News - Eucharistic Guards

What the media reported...

Swallow host or give it back
NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Churchgoers partaking of holy communion at the St. Charles Catholic Church in Picayune, Miss., had better swallow. Two guards are posted nearby to make sure nobody walks out with the sacred communion wafer. The guards, usually church members wearing suits, took their post a couple of months ago after a dozen instances of people walking out of church with the wafer or "host." "At the Mass the bread is changed into the body of Christ," said the Rev. John Noone. "The Satan worshipers want to get their hands on the host and they desecrate the host." The problem has spread to Mississippi from nearby Slidell, Noone said.	"It has surfaced and it does happen," said the Rev. Joseph Benson, pastor of St. Margaret Mary Church in Slidell. He said former Archbishop Philip Hannan issued instructions some years back that there should be ushers looking over holy communion. St. Margaret Mary has had a run of incidents, Benson said. No reports of Satan worship in St. Tammany Parish have been called in to local law enforcement officials, although the parish had a rash of them a few years back, said James Hartman, a spokesman for the Sherrif's Department. "From time to time there are teenagers that will decide they want to be a Satanist for a day and get a hold of a stray animal and kill it and leave a messy scene," said Hartman. "A layman stumbling on it will say it is ritualistic."	"Mind you, those activities are illegal but whether they are Satanic is another question," he said. "That is a question for the clergy and not the cops." At St. Charles Catholic Church, the communion guards must actually see somebody swallow - or they politely ask the churchgoer to either consume the host or give it back, Benson said. "We take precautions on an 'as need' basis," he said. "But we try not to overemphasize the issue." After about a half-dozen people were seen leaving with, rather than swallowing, the wafer, St. Charles Catholic began posting the communion guards. Since then, another three have tried to walk out with the wafer.

The above article resulted in many calls and letters, some of support, many of genuine concern. In an effort to clarify the issue, at least for the nearby community, Father John Noone met with the local press. The following was reported in The Picayune (Miss.) Item, a daily newspaper local to the Picayune area, on Sunday, February 9, 1997...

'Eucharistic guard' stories went overboard
By Reni Winter Item Associate Editor A week ago at Sunday Mass at St. Charles of Borromeo Catholic Church, Father John Noone announced that the church would soon be training eucharistic guards to assure that people who take Holy Communion are doing so properly. Later in the week, Father Noone received a phone call asking him about the change in procedure at the church. By Friday, at least two New Orleans television news broadcasts reported that Satan worshipers were attempting to take the Holy Communion eucharists from the church. "This whole thing has been blown out of proportion," Father Noone said Friday. "There is no indication that anyone who is doing this is doing so for Satanic purposes." "We are doing this because we have noticed in the past couple of years that people have been taking Holy Communion and then not eating the eucharist," he said.	"The eucharist is a consecrated wafer that Catholics believe is the Body of Christ. When someone takes the eucharist, they are supposed to take it in their hand, step to one side, put it in their mouth and consume it before returning to their seat." Father Noone said that a eucharistic guard is a lay person - a man or a woman - who is trained to watch as people take Holy Communion. If the person does not appear to eat it, the guard will politely approach the person and ask him to either eat it or give it to the guard. "Since Holy Communion is the most precious thing we have in the Catholic Church, we believe we should do everything we can to protect that treasure that we have," he said. "The eucharistic guard is simply supposed to observe to ensure that everyone swallows the host as they are supposed to. It has happened were someone was walking off with the host. The guard has asked them and they then consume it. We have no evidence of what kind of people are taking the host."	Father Noone said that the same procedure is done elsewhere throughout the Catholic Church whenever it seems to be necessary. He suggested that some of the people who do not take communion according to Catholic tradition may be visitors from other religions who do not understand the Catholic beliefs and ceremony regarding Communion. He also explained that it has been a very old belief that Satan worshipers have, in the past, tried to get the consecrated host from the Catholic Church, to desecrate it in their rituals. "We have no indication of that happening here at all," he said. "It's just that we don't want anyone taking the host out of the church." Father Noone said that eucharistic guards will be stationed at every weekend Mass. The guards carry no weapons, nor do they use any form of police or military tactics. They simply are there to watch, and if necessary recover the eucharist from someone who does not consume it.

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