AGAINST AN ATHEIST’S BIGOTRY OF THE EUCHARIST

FATHER JOE:  Surfing blogs I discovered that the thirty-something atheist with whom I had debated women priests was now mocking the Blessed Sacrament. It is one thing to respectfully disagree; it is entirely another to ridicule religious beliefs. He would even attack caricatures of faith that we do not actually teach. He entitled his post: “Of Christ and Crackers: It’s Eucharistic”:

ANDROO: I found a story so simultaneously insane and retarded that it will make you lose faith in humanity.

FATHER JOE: It is peculiar that for one who rejects faith, he inadvertently allows the proverbial “cat out of the bag” by speaking about “faith in humanity”. This is a point I made in the previous discussion, that even scientists and atheists must substitute some other faith for that which is strictly religious. Whenever we make blind assumptions, we are talking about some quality of faith. Here he posits his faith— that he is evidently losing— in humanity. I would contend that such a faith is inherently destined for disappointment and failure. Doctors cannot save us or answer every problem of mortality. Corruption plagues even the best of governments. Faith in humanity stripped of faith leads to the barbarity of regimes like we saw in the now defunct Soviet Union. Atheism had its try, and we called it Communism. Despite seemingly endless efforts to remedy poverty, there are more poor people in the world today than yesterday. Fallen humanity is prone to selfishness and cruelty. I place my faith elsewhere, in the one who shares by grace something of his divinity. The alternative, faith in God, what he calls “insane and retarded” is what gives hope to us who humbly count ourselves as fools for Christ.

ANDROO: In Orange County Florida, a college student went to mass, received the Eucharist, but instead of performing the usual act of deistic cannibalism, he took it home with him. Webster Cook says he smuggled a Eucharist, a small bread wafer that to Catholics symbolic of the Body of Christ after a priest blesses it, out of mass, didn’t eat it as he was supposed to do, but instead walked with it.

FATHER JOE: In other words, Webster Cook deliberately committed sacrilege by illicitly transporting the host for sinful purposes instead of making an act of pious reception of the Blessed Sacrament. Such an act is a serious defamation of the Catholic faith. The Eucharist in itself and through our belief and worship is at the very core of the Catholic faith. The critic here uses the word “cannibalism”, but of course, reception of the sacramental species, cannot be so grossly defined. After the consecration, the wafer is not merely symbolic of Christ’s flesh, but it is Jesus, risen from the dead, whole and complete. We do not actually chew upon the accidentals of flesh, bone and blood. This is why the charge of cannibalism is inexact. All we can sense are the accidentals that remain the same, that of bread and wine, but the substance behind such appearances has been transformed into Jesus. The only reason that Catholics believe this is because our Lord said it was so. The murmuring Jews in the Gospels rejected this teaching (and walked away) as do various Christian denominations today. However, it was the truth universally accepted by all of Christendom for most of its history. The reformation and enlightenment introduced various degrees of skepticism and even disbelief into the mix. Yes, even Christians can be infected with elements of atheism, particularly regarding the Eucharist as well as such matters as miracles and even the resurrection of Christ.

ANDROO: Now just wait, this isn’t the stupid and insane part yet. The Eucharist is a small bread wafer blessed by a priest.

FATHER JOE: No, it is more than blessed. The priest stands at the altar as “another Christ” or as one who participates in the one priesthood of Christ. He offers the words of institution and the elements of bread and wine are consecrated or transformed into the bread of life and the chalice of salvation. Jesus nourishes us with his very self.

ANDROO: According to Catholics, the wafer becomes the Body of Christ once blessed and is to be consumed immediately after a minister passes it out to churchgoers. I see some stupid. But much like icebergs, 9/10 of ’stupid’ lies unseen until its too late.

