-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
Navarre, Florida, resident Jackie Trebesh was pulled over by a Santa Rosa County deputy and given a trespass warning after leaving mass at St. Sylvester’s Catholic Church in Gulf Breeze. She was also denied communion during mass. Here crime? Someone said her daughter, Kelly, had improperly disposed of the host in the parking lot.
The host being the communion wafer.
The priest had requested the traffic stop, and she and her daughter were issued trespass warnings.
Trebesh thinks someone saw her daughter spit out gum in the parking lot. When asked if the evidence had be verified, Peggy Dekeyser, the communications officer for the diocese of Pensacola-Tallahassee, declined comment.
If the priest wants to enforce his crazy mumbo-jumbo and deny communion to one of his sheep, that’s one thing. But for a deputy sheriff to use his official capacity to enforce that punishment outside the church is beyond the pale.
H/T: Pharyngula.
Showing irreverence to the “host” is the worst sin ever. That’s what I was told .
You hurt your argument with the use of term “mumbo-jumbo”, but i agree with your whole line of thought. And, unless the priest could prove they had trespassed, he should be charged with filing a false police report, and the policeman sited with improper conduct.
One cannot expect much else from these kinds of situations and particpants. In the new spirit of more polite debate and toning down one’s erstwhile heated rhetoric, please allow me to everyone that the concept and definition of faith, religious or otherwise, runs in direct conflict with the concepts and definitions of such things as logic, reason, proof, evidence, truth…….
What in the world is wrong with people?
I guess that’s the Catholic version of Sharia law.
How precisely is this trespassing? The two were on the property lawfully to begin with. At worst the two can be asked to leave and given an opportunity to do so. The police officer may well be grossly out of line, but the “trespass warning” might also be a warning that she is not allowed back, rather than an accusation that she was trespassing in this case. We’d have to see the warning to know for sure.
This results from the belief in transubstantiation.
Please note from the map how far in upstate Florida that county is. The further north one goes in Florida, the more creepy the State becomes.
This is why – despite the seemingly good match – that cookies and religion don’t mix.
No, Tariq, with all due respect, the idea of transubstantiation is definitely mumbo-jumbo.
Here’s Colbert from Thus highlighting more Catholic outrage at people poking fun at the idea of jesus turning himself into crackers, aka the “Holy Snack-rifice”.
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/371019/january-13-2011/thought-for-food—fruit-pouch–doritos-ad—super-big-gulp
Does anyone know if the Colbert/Daily show clips can be embedded?
This is a bizarre example of religion and government being mixed in violation of the law. I agree that this officer should be disciplined and a the priest should be investigated for a possible false charge. Remind to stay out of Florida and Texas and Arizona. I guess I will have to stick to California if I am looking for warm weather.
Swarthmore Mom,
I haven’t see the word “transubstantiation” since my days with the good Benedictine nuns! I always got into trouble when the nuns discussed this topic because I asked them if transubstantiation was true, wasn’t eating the host considered cannibalism? My backside still hurts from that one!
To some, God is hard to digest.
pardon me?,
The world would have a lot less indigestion if people would not be so abjectly irrational through ‘believing’ in nonsense and fable.
None of the stories I found clarified whether the officer acted as if he were responding to a trespassing complaint, or was asked by a landowner to request that someone not enter specified private property. The former would appear to be inappropriate, and an error by either the officer or the priest, or both. The latter may well be appropriate under departmental policies if they provide the same service to other property owners. That would still leave the question of the propriety of a traffic stop, as I haven’t seen any reference to a traffic violation of any kind.
Of course, coming from a religious background (my father was a minister), the idea of barring anyone from the hospitality, comfort and fellowship of the church for anything less than being a real threat to the safety of others would be a much greater sin than a teenager (maybe) failing to treat communion with respect.
What is wrong with this Picture is a perfectly legitimate reason for a 1983 action to be pursued against not only the church, the sheriffs office, deputy and the priest acting in concert….other than that WTF?
Religions have some really silly rules. Looking into your “soul” is one. We went to Saturday Missouri Synod Lutheran wedding in MN several years ago. Sunday morning, we left after breakfast for Chicago to see some grandkids, half way home from Cleveland. My wife’s sister, from Kent, went to church with her cousins, the groom’s parents. When communion time came, she stood to take part, and was forcibly pushed down onto the pew, forbidden from joining, because, while she was baptized, educated, and married in a similar church, she was now an Episcopalian because she had a disagreement with her local Lutheran pastor. She was informed that this was closed communion, which she’d never heard of, as her home church didn’t observe it.
