy Call on YouTube to Remove Offensive Videos

HARRISBURG, Penn., Sept. 30 /Christian Newswire/ -- The Confraternity of Catholic Clergy requests that YouTube immediately remove all videos depicting the desecration of Catholic hosts (consecrated wafers of bread used in sacred worship). Currently, forty videos are online showing the blasphemous sacrilege against the Most Holy Eucharist (also known as the Blessed Sacrament). We urge YouTube to show the same respect and decency it recently extended to our Jewish brothers and sisters when a similar incident occurred that greatly offended the children of Abraham.

YouTube recently removed a video showing a teenager urinating on the Holocaust memorial in Greece. It was taken down on August 27th, 2008, after five days of protests from Jewish communities around the world. Sadly, the same response has not been extended to Catholic Christians as the offensive videos showing desecration of the Eucharist have been up for more than two months. One of these forty videos shows a host being flushed down the toilet.

Another video shows someone literally absconding from a Catholic Mass with a Host in his possession. The ease with which persons can take Holy Communion since the option to receive in the hand was introduced in the late 20th century, and the subsequent acts of desecration and sacrilege, make it paramount that our bishops seriously consider revoking this method. Restricting reception to Communion on the tongue and disallowing in the Hand is but one possible remedy. Frequent Eucharistic Holy Hours with Benediction will also be of great assistance and encouragement. Voluntary expansion of the Eucharistic fast from one hour to three hours before receiving Holy Communion is another help. Greater reverence for the Blessed Sacrament will be enhanced not only by removing reception in the hand but also by encouraging kneeling as well. Placing the Tabernacle back in the center of our church sanctuaries is another obvious sign of belief in the Real Presence.

We urge all our brother priests and deacons to be very conscious of our public acts of Latria (worship) of the Holy Eucharist as the real, true and substantial Body & Blood, Soul & Divinity of Christ. The attention, reverence and devotion we show to Blessed Sacrament as its ordinary ministers will only inspire our people to aspire to emulate our love for Jesus in this most sublime presence. We also pray for those poor souls who commit these vile acts of sacrilege and ask them to please stop.


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