HLI Letter of Protest against eBay for Sacrilegious
Sale of Eucharist
Ms. Meg Whitman, President and CEO
Mr. Pierre Omidyar, Founder and Chairman of the Board
Ebay
2145 Hamilton Avenue
San Jose, CA 95125




Dear Ms. Whitman and Mr. Omidyar,

On behalf of Human Life International (HLI), the world’s largest organization defending life, faith and family, and our numerous affiliate branches in over 50 countries, I would like to register a formal complaint against Ebay and its specious policies that allowed a recent auction that allegedly “sold” a Catholic Host from a papal Mass. This reprehensible example of business at all costs, without values or boundaries, demands the largest possible outcry. We protest Ebay’s blatant disregard for the sensibilities of millions of Catholics worldwide who believe that a sacrilege (and, yes, a theft) had to occur to even obtain this “item for sale” (if the listing was truthful). Moreover, the timing of the auction was doubly heinous and insulting to the just-deceased Pope, who had purportedly consecrated this Host! As such, this auction, and the reportedly similar ones that have followed, have rightfully provoked widespread outrage, and demand a strident call for Ebay to revise its policies with regards to this cavalier treatment of religious issues.

If any Ebay Host-for-sale has been truly obtained at a Catholic Mass, as advertised, then this is considered a sacrilege of the highest level by the Catholic Church. And when the possessions of any religion that are considered to be especially sacred become subject to bartering and common public commerce, then all religions suffer insult and should justly rise up to defend their rights. No policy of “diversity” can justify or disguise such extreme religious intolerance and insult, and we hereby voice our strong opposition to this Ebay attack on religious freedom and integrity.

As the world rightly acknowledges the catastrophic occurrences inflicted on a particular religion during World War II, we ask if Ebay’s current boasted “diversity” policy would also allow the sale or auction, for example, of any specifically “religious items” that would somehow mock the holocaust in specific or Judaism in general? We have been given to understand that Ebay rightly will not cross this boundary; the outcry against such an auction would be justly overwhelming.

We also recognize that Ebay does guard the sensitivities of some religions; i.e., Ebay will not allow the auction of Native American prayer sticks. Therefore, we submit that Ebay needs to extend this same protection and consideration to ALL religions, and in ALL correspondingly insulting contexts. Ebay should similarly spare ALL religions the obvious injury and denigration that result whenever any especially sacred or precious religious articles of the past or present are demeaned by public sale and spectacle.

In sum, Ebay absolutely needs to revise its policies that have sanctioned such a public mockery of religion by means of the specious auctioning of an allegedly consecrated Catholic Host. We demand a change of applicable Ebay policies so that “diversity” will no longer allow any such blatant religious insult. We expect Ebay’s current protection from such religious marketplace mockery to extend beyond its current limited context. If not, we will join forces with many others who value the rights of all religions to ensure that Ebay receives not only an increase in the scorn which it is now drawing, but also a boycott that will diminish its already sad reputation and business.