By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Journalist 

The girlfriend of Costa Rican presidential candidate Otto Guevara caused outrage among Catholics in that country after a video caught her breaking off a piece of the Eucharist and putting it in her boyfriend’s pocket.

The Catholic News Agency (CNA) is reporting that Guevara’s girlfriend, Deborah Formal, was caught on tape by Costa Rican media receiving Communion from Archbishop Hugo Barrantes of San Jose at Mass last weekend and bringing a piece of the Host back to Guevara, who did not present himself for Communion.

The video shows Formal exchanging words with the archbishop just before receiving Communion and later said that she had asked the prelate if she could “share the blessing” of Communion with Guevara. She claims to have misunderstood the archbishop and thought he had given her permission.

In a written statement, Formal later explained: “Upon receiving Communion I asked the archbishop if I could share the blessing with Otto. I misunderstood what he said to me and I tried to do something that would allow Otto to carry a part of God in his heart.”

She added: “It was never my intention to disrespect the Catholic Church.”

Several priests were notified of her actions and asked Guevara to return the Host, which he did.

Archbishop Hugo Barrantes of San Jose called her actions “inappropriate and disrespectful,” although not sacrilegious.

In a statement, he pointed out that  “canon 1367 of the Code of Canon Law states that ‘one who throws away the consecrated species,’ or ‘takes them away or keeps them’ commits the crime of sacrilege.”

Because this was not the case, he reassured the Costa Ricans that no sacrilege had taken place.
 
Guevara went on to lose the election to Laura Chinchilla, the country’s first female president.