A student at the University of Florida has made off with a biscuit. Oh, it had undergone the transubstantiation thing first, so it was no ordinary biscuit, you understand. This was the Body of Christ, in all its crunchy crispiness.
There's a delicious take on this by Barry Duke on the Freethinker blog, where he tells the tale of Webster Cook, who didn't consume the sacred Host in church one day, but took it off to show a friend. But Webster is now receiving wholesome Christian death threats for his heinous crime, because the itty bitty bickie is supposed to be consumed before the magic wears off – er, as soon as possible after the blessing.
According to WFTV.com, Cook is "holding hostage" this wafer thing after church officials said he was disruptive and disrespectful during the service at which he "kidnapped" this bit of his Lord's body.
"When I received the Eucharist, my intention was to bring it back to my seat to show [my friend]," Cook said. "I took about three steps from the woman distributing the Eucharist and someone grabbed the inside of my elbow and blocked the path in front of me. At that point I put it in my mouth so they'd leave me alone and I went back to my seat and I removed it from my mouth."
There's more to the story, with filings of complaints and goodness knows what else – all too boring to go into here. What is important is how much fuss can be made over the nicking of a little disc made of crispy unleavened bread.
Perhaps Kellog's or someone ought to launch a new breakfast cereal for Catholics, suitably blessed by the Vatican, of course: Corpus Crispies.
A case of snap, crackle and pope.
==========
FOOTNOTE: Since posting the above this morning, I've come across another good read on this subject. Go take a look. Oh, and the cracker has now been returned. It's still a cracker.
2 comments:
Canada is ahead of you guys. In Quebec shoppers can pick up "an increasingly popular snack: Communion wafers and sheets of communion bread. These paper-thin morsels made from flour and water hark back to Quebec's churchgoing days and the sacred rite of receiving holy communion.
"The wafers and bread are packaged like peanuts and popcorn - and sold as a distinctly profane snack."
"They melt in your mouth, and they're not fattening, so it's better than junk food," said Françoise Laporte, a white-haired grandmother of 71 who buys packages of Host Pieces at her local IGA in east-end Montreal. "I'm Catholic. This reminds us of mass."
See http://www.dailygrail.com/node/2453
By the way, the cracker has now been returned:
http://www.wftv.com/news/16806050/detail.html
Sadly when the story first broke about priests who RAPE kids and then are transferred to other parishes, there was no Catholic outcry from the likes of Bill Donahue or much of anyone else. Instead, there were Catholic apologetics and an appeal by some dioceses for an increase in monetary donations in order to pay off the lawsuits.
Now we have the desecration of a communion wafer by Heisting and Hostaging in a plastic baggy. Somehow that is supposed to be a hate crime. Even given that the host is supposed to be the body of Jesus himself, it just doesn't measure up.
P.Z. Myers is a famous atheist actually. He was refused admission to the fundamentalist movie called "Expelled" about intelligent design/creationism being taught in science classes in public schools. I have written my letter to his boss defending P.Z. Myers and the triumph of science in academic circles over religiosity. The Catholic Leaguers are calling for his firing. His crime?asking readers to obtain for him a wafer so he can abuse it.
Actually, P.Z. can buy some of the wafers at a Catholic Supply shop or bake his own.
Now that the wafer has been returned, perhaps it can be auctioned off at e-Bay or somewheres. Then the profit can be used to help pay off a few of those aforementioned lawsuits.
spike
Post a Comment