Cook says that he was physically assaulted by a women who grabbed him as he put the wafer in a bag. In the meantime, there is an international outcry against Cook and Susan Fani a spokesperson for the local Catholic diocese insisted that “if anything were to qualify as a hate crime, to us this seems like this might be it.”
The concept of a crime for something given free can be difficult. It was certainly taken under a false impression, but no restrictions are stated in the mass. Indeed, the alleged battery by the women is the closest thing to a crime here, though some defense akin to “fighting words” could be claimed. There is no question that this act is a grave insult for Catholics.
When I was a high school student at Chicago’s Quigley North Preparatory Seminary, I recall one of my classmates who tried to make a theological point that unconsecrated bread was merely bread by sitting outside of the chapel before our daily mass eating them like chips. The priests acknowledged his theological point and then put him into detention for a year for the lack of respect. The worst part was that at Quigley, the worst offenses meant that he had to go a round with Father Cahill in the boxing ring — where he would laying hands upon in the most brutal way until you repented. Even at 70, Cahill could clean the clock of any student.
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