A video of a church service in Washington state went viral after a fight broke out when members of the congregation pulled out a man without a mask whom the Catholic priest had asked to leave.
Fight breaks out as Catholic priest asks unmasked man to leave Washington church
Video shows how Father Paul Brunet stopped reading a psalm to admonish a man kneeling in front of him. “You are committing an infraction,” he told him.
He then told other attendees at St Frances Cabrini Parish in Lakewood, Washington, to “call the security guards.”
The unmasked man approached the pulpit and said “get your hands off me” as the priest sat down. He had already been told not to enter the church because he was violating state and county rules that state people must wear masks inside buildings.
The man told the priest that he was “not committing any infraction.”
“Can someone call 911?” the priest asked, as about 20 assistants came to the front to deal with the man. The crowd rallied to remove the man.
Father declined to forgive those who trespassed against him pic.twitter.com/Bj55SpHU8v
— 𝘽𝙧𝙮𝙖𝙣 𝙋𝙖𝙨𝙨𝙞𝙛𝙞𝙪𝙢𝙚 (@BryanPassifiume) October 25, 2021
The Lakewood Police Department said the incident occurred around noon Sunday. The man had received a warning on Oct. 13 for entering the church two days earlier.
A department spokesman told The Daily Mail that the man had been “causing a disturbance.”
“The church started having problems with a parishioner whose son attended their school. He began acting irrationally and creating a disturbance,” Lt. Chris Lawler told the media outlet.
“At the church’s request, we served the man with a trespass notice…the man returned to the church and created another disturbance,” he added.
The man was arrested after the altercation and charged with first-degree trespassing, but was later released on bail.