FATHER JOE: What he writes here is somewhat incoherent, but the gist of it is that Catholics must be “stupid”. Catholics are true biblical Christians. Jesus told us that we must eat his body and drink his blood if we are to have life. We do not walk away from our Lord or from this teaching. We have kept faith in Christ for 2,000 years. This atheist rejects Jesus; indeed, he categorized him in the earlier debate as a myth.

ANDROO: So basically, this kid takes a Triscut out of church and catholics worldwide become furious. Do you believe that I’m not making this up? People are emailing this kid with death threats. I suppose you could say that the death threats are just from the nutters, not logical and measured people.

FATHER JOE: We only have his testimony about the death threats. The Church had a similar battle with a man who placed a host consecrated by the late Pope on Ebay. Ebay has agreed not to allow such listings in the future. The ignorant man returned the host to the archdiocese. Such a host is not a cookie or cracker. It begins as a wafer of unleavened bread that is consecrated into our Lord at Mass.

ANDROO: Well, here is the logical, measured response form the local diocese,

“We don’t know 100% what Mr. Cooks motivation was,” said Susan Fani a spokesperson with the local Catholic diocese.” However, if anything were to qualify as a hate crime, to us this seems like this might be it.”

What The F%#k. Absconding with a Cheez It is now a hate crime. A Hate Crime. This my friends, is an example of the Catholic/Christian persecution complex at the height of its game. However, Christians haven’t been truly persecuted in this world since the Romans were feeding their asses to the lions in the Colosseum. But the Christians, especially Catholics, love to persecute others.

FATHER JOE: Notice that this atheist resorts to vulgar language and the same stereotypes uttered in the last discussion. He suggests that the Church’s response is disproportionate to the subject at hand and illustrates a persecution complex. However, the blood of the martyrs yesterday and today is ample evidence that persecution is real and not imagined. I had a friend who lost his life as a missionary overseas and another who lost her nursing position here at home because of her strong Catholic moral convictions about life. The critic does not fully appreciate the importance of the matter for Catholics. We believe the consecrated host is Jesus and we believe that Jesus is God! We bend the knee and adore the Blessed Sacrament. One of the first child martyrs died by stoning while he guarded the sacrament as a great treasure against his chest under his tunic. As for persecution, the ignorance of the critic is glaring. Millions of Christians suffered and died for their faith in the Communist “atheist” Soviet gulags. Two Catholic priests were just arrested in China and have disappeared in the last couple of weeks. Catholicism is mocked in the media and by atheist critics like the one here; and yet, they are blind to their bigotry and injustice.

ANDROO: Like this kid for instance, he stole a cracker and now he’s being accused of a hate crime and getting death threats, oh yeah, and being accused of kidnapping.

FATHER JOE: Of course, he did not steal a mere “cracker”. He absconded with something that is prized by Catholics more than silver and gold. Saints have died in seeking to preserve it from desecration. It is a sacred sign that makes present that which is signified, Christ Jesus. That is the Catholic faith. Everything about Catholicism flows from this central belief and great sacrament: both sacrifice and real presence. The abuse of the Eucharist by either Satanists or atheists is indeed a hate crime of the highest order. The host is not simply an object to believers, but is the embodiment of a personal presence. If a Catholic commits sacrilege and scandal with the Eucharist, it is not only mortal sin but also grounds for excommunication.
Non-Catholics will sometimes come into a Catholic church and errantly take the host. I had one nice lady return it to me, very apologetic and embarrassed. She did not know about the restriction of the sacrament to Catholics, or even what to do with the host. She committed no sin because she acted in good faith and was ignorant about our beliefs and practices. This is very different from a deliberate act of sacrilege. I have no sympathy for anyone who would take the host for profane purposes.

ANDROO:

“It is hurtful,” said Father Migeul Gonzalez with the Diocese. “Imagine if they kidnapped somebody and you make a plea for that individual to please return that loved one to the family.”

What? Loved one? Are you kidding me? I can get crackers by the box load from Shop Rite, am i kidnapping them if i don’t eat them right away? If Jesus did exist he would be sick to his stomach right about now.

