List Category Posts plugin upgrade fails with fatal error

I just tried an automatic upgrade of List Category Posts plugin to version 0.17.2 on WordPress 3.0.5. I think I had 0.17.1 before. It installed but failed to activate:

Plugin could not be activated because it triggered a fatal error.
Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_STRING, expecting T_OLD_FUNCTION or T_FUNCTION or T_VAR or '}' in /hsphere/local/home/carrollp/clanecommunity.ie/wp-content/plugins/list-category-posts/include/CatListDisplayer.php on line 10

If I understand correctly author has requested issues be posted here.

I’ve never debugged WordPress before. Appreciate any help. My site home page is relying on this plugin. Thanks!

Yes, I’ve asked for issues to be reported here, so that you can get answers from the larger community of WordPress users and developers at WordPress Answers.

Regarding the issue, other user also reported it, and it is due to the webhost using PHP 4. Line 10 of CatListDisplayer.php declares a private attribute. PHP 4 doesn’t have public, private or protected accessors.

Is there a way to ask your webhosting provider to update your server to PHP 5?

The other possible solution is to download the previous version of the plugin: 0.16, which doesn’t use Object Oriented PHP.