Holy Name Protesters Held

By Margaret Lyons in News on Mar 24, 2008 9:11PM

The protesters who interrupted the Easter mass at Holy Name church yesterday were in court this morning and held in lieu of $25,000 bail for five of them and $35,000 for one with a record. They all face two counts of felony criminal damage to property and two counts of simple battery for allegedly squirting fake blood on parishioners. Donte D. Smith, Ephran Ramirez, Jr., Ryane J. Ziemba, Mercedes Phinaih, Regan Maher and Angela Haban will all be in court Monday, March 31.

All six are part of a group called Catholic Schoolgirls Against the War, and they picked Holy Name because prominent local Catholics attend services there and Cardinal Francis George was celebrating the mass. The group wanted to remind people that George and Mayor Daley met with President Bush, whom they identified as the "principal public figure responsible for initiating the carnage in Iraq," last January. Mission...accomplished?

A spokeswoman for the Archdiocese of Chicago told us in an e-mail that "[t]he Archdiocese does not have a statement regarding the incident at Holy Name Cathedral Parish auditorium yesterday morning." [Trib, WBBM, ABC 7, mugshots via S-T]