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The Body of Christ, Sweet Swimmer’s Build…
By Jeff Fecke | July 11, 2008
You may or may not have heard the story of Webster Cook, a University of Central Florida student who decided to be funny, and smuggle the Eucharist out of a Catholic mass, rather than eat it.
Cook’s plan, which seems about average in terms of wacky college schemes, triggered horrible cries of outrage and indignation, for his horrible desecration of the Body of Christ — proving definitively that yes, all Christians are indeed cannibals. It also led to death threats against Cook, who returned the Eucharist one week later to the same church:
Though Cook returned the wafer one week after the theft, outraged Catholics
were unforgiving, according to WFTV.com.
“We don’t know 100 percent what Mr. Cook’s motivation was,” Susan Fani, a
spokeswoman with the local Catholic diocese, told myfoxorlando.com. “However, if
anything were to qualify as a hate crime, to us this seems like this might be
it.”
I’ll leave aside the multiple layers of irony here, and simply mention that I find it interesting that a Church that covered up thousands of cases of sexual abuse is now horribly concerned at what could befall what can charitably be called a very tiny part of the Body of Christ, or for those of us who are non-Catholic, a cracker.
The fact that Cook was getting death threats for his transgression while being accused of hate crimes did not go ignored by the mad scientist P.Z. Myers. P. Zeddy, incensed at the insanity of threatening to kill someone over a cracker, launched into a jeremiad, or whatever the atheist equivalent would be, decrying the church’s response, the odiousness of the vile Bill Donohue, and the insanity of a world in which anyone could seriously be upset about the fate of a wafer. And then he took it to the next level:
I find this all utterly unbelievable. It’s like Dark Age superstition and malice, all thriving with the endorsement of secular institutions here in 21st century America. It is a culture of deluded lunatics calling the shots and making human beings dance to their mythical bunkum.
So, what to do. I have an idea. Can anyone out there score me some consecrated communion wafers? There’s no way I can personally get them — my local churches have stakes prepared for me, I’m sure — but if any of you would be willing to do what it takes to get me some, or even one, and mail it to me, I’ll show you sacrilege, gladly, and with much fanfare. I won’t be tempted to hold it hostage (no, not even if I have a choice between returning the Eucharist and watching Bill Donohue kick the pope in the balls, which would apparently be a more humane act than desecrating a goddamned cracker), but will instead treat it with profound disrespect and heinous cracker abuse, all photographed and presented here on the web. I shall do so joyfully and with laughter in my heart. If you can smuggle some out from under the armed guards and grim nuns hovering over your local communion ceremony, just write to me and I’ll send you my home address.
So okay, a bit over-the-top, perhaps, and maybe not showing much respect to people of the Catholic faith, but by the same token, people of the Catholic faith believe P.Z. is going to be tortured eternally by a just and loving God, so I’m not sure who’s showing less respect to whom.
The sane thing for everyone to do would be to back away and calm down. Will that happen? Of course not:
PZ Myers did something politically and religiously incorrect. In angrily responding to death threats against a man who didn’t accord the Eucharist proper respect, he ran afoul of William Donohue’s delicate religious sensiblilty. And now Donohue, who as head of the Catholic League presumes to speak for all Catholics, has decided to go after PZ’s job. PZ discusses it here and on earlier blog posts.
[...]
Death threats, for those of you who have never received a serious one, are not to be taken lightly. Real people do, in fact, die real deaths at the hands of lunatics claiming to be acting in defense of God’s honor. So let’s put this in perspective. There is nothing PZ Myers could say that is half as awful as a death threat. Since Donohue decided to target PZ, he has already received four. Has Donohue called upon anyone to desist in making murderous threats? Does anyone expect him to?
Well, of course not. Donohue described Cook’s waylaying of the wafer as “beyond hate speech,” but he can’t be bothered to worry about death threats against either Cook or Myers — after all, that’s just Catholics defending themselves against the hijacking of the Host. If Myers doesn’t die, next thing you know, Methodists will be having their bread loaves stolen and the Unitarians will find their herbal tea missing and the Wiccans won’t be able to find tofu at reasonable prices and the whole world will be in trouble.
Look, Myers may have gone over the line. Cook sounds like a typical stupid college student. But to react to either by calling for their deaths, or indeed by standing by while followers do it for you, is far more hateful than the most vile desecration of the Eucharist could possibly be. Myers doesn’t deserve to lose his job (feel free to contact the good folks at Minnesota-Morris to underline that), and he definitely doesn’t deserve to lose his life.
Jesus Christ preached infinite forgiveness. Were the Jesus of the Bible here today, looking at these events, I can’t help but think he’d quote himself: “But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you.” But it’s not much fun to turn the other cheek, or to forgive; much easier to attack, and be hateful.
Topics: Christianity | 7 Comments »
July 11th, 2008 at 10:39 pm
And Christians wonder why we don’t respect them. I’m sorry but in no world is insulting any form of sensibility equal to calling for a person to lose their job or their life.
And honestly the fact that people like Donohue and those who support him not only miss this key fact, while playing the “endangered victim” no less, is the worst part in this whole affair.
I say it puts into question their intelligence and capability of ethical behavior but then, I’d probably be accused of committing an anti-religion hate crime..
