Beast: Man arrested for attempting to steal Communion

It's not often my blog coverage crosses paths with The Smoking Gun, and considering the subject matter, I'm not dissapointed about this in the least [comments in brackets]:

Meet Jonathan Ricci. The Florida man was arrested Saturday morning after he allegedly tried to steal "a handful of communion wafers" from a priest at a Catholic church in Jensen Beach. Ricci, 33, sought to swipe 15 wafers valued at $1 [um, try again, Catholics value the Eucharistic presence a bit more than that] , according to a Martin County Sheriff's Office report....

During mass at around 9 AM, Ricci accepted a wafer on the Communion line, but "walked away without taking the communion into his mouth." After refusing a priest's requests to "accept" the wafer [good for the priest in not letting him get away!], Ricci "turned to the priest and grabbed a handful of the wafers from the plate and attempted to leave" St. Martin de Porres Church, according to the report.

"Due to the religious significance of the holy communion, the parishioners were very upset at his callous treatment of their holy ritual" and sought to detain him [good for those brave parishioners!]. An "enraged" Ricci then began to act "crazy" and scuffled with parishioners, two of whom (men aged 82 and 66) sustained minor injuries. [old men defending the Eucharist - good for them!] Ricci .... was charged with theft, battery, and disrupting a religious assembly.

I'm praying the man was psychologically disturbed and so not responsible for his actions.