FATHER JOE: Just as in the other debate, the critic here has no ability to see things from another’s perspective. Obviously, someone who has no faith in God and the supernatural would NOT regard the Eucharist as anything but play-acting from the priest and the result a mere piece of pampered bread. The critic here shows no empathy for Catholics or their feelings about this. While we can regard his disbelief as an honest personal response; he will not credit the Catholic and his belief as anything which could be tolerated. His argument is thus very one dimensional. He fails to see all the possibilities and his imagination will allow for no reality other than the one that he can scratch from the sand of his God-forsaken desert. He is wrong that Jesus does not exist. He is alive and Lord. He is right that Jesus must be “sick to his stomach” although it is because of his callous treatment of Catholics and their faith in the Eucharist. Jesus gave us the Eucharist so that we might not be orphaned. He has never abandoned his children.

ANDROO:

Gonzalez said intentionally abusing the Eucharist is classified as a mortal sin in the Catholic church, the most severe possible. If it’s not returned, the community of faith will have to ask for forgiveness. “We have to make acts of reparation,” Gonzalez said. “The whole community is going to turn to prayer. We’ll ask the Lord for pardon, forgiveness, peace, not only for the whole community affected by it, but also for [Cook], we offer prayers for him as well.”

I can imagine that, ‘please god, grant me forgiveness for not devouring the flesh of your son as though I were a cannibal, or perhaps a zombie. Please have the foresight, wisdom and knowledge to be able to look past my inability to commit a grisly act of eating human flesh to please you.

FATHER JOE: Jesus, himself, is the one who gave his Eucharist to the Church. At the Last Supper he consecrated the sacred elements and gave them to his apostles. He said that this was his body and blood. The original Aramaic is very stark and clear. This was no figurative presence. Jesus meant what he said. His bread of life discourse and long passages in John’s Gospel leave no room for doubt. Unless you eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of Man (a messianic title) you can have no life in you. It is the chief means by which we as Catholics seek to share in Christ’s divinity just as he took upon himself our humanity. We ask forgiveness for carelessness about the Eucharist. We make spiritual reparation for those who receive unworthily. The Eucharist is viewed as a foretaste or participation in the rations from that promised shore to which we travel as a pilgrim people.

ANDROO: That is basically what the Eucharist is about. Apparently, some hand-waving and magic words is supposed to transform these crackers into Jesus flavored flash biscuits and you eat them like something out of a George Romero movie. I mean really, they truly believe it becomes flesh, and isn’t that disgusting?

FATHER JOE: Addressing the critic directly… your graphic understanding of the Eucharist is itself heretical. Once again it is shown that despite citations, you really do not understand enough about Catholicism to make an intelligible and credible critique. Catholic Christianity does not see itself as superstition. Indeed, Catholicism represents the end of magic and the beginning of something real. Through the instrumentality of a priest who acts at the altar in the person of Christ (head of the Church), we have a re-presentation of both the Last Supper and Calvary. The Mass is ultimately celebrated by Jesus who makes himself present in both action and in communion. The real presence is sacramental but it is not technically physical, at least not in the sense of the Thanksgiving turkey on the family table. The Eucharist is not a dead Christ but a living one. The sign can be fractured but not the underlying reality. No matter what host or particle of a host— no matter how many drops of the precious blood are consumed— every drop and every crumb contains the complete and whole Christ, risen from the dead.

ANDROO: Well, Bill Donahue, idiot Catholic Apologist and watchdog, doesn’t think so. He says Cook is holding Jesus hostage while he is helpless in his wafer form.

FATHER JOE: Bill Donahue is a wonderful man and you have no right to name-call a man of such high integrity. Cook was indeed holding the host hostage. Just as God made himself vulnerable at Bethlehem, our Lord entrusts the care of his Eucharist to men and the Church.

