Carmelite Nuns Allowed to Make Communion Wafers
Catholics are up in arms over a University of Minnesota professor, P.Z. Myers, who has threatened vague desecrations of a communion host. The exchange has become quite heated with Catholic making death threats.
At first I agreed with the Catholics - Myers didn't have to go out of his way to purposely defile the Catholic ritual of communion. It's one thing to write about how ridiculous it is - another to actually ritually defile a cracker.
P.Z. Myers only threatened various abuses, but did not go into specifics. And, really, I'd bet he was kidding - that he has more important things to do than affix googly eyes to a host and put on a puppet show. The Catholic Church has a history of blowing things like this out of proportion, AND with meeting them with violence. They should be very careful about getting their members riled up.
Shortly after the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 rumors of host desecration began circulating, especially that of Jews stealing consecrated hosts and crucifying them in a practice that came to be known as "host nailing."
In THE PURSUIT OF THE MILLENNIUM, by Norman Cohn writes,
For if from the point of view of a Jew an atrocity committed on the host would be meaningless, from the point of view of a medieval Christian it would be a repetition of the torturing and killing of Christ. ...this interpretation is born out by the many stories of how, in the middle of the tortured wafer, Christ appeared as a child, dripping blood and screaming.In Christian Blood Lust and Its Manifestation in Vampyre Myth, I wrote about host nailing,
Between the years of 1243 and 1761 thousands of Jews were tortured and executed for the crime of host desecration. Most were burned, many were mutilated. In 1370 almost every Belgian Jew was massacred, man, woman and child, for the crime of host nailing.In truth, I wouldn't have to go as far as P.Z. Myers promised - profound disrespect and heinous cracker abuse. All I, as a woman, would have to do to defile a consecrated host is pray over the cracker, or try to serve the cracker to someone else. From the Catholic Encyclopedia:
Against these errors the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) confirmed the ancient Catholic teaching, that "no one but the priest [sacerdos], regularly ordained according to the keys of the Church, has the power of consecrating this sacrament".And in case you had any questions after the reformation:
The Council of Trent opposed this teaching of Luther, and not only confirmed anew the existence of a "special priesthood" (Sess. XXIII, can. i), but authoritatively declared that "Christ ordained the Apostles true priests and commanded them as well as other priests to offer His Body and Blood in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass" (Sess. XXII, can. ii).This is a religion for whom more than half the human race is a walking, talking abomination. Women, just by virtue of being alive, are unclean and inferior, need to be ritually separated from the community and cleansed, can't consecrate communion because they are so vile, and can't minister the gospel as a man does. The Catholic church treats women as cow like creatures too stupid to manage their own health issues. Don't think for a minute that this kind of foul doctrine doesn't bleed over into our culture 24/7.
So as far as I'm concerned, PZ Myers, you defile those crackers all you want - at least until the Catholic church stops holding women hostage to a crumbling old book written by a bunch of superstitious perverts.
The Carmelite Monastery: Making Altar Breads
Catholic EncyclopediaThe Blessed Eucharist as a Sacrament
Christian Blood Lust and Its Manifestation in Vampyre Myth
