Hepatitis risk from Communion at Long Island parish

January 05, 2011

The Nassau County Department of Health is urging 1,300 people who attended two Christmas Day Masses at a Long Island parish to receive hepatitis A vaccines. A minister of Holy Communion at the Masses was diagnosed with the disease following Christmas.

Discussing the parish, The New York Times added:

Since taking over as pastor in 2008, Monsignor [James] Lisante has crossed swords with a group of conservative Catholics in the parish who complained publicly about his canceling a regular Latin Mass, his hiring of a longtime priest friend as his assistant pastor and his hiring of a music director whom they considered unsuitable because he had once directed a stage production, in a previous job, of “My Big Fat Gay Wedding.”

 

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Further information:

• Christmas Communion at a NY Church May Have Infected Hundreds with Hepatitis A (ABC)
• Worry of Tainted Wafers Scares Church (New York Times)
• Hepatitis A (Wikipedia)