ANDROO:

For a student to disrupt Mass by taking the Body of Christ hostage–regardless of the alleged nature of his grievance–is beyond hate speech. That is why the UCF administration needs to act swiftly and decisively in seeing that justice is done. All options should be on the table, including expulsion.

Give it a rest you blowhard. Jesus is god, or something stupid like that that Catholics never explain, if he is trapped as a wafer I’m sure he’ll get over it, but since he’s god he should be able to get out of this horrible hostage situation. But more importantly, how come he let himself get kidnapped as a cracker anyway? I mean, being god and all, shouldn’t he be able to avoid embarrassing problems like this?

FATHER JOE: Donahue has as much right to his opinion as you do. Here again you treat religious people as so many of the totalitarian atheists with which we have had to deal during the last century, particularly in the Soviet Union. You are not an intellectual atheist. You are an atheist more in the mold of Stalin and Mao. Your weapons are slogans and hatred. Religion has no rights in your eyes. Religious people can be mocked freely. Such is your implied stance, and it is offensive even to the more mild-mannered agnostics. What you say here is very similar to something I read in one of the tracts distributed by the Soviet embassy back when I was a boy and by the likes of the late Gus Hall.

ANDROO: To prove a point, I would like my readers to get me some of these god wafers. Not only will I not eat them, I’ll do all kinds of horrible things to them. In fact, I’ll let the readers who send me the crackers decide what I do with them, an even post the videos and pictures on the blog. I can make it a little contest. It will be fun for the whole family. Unless you;re a catholic family, then you don’t have any fun because you’re too busy being told you’re a guilty sinner.

FATHER JOE: Yes, you sound very much like the anti-Catholic Communists. They actually did such things as you suggest. They were the enemies of religion and human decency. You have shown your true colors now and are of their number. You rank also with the other branch of totalitarianism, the defunct Nazis who desecrated churches, the Eucharist, and the persons of consecrated religious. Commending and enabling the desecration of the Eucharist is a form of terrorism against the Catholic faith and the ultimate expression of disrespect for a people and their beliefs. At a time when Catholics are allowing Mosques to be built in Christian lands and where believers and non-believers work side-by-side for a better world; you are a throwback to an age of selective toleration and persecution of others. You are not content with sharing your own ideas or even discussing them with others. You are the small man who seeks to make himself bigger by slander and insensitivity. Christ in the sacrament cannot be harmed. Jesus can never suffer and die again. However, desecration of the sacrament will do you incalculable harm— not simply because Catholics are right about it, but because it will show such a drastic lack of respect for Catholics who would otherwise be your friends. You know how deeply this would pain us and yet you would arrogantly propose it anyway. This is a terrible business. A deliberate act against the Eucharist and our highest convictions of faith would also damage you, not only in God’s eyes, but within the social framework of the larger community. What kind of man would do such terrible things? Who could live with himself, knowing that he brought terrible anxiety and tears to thousands or millions of good people? I will not speak to the resultant lawsuits… I am not knowledgeable about such things.

ANDROO: I have repeatedly said that Catholics truly believe this stupid doctrine of Jesus wafers and flesh biscuits and crackers being transformed into flesh that people eat like vampires or cannibals or the Donner party, but I actually think people are smarter than that, so I did some research.

FATHER JOE: The ancient Romans also were mistaken when they heard about the Eucharist. During the first three centuries, the Church faced terrible persecution. The Eucharistic mystery was rumored among the pagans as the eating of babies or of a man’s flesh. They did not understand, as you do not, about the clean sacrifice of the Mass. The Eucharist and its reception is not cannibalism. The Church would define the ancient mystery in the face of heresy and opposition. As for your so-called research, it was taken from a Latin traditionalist site which argues that the post Vatican II Church is less effective than the pre-Vatican II Church with its Latin liturgy in transmitting the faith. They would not argue that religion is the problem, only that the basics are not being properly transmitted. Here is the report below “word for word” as you cut and pasted it…

http://www.traditio.com/tradlib/polls.txt

ANDROO: here is what I found:

