A Central Florida Catholic priest has been charged with battery after a woman accused him of biting her during communion.
The woman told police in St. Cloud that the altercation began when the priest initially refused to give her the sacrament.
“He wouldn’t give me the wafer. I don’t know if it was because of how I was dressed or something else,” she said.
A witness stated, “He tried to forcefully put it in her mouth. She pulled back and said, ‘No, don’t do that,’ and tried to take it herself. That’s when he went berserk.”
The priest has a different account of the incident.
He said the woman attended an earlier Mass but didn’t seem to know how to properly receive communion, so he denied her the Eucharist.
According to the priest, the confrontation happened when she returned for a later Mass and reached for a whole batch of communion wafers.
“I am not judging you. I am asking if you confessed after Mass. If you did not confess, I cannot give you communion. I did bite her, I’m not denying that. I was defending myself and the sacrament,” he stated.
The priest emphasized that his actions were to “protect the sacrament.”