July 12th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
I’m waiting for you to include a picture of “Buddy Mohammed” to go along with the cool “Buddy Jesus” at the top of the post…then let’s see what the reaction would be.
> people of the Catholic faith believe P.Z. is going to be
> tortured eternally by a just and loving God, so I’m not sure
> who’s showing less respect to whom.
I doubt if that’s true – many would actually pray for him, and probably predict some time in Purgatory, reduced if he repents here on Earth. And you’re mixing “The Church” with “people of the Catholic faith” very freely in this post. There is a difference. Note “The Church” may have acted to cover up scandals but that doesn’t mean that “people of the Catholic faith” were willing accomplices.
> I find it interesting that a Church that covered up thousands > of cases of sexual abuse is now horribly concerned at what
> could befall what can charitably be called a very tiny part of
> the Body of Christ, or for those of us who are non-Catholic, a > cracker.
Minor quibble – Catholics believe that even a piece of Eucharist contains the whole Body of Christ, not just parts. (Which leads to interesting discussion about what happens to the tiny particles that fly off when it’s broken).
But again you conflate the “bad actions of the Church” to “offended Faithful”. There’s no irony there. Most devout Catholics would be offended by the desecration of the Eucharist that occurred. To outsiders it’s “just a cracker” but to them it’s more than that, and that core belief (transubstantiation) has invited persecution from the Romans onwards. (Just not so much these days).
Just because some priests have done bad stuff, and the Church has done some reprehensible things in the name of Catholicism, doesn’t mean that truly faithful Catholics should be more “tolerant” for something like this.
But I’ll bet that most of them are –
only a few wrong-headed extremists would be so offended as to make death threats, and even fewer would carry them out. I would hope that more “official” Catholic sources would express their offense while still asking for forgiveness.
Whatever you think of the Church or Catholic believers, this was a hate crime by any definition.
July 12th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
I’m waiting for you to include a picture of “Buddy Mohammed” to go along with the cool “Buddy Jesus” at the top of the post…then let’s see what the reaction would be.
I cheerfully ran the Mohammed cartoons back during that kerfuffle; I think all religions are open for mockery, including atheism (which is a faith, no matter how strenuously atheists argue otherwise). Indeed, I poke fun at my own religion in this very post.
July 13th, 2008 at 5:37 pm
Closette, what (in your mind) is the distinction between Rome and Bill Donahue, who is nothing more than some self-appointed blowhard and those American Catholics who pretend to be faithful but loves them some contraception and the Catholic gay people who attend St. Joan of Arc and the Catholic zealots who found a home at St. Agnes and the Catholic faithful who smeared their own special oil on the pews at the St. Paul Cathedral? Which tolerance for faith/authority/freedom/thought is ok and which is not?
And what about Sally Quinn (a non Catholic) who nonetheless took communion at Russert’s funeral? I’m a long-time lapsed Catholic and even I have enough respect for what they believe to find that wrong. How come Bill Donahue hasn’t called for a campaign against her?
Jeff’s main point remains: The people in authority – self granted and otherwise – in the Catholic church are no different from people in authority anywhere. Left to their own devices, they’ll try to crush anyone who challenges them.
July 14th, 2008 at 2:36 am
> Closette, what (in your mind) is the distinction between Rome
> and Bill Donahue, who is nothing more than some self-appointed > blowhard and….
One distinction: the Pope isn’t self-appointed. Another – most Catholics accept that they should obey the Pope as much as they can (even the gay or contracepting ones).
Nowhere is it written that they must follow Bill Donahue. So who cares whether or not this guy condems the wacko death threats? (I doubt the wackos making the threats are his, or anybody’s “followers”).
Now if the Pope issued a fatwa against the pranksters, that would be a different matter and worth getting annoyed about.
What the prankster did wasn’t just poking fun at “authority”, it was deeply offensive to many good Catholics who take communion every Sunday, as was PZ Meyers’ suggestion to commit the same hate-crime. Just because some anonymous wackos (who may not even be Catholics) made death threats doesn’t change the nature of the offense, or justify its repetition.
And Jeff “I think all religions are open for mockery,…” – I used to think that way too, “Hey as long as I make fun of every religion equally including my own, that’s OK.” But take one of your most dearly held beliefs and imagine someone pissing all over it – not so funny. Freedom of speech is sacred, but it’s better to “do unto others as you _would have them_ do unto you”, regardless of how they actually do treat you.
July 14th, 2008 at 10:29 am
OK try this for an analogy – I think the American flag is just a piece of colored cloth. You could burn one in front of me and I’d be un-moved. But I’m not going to blow my nose on one “just to show” what I think.
And that’s not out of fear for my life (although a YouTube video of me doing just that would invite a few death threats, I’m sure).
It’s out of respect for, and tolerance of, what it means to other people (like Veterans who fought under the flag, for instance).
July 14th, 2008 at 10:25 pm
“Oh there was this one time when I was a student, it was like a really cool prank (*). Me and some bros from the frat house across the street broke into a synagogue and hung swastikas over all the Star of David symbols. You should have seen the fuss in the local papers next day. They’re both just geometrical patterns – like what’s the big deal???”
(*) I never did this.