Responding to a flood of complaints from Catholics, YouTube today removed 40 videos of desecrations of the Holy Eucharist from its website.

The Register newsblog reported on the issue earlier this week here.

A video removal petition was circulated Sept. 23 by the Catholic group America Needs Fatima, the group said in a press release.

The Catholic group said 18,201 people signed the petition.

“We’re now sending YouTube a ‘thank you’ note,” said America Needs Fatima webmaster Joseph Ritchie. “The ‘thank you’ message lets Catholics tell YouTube how happy they are with the videos being removed.”

Added Ritchie, “It’s important the staff at YouTube see that Catholics not only have courage to defend the faith, but courtesy to say ‘thank you’ as well.”

Update: According to a second America Needs Fatima press release, YouTube reposted the offensive videos after keeping them off the video-sharing site for only a few hours.

Ritchie asked Catholics to continue to join America Needs Fatima’s online petition requesting YouTube to prohibit the posting of such videos.

Said Ritchie, “We won’t stop protesting until YouTube takes action to implement a policy that does not give a platform to blasphemous postings.”

— Tom McFeely