My reaction upon hearing about this? What kind of sound do angels dancing on a pin make? I mean, what the hell?
mr. ed,
In more than one Catholic Churc, the priest will announce to the congregation before Communion that only Catholics are welcome to partake, but that others can come up for a blessing. Not very welcoming to say the least.
rafflaw: “only Catholics are welcome to partake, but that others can come up for a blessing. Not very welcoming to say the least.”
–
It’s their ritual after all. Why be catholic if there aren’t any perks?
I’ve seen this done once and it was actually welcoming IMO, previously one would just sit in their pew during the ritual.
**
I’m hoping to see a lawsuit, the state doesn’t get to enforce religious edicts by parish priests.
Lottakatz,
It always helps to have a priest with a friendly manner, but I have to find out where my Catholic “ID” card is so I don’t get refused if I decide to visit once again.
As a former alter boy who mastered the Mass in Latin, and Catholic academy survivor with bowed head & bloodied knees, it took me 30 years to come out of my catechismic trance.
So I feel well qualified to report that they got the “crime” all wrong.
The Host of Holy Communion is – by Vatican definition – “the Body of Christ.”
So the only conceivable crime in this event was “desecration of a corpse.”
And now there’ll be Hades to pay.
Maybe the kids wouldn’t spit them out if they started spreading a little Nutella on them?
What can be better than a Chocolate Jesus?
PP,
Hah! I do remember the Latin Mass and I actually can still remember some of it, which is scary.
what would they do if you put some cheez-wiz on it?
pete,
Who is cheez?
I am so going to hell.
we’ll have alot of company
I’m serving mojitos. There won’t be any ice though. It is Hell after all.
He**, the ultimate Global Warming vacation destination…
FFLEO,
Have you ever seen a really silly movie called “Erik the Viking”?
Since I know you are an atheist, the reason I ask is all of the Vikings go on an adventure that takes them to Valhalla, but they’ve got a Christian missionary with them. The entire time they are in Valhalla, the Christian is wandering around saying things like “Who are you talking to?” and walking through doors as if they weren’t there.
“How precisely is this trespassing? The two were on the property lawfully to begin with. ”
No. This is using the state to intimidate people you don’t like. The church is private property and I thought trespass was a civil matter.
As part of my religious upbringing my church youth group attended services at many different denominations over the course of a year. It was a dazzling array of “mumbo-jumbo. Some churches were very open & welcoming, others not so much. I’m sure part of that was the result of the head of the local franchise. Had we attended services at a different location of the same denomination I believe it was very likely to be a different experience in some cases.
A few refused us communion since we were not baptized the same as them. It seemed odd since the church I grew up in said it was Christ’s meal, not the churches so all were welcome, even the unbaptized. But they also taught that what we were doing was symbolic. I always thought it creepy to believe you were actually eating human flesh & drinking human blood.
Rafflaw,
If I remember correctly Emperor Constantine issued a law against “belief in cannibalism.”
It was another blow against the Celtic Christians. You see, the Druidic tradition of ceremonial cannibalism and the Christian tradition of Transubstantiation fit well together.
Another piece of the propaganda war was teaching that the Apple was the Fruit of The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. That was because grapes don’t grow well in most of the British Isles, so when Christianity spread their it adopted the native use of hard cider in rituals.
Gyges,
Well done, but as a Celtic American(and swedish and german), I do prefer hard cider to wine!
Mmmmm. Hard cider.
I would like to point out though that a Chocolate Jesus goes well with either cider or wine.
Buddha,
Chocolate goes with anything! Now that you mention it, I think I have some Christmas chocolate left over!
Rafflaw,
Now, some may call this sacrilege, but I’ve got three words that need to be said: Chocolate and Scotch.
Gyges,
The chocolate I can agree with, but I have never had a taste for Scotch.
Rafflaw,
It’s my second favorite beverage involving malted barley.
Gyges,
I rarely say this about your booze or food suggestions, but “Ewwwwwwww!” Plus I can’t drink Scotch. Too much fusel oil.