Ushers Forcibly Remove Communicant After Overbooked Palm Sunday Mass Runs Out Of Communion Hosts

Image:Felix Burton

A video posted late Sunday evening shows a parishioner in a Palm Sunday Mass at St. Isidore Catholic Parish being forcibly removed from church just before communion.

The video taken from an aisle seat a few pews behind the man being removed shows other parishioners reciting the Agnus Dei. The 33-second clip goes on to show three ushers wearing radio equipment speaking with a man seated in his pew. After a few moments, one of the men grabs the parishioner, who is then dragged by the arms toward the back of the church. He is later seen running back into the church, face bloodied from the altercation.

The incident has also prompted at least one of the ushers’ suspension and created a publicity nightmare for St. Isidore Catholic Church.

“It was very traumatic,” said parishioner Roberta Lindstrom who says she is still haunted by the event. “It was horrible. I had trouble sleeping that night as well as Monday of Holy Week.”

Pastor of St. Isidore Fr. Mark Babbit asked communicants to give up their chance at receiving the Eucharist voluntarily for spiritual compensation, such as a future Mass said for them, or two communion hosts next time they attended Mass. When no one volunteered, the church was forced into an “involuntary de-reception situation,” Babbit told EOTT.

“While I deeply regret this situation arose, I also emphatically stand behind our ushers, and I want to commend them for continuing to go above and beyond to ensure we fly to Jesus right. We weighed a number of factors to determine which parishioners would leave the church, such as how recently and frequently communicants went to confession and how much their average tithe was. Our ushers followed established procedures for dealing with situations like this and they should be applauded.”