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 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.

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