Respect for communion and religious liberty

A response to the PZ Myers cracker story, via Andrew Sullivan. It's attributed simply to "a priest".

A person in a free society is at liberty to burn his own Torah scrolls, to tear up his own copy of the New Testament, to plunge his own copy of the Koran in his own toilet, and to trample his own stock of communion wafers. That should be recognized as protected religious or anti-religious expression under the First Amendment.
However, no one is free to break into a synagogue, to take the Torah scrolls enshrined there, and to burn them. Or to do that with a Koran belonging to a mosque where he is visiting, or to take the Bible or the Blessed Sacrament from a church and desecrate them. If a particular religion gives its sacrament or sacred things only to its own members and someone deceives the adherents of that religion in order to desecrate their sacred rituals or objects, then that is a fraud and a violation of the religious liberty of others.

This sounds reasonable enough - you don't have to believe what I believe or worship how I worship, but don't interfere with my attempts to do so.

But, any "cracker abuse" Myers might inflict interferes with nobody's freedom to worship as they see fit. I ask, what in this sequence of events is a violation of the religious liberty of others?

1. Webster Cook, the UCF student whose actions started the ball rolling on this whole ruckus, attended mass. Instead of swallowing the host, he kept in his mouth.
   
2. After returning to his seat, he placed the communion wafer in his pocket and left the building with it. According to Cook, a member of the congregation made both verbal and physical attempts to stop him from doing so.
3. PZ Myers blogged on the subject, and suggested someone else similarly obtain a communion wafer and send it to him. He did not specify if this agent should be a practicing Catholic. He then promised to "treat it with profound disrespect and heinous cracker abuse, all photographed and presented here on the web".

In steps 1 & 2, Cook was in violation of church teachings. But, if we are free to choose our own religious beliefs, shouldn't we be able to choose not to believe them? I had several Catholic friends growing up, and none of them believed all tenets of church law (I have yet to meet a lay Catholic who does not practice safe sex). The church is free to boot him, but surely nobody would argue that he is violating the rights of others.

Perhaps the priest was referring only to Myers' actions. Myers' hasn't even acquired his target yet, he's only threatened so. But lets say, for the sake of argument, one Joe Reader does acquire a communion wafer for him.

If Joe is a Catholic who simply questions transubstantiation, is he in violation of others' religious liberties? What if he wants to study the consecrated host at home with his chemistry set? Does he not have a right to do so? Is that even in poor taste? Isn't it within his religious rights to do so? Is this theft? I'd argue the wafer becomes his property as soon as the priest places it in his mouth.

What if Joe is not a Catholic? I think we'd all argue lying is immoral. But it's not illegal. I am in violation of no law if I join the Catholic church but do not believe in Catholic doctrine. And I'd wager there are more than a few Americans in just this state.

Some Catholics believe removing the wafer from the communion service without swallowing it (I fail to see how passing the body of Christ through one's digestive tract is any less abusive than ... I'm not even going to go there) is "abuse". Most of the rest of us do not believe this.

If you give me an object you consider holy, you have every right to be offended by anything I do with it, but I have every right to do it. Nobody's religious liberties have been violated here, and any claim to the contrary is ludicrous.