I don’t get it…

Posted on | August 6, 2008 | 4 Comments

Please read this article and help me understand:
- Why this professor is so bitter…and childish.
- What rosaries, services and sacrifices are supposed to accomplish.
- If the Catholic Church has lost touch with what’s really important.

Church holds service over communion wafer desecration

By Martin Beckford, Religious Affairs Correspondent
Last Updated: 5:45PM BST 05 Aug 2008

A film uploaded to the popular video-sharing website, apparently shot on a mobile phone during High Mass at the London Oratory, shows a young man kneeling to the receive the wafer, which Catholics regard as the body of Christ once it has been blessed, from a priest.
The video then shows the wafer, known as a Host, being later placed next to a condom in protest at the Vatican’s stance on contraception.
It was then apparently sent to Dr Paul Z. Myers, an atheist academic in American who claims he stuck a nail through it and threw it in his rubbish bin.
He has received hundreds of complaints on his website, while the London Oratory – linked to the school that Tony Blair’s children attended – has called the incident “very disturbing” and is calling worshippers to pray for the conversion of those responsible.
It is holding a special “evening of reparation” with Mass, prayers and meditation on Wednesday, an event to which churchgoers are being invited on the social networking website Facebook.
Fr Julian Large of the church in west London said: “A very disturbing film has appeared on the internet. Close observation of the film and of the facts seems to suggest that this is not an elaborate hoax, but depicts something that really occurred.
“We encourage everyone to make personal acts of reparation during the next days, for all of the outrages against the Blessed Sacrament around the world – Rosaries, visits to Catholic churches, and any sacrifices we can offer, are all suitable.
“Please also pray for the conversion of the culprits, that they will answer God’s call to repentance and open their hearts to receive His forgiveness.”
However Dr Myers, who last month issued a “Eucharist challenge” in which he incited people to steal Hosts so he could destroy them, said on his internet blog: “I am not contrite, I will not repent, and I’m certainly not going to apologise for tossing a cracker in the garbage.”
Describing what he did to the wafer, he wrote: “I pierced it with a rusty nail (I hope Jesus’s tetanus shots are up to date). And then I simply threw it in the trash.”
Dr Myers, an Associate Professor of Biology at the University of Minnesota, Morris, added that he nailed pages from the Qu’ran and The God Delusion to the wafer, claiming: “They are just paper. Nothing must be held sacred.”
The YouTube user who posted the video, titled “Eucharist taken hostage for Aids victims in Africa”, claims to have been responsible for stealing the Host at the Oratory on July 13.
Using the name HostHostage, he said: “The Catholic Church forfeits all rights to respect for its ludicrous beliefs, including ‘transubstantiation’, while its anti-condom campaign in Africa results in tens of thousands of deaths.
“The cracker was sent to Dr. P.Z. Myers at the University of Minnesota at Morris. Dr. Myers has treated it with the respect it deserves.”

OOC

Comments

4 Responses to “I don’t get it…”

Jason
August 7th, 2008 @ 2:20 am

PZ is an angry, immature little man who thinks everything he says and does against religion (primarily Christianity by an overwhelming percentage) makes him smarter than everyone else, but all it does is make him look foolish.

I don’t understand why Catholics believe and do the things they do, but the majority of it has nothing to do with core doctrines. If they want to believe communion wafers literally become the body of Christ, fine by me. I will not mock or argue against that belief. It’s not something that is going to keep them out of Heaven if they are wrong about it.

But for someone like PZ to desecrate (which, to be frank, was pretty lame – a rusty nail?) what Catholics hold sacred just proves that liberals aren’t as tolerant as they constantly claim to be. They are only tolerant of what they agree with and are intolerant of everything else.

As I said, I’ve got nothing against Catholics. Perhaps some of them are blowing this incident out of proportion (after all, God can take care of himself and PZ will answer for his actions someday), but I don’t blame them. PZ gets in a snit when his sacred beliefs are challenged or mocked, too.
OOC
August 8th, 2008 @ 5:46 pm

Here’s a reply from “Catholic Mom” who’s fighting site issues:

OC,

I can’t explain Prof. Myers’ bizarre behavior. I can offer the thoughts I’ve read on Creative Minority Report, a Catholic blog – the authors suggest that Myers is more interested in publicity and controversy than in anything else, and also suggest that Myers’ belief that desecrating a consecrated host should have resulted in lightning bolts or something like that, if the host were really the Body of Christ, implies that Myers thinks that God might just exist (he says he is an atheist). Personally, I’m sickened by Myers’ behavior and have refrained from leaving comments on his blog (one visit was more than enough) or adding to his page views. He doesn’t deserve my time or anyone else’s. I am sad that he and his supporters have received any publicity at all for their actions and beliefs.

Catholics do believe that a consecrated host is the Body of Christ. Not a symbol, not a cracker. (It’s not even remotely like a cracker in taste, texture or appearance – Myers uses the term to denigrate the host.)

Here’s a great summary of the Biblical basis for this belief:

http://www.staycatholic.com/the_eucharist.htm

and a longer article from “Envoy” magazine:

http://www.envoymagazine.com/backissues/4.1/god.htm

As a Catholic, I of course don’t believe my church has lost touch with reality. I’m not sure I really understand your question, in fact. For now, I’ll assume it has to do with the condoms in Africa. As you no doubt know, the Catholic Church teaches that artificial birth control is against God’s design for marriage. That doesn’t mean Catholics don’t care about HIV in Africa or anything of that sort. There are many, many Catholic missionaries (clergy and lay people) who are working in Africa to help people there. There are other ways to avoid getting HIV besides handing out condoms…abstinence, faithfulness in marriage, and telling the truth about one’s health before becoming intimate are three things I can think of. (These practices are not typically followed by many people around the world, as you know, but they do work.)

I will try to explain rosaries, sacrifice and service briefly, and I’m going to include links to some articles written by apologist friends as part of my explanation, rather than create a Guinness Record-holding Blog Comment.

The rosary is a traditional form of prayer used by Catholics, as well as some Anglicans and Lutherans, to focus on the life and miracles of Jesus. It consists of a series of prayers said in a particular order, with meditations on “mysteries” such as the Crucifixion or the Resurrection taking place while the prayers are said. In the Catholic tradition, praying a rosary for a particular intention means asking God to take all those prayers, directed at Him, and to hear those prayers on behalf of the person we are holding up in prayer. So, in this case, Catholics would pray a rosary and ask God for Prof. Myers’ conversion to Christ, for example. This is similar to me asking you to pray for one of my family members who’s in personal crisis – you ask God for His will to be done for my relative.

Although many non-Catholics believe that praying the rosary is vain repetition, that is not the case at all. Repetitive prayer is Biblical, as long as it is done with proper intent.

For more information, see http://mdcalexatestblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/vain-repetition.html

and

http://www.staycatholic.com/the_rosary.htm

On to sacrifices. We’re not talking about going out and killing the fatted calf here, okay? And, of course, Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross saved us from sin and opened the gates of Heaven, so God doesn’t ask us to sacrifice animals and other first fruits, as the Old Testament Israelites did. Those Old Testament sacrifices are imperfect. Jesus is the one, true, perfect, eternal sacrifice.

In the Catholic tradition, “the Eucharist is offered in reparation [as a sacrifice] for the sins of the living and the dead…” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, s. 1414). The Eucharistic sacrifice is united with the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross, which fulfilled all of the Old Testament requirements for proper sacrifice (offered by a priest, unblemished male, offered in remission for sin, is destroyed). (Paraphrased from “Introduction to Catholicism,” published by Midwest Theological Forum)

So, we as Catholics can also make sacrifices (offer up to God our trials and problems) in reparation for sin – in this case, Prof. Myers’ desecration of a sacred object, a consecrated host. After all, we’re baptized into Jesus’ life, death, and priesthood (or so St. Paul tells us). Services are a way of sacrificing our time, talent and treasure to benefit others, and we can offer them in the same way.

It’s way more complex than that, of course…but that’s the basic idea.

One more thought…the Catholic Church is working with fellow Christians as well as non-Christians around the world to preserve what *is* really important – the right to life from conception to natural death, the sanctity of the family and of marriage, the human dignity of all persons everywhere on Earth, the freedom to worship without fear of harm…things like that. I don’t think the Catholic Church has lost touch with reality at all.
———–
OOC
August 8th, 2008 @ 6:58 pm

Another comment from someone experiencing technical problems. OOC

I like the name of your site. I think you are on the right track. Being offensive is a byproduct of giving the Gospel. First you have to change the mind of the people who are lost in a defective world view by going on the offense. First you must attack their faulty beliefs before you have an opportunity to share God and his plan for humanity with them. If they are off on who God is they will not be able to understand the Gospel. Jesus went right for the faulty beliefs of the Pharisees. He knew that what they believed was wrong and went on the offensive to point out their hippocracy. Then he stated the Truth. All Christians should learn to go on the offense first refuting error, then give the truth. Maybe we would not be viewed as wimps by people on the outside. Jesus was no wimp! He was OFFENSIVE! He upset lots of highly religeous people. We should follow our leader and crush worldviews that lead to death.
BYW – Your site screams for a mission statement on the menu bar.

Be strong in Christ.
Keith Elbertson
Fellow brother in our Savior Jesus Christ

Offensive Christians

Encouraging Christians and the Church to go on the Offense

I don’t get it…

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