Supreme Sacrilege

Whistling blithely one Giuseppe Carmagnola, Roman garbage collector, drove his cart round the corner of the Church of San Marco Maggiore last week, descended to empty a garbage can. To his horror he saw three fragments of the Sacred Host negligently tossed among the garbage.

Only a sincere Catholic can fully realize the shock sustained by Giuseppe Carmagnola. He gradually recovered presence of mind, rushed inside the church to inform the sacristan.

Later in the day it was learned that Pope Pius XI had been almost prostrated by grief at news of the sacrilege. "The Holy Father was much shaken," said a Jesuit prelate.

Soon from the Vatican came the Summus Pontifex's command that every church in Rome should hold a service of expiation. This was done forthwith.

In the eyes of true Catholics it was a minor detail that the persons unknown who perpetrated the Supreme Sacrilege were also thieves and stole from the Church of S. Marco Maggiore religious vessels, consisting of a jewel-studded chalice, monstrances and Pyxes valued at thousands of dollars, but all essentially things of little worth in spiritual comparison with the Host.

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