I don’t get it…
- 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
August 06 2008 | Morality and The War | 4 Comments »