THIRD GALLUP POLL (1992): BELIEF IN DOGMA ON HOLY EUCHARIST

In January 1992, the St. Augustine Center Association sponsored a second Gallup poll, called “A Gallup Survey of Catholics regarding Holy Communion.”  This poll, which included telephone interviews of 519 U.S. Catholics during the period of December 10, 1991, to January 19, 1992, revealed that ONLY 30% OF NOVUS ORDO CATHOLICS BELIEVE THE DE-FIDE DOGMA ABOUT THE SACRAMENT OF THE HOLY EUCHARIST namely, that at Communion they are really and truly receiving the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, under the appearance of bread and wine, which is known as the Real Presence.

70% OF NOVUS ORDO CATHOLICS NOW HOLD AN HERETICAL BELIEF IN THE HOLY EUCHARIST.

Specifically,

1) 29% of Novus Ordo Catholics believe that when receiving Holy Communion, they are receiving bread and wine, which symbolize the spirit and teachings of Jesus Christ, and in so doing are expressing their attachment to His Person and words. This is the heresy of Protestant John Zwingli, who taught the false doctrine that the Mass is merely a symbolic commemoration of Christ’s death.

2) 24% of Novus Ordo Catholics believe that when receiving Holy Communion, they are receiving the Body and Blood of Christ, which has become that because of their personal belief. This is the heresy of Protestant John Calvin, who taught the false doctrine that the faith of the recipient transforms the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ.

3) 10% of Novus Ordo Catholics believe that when receiving Holy Communion, they are receiving bread and wine, in which Jesus Christ is really and truly present. This is the heresy of Protestant Martin Luther, who taught the false doctrine known as “consubstantiation,” that the Body and Blood of Christ coexist with the elements of bread and wine during the Eucharist.

4) 8% of Novus Ordo Catholics hold some other non-Catholic belief.

5) Only 30% of Novus Ordo Catholics believe that they are really and truly receiving the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ under the appearance of Bread and Wine. This has always been the Church’s dogma regarding the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist.

The Catholic Church teaches that Transubstantiation, that is, the complete change of the bread and wine into the substance of Christ’s Body and Blood, is effected by an ordained priest during the Consecration of the Mass, so that only the appearance of bread and wine remain. The Sacramental presence of Christ begins the moment of transubstantiation and remains as long as the Eucharistic species exist. This doctrine goes back to Apostolic times, and its basis is in Scripture and Tradition. The term “transubstantiation,” meaning “change of substance,” was adopted by the dogmatic Fourth Lateran Ecumenical Council in 1215 to help explain the doctrine of the Real Presence.

The poll results show a terrible confusion on the part of Catholics concerning one of the most fundamental dogmata of the Church, a confusion that has actually led them into (at least material) heresy.

The poll results were presented to the U.S. Bishops at their annual conference of November 1992 at Washington, D.C. The bishops failed to take any action, but preferred to let 7 out of 10 Catholics remain in (at least material) heresy.

ANDROO: That was nearly 16 years ago, however I am sure the numbers have grown substantially since then. So no, most Catholics are heretics and do not believe that their wheatables become Jesus’s body parts when a man in a dress says some magic words. Who wants to think of something like this every Sunday anyway?

FATHER JOE: Actually catechetics have much improved and I suspect people (especially the young) are once again growing in the appreciation of their faith. Look at the World Youth Day 2008 pictures on TV. Catholic kids are debating with fundamentalists and atheists and holding their own! These kids are devout, pro-life, and growing in numbers. They give me great hope about the future of the Church. If one has an authentic Eucharistic faith, then no other church will do and the believer will be faithful to Sunday Mass.

ANDROO: However, since these things seem to be the new hotness on the street, maybe the Catholic Church should