A Catholic priest in Florida bit a woman at Mass when she reached her hand into a bowl of Communion wafers, but church officials said he was stopping a desecration of the sacrament.

The fracas at St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church in St. Cloud, Florida, began when the woman went to Sunday Mass and was refused the wafer by Father Fidel Rodriguez, 66.

The woman told the St. Cloud Police Department that she was at Mass that day to celebrate the first Communion of her same-sex partner’s niece but was denied the sacrament.

Father Rodriguez said he did not take issue with the woman’s sexual orientation. He said he refused her at the Sunday morning Mass because she did not hold out her hands correctly, open her mouth, say “Amen” at the proper time and had not gone to confession in years, according to the Catholic News Agency.

The woman, who police did not identify, returned at noon and again tried to receive the sacramental wafer. Father Rodriguez attempted to put a wafer in her mouth, but she reached into the bowl. It was then that he bit her, and bystanders moved in to break them up, according to the Orlando Sentinel.

A witness told police that Father Rodriguez “tried to forcefully shove it in her mouth, she backed up. She said, ‘No, don’t do that,’ and she tried to get it and that is when he went crazy,” according to WFTV-TV in Orlando.

“He wouldn’t give me the cookie. I don’t know if it was the way I was dressed or if it is what I like,” the woman told police, according to The National Desk.

In a statement to multiple outlets, the Diocese of Orlando said: “While the Diocese of Orlando does not condone physical altercations such as this, in good faith, Father Rodriguez was simply attempting to prevent an act of desecration of the Holy Communion, which, as a priest, Father Rodriguez is bound by duty to protect.”

Father Rodriguez also denied that his actions were motivated in any way by the woman’s sexuality or clothing.

“You can be gay or homosexual or trans, whatever you want — I’m not judging for appearances. If they know how to do the things, I can give them Communion,” he said on St. Cloud police body camera footage, according to the Orlando Sentinel.

Father Rodriguez has not been criminally charged, but a police report accusing him of misdemeanor battery was forwarded for review to the Orange-Osceola State Attorney’s Office, according to the Orlando Sentinel.

• Brad Matthews can be reached at bmatthews@washingtontimes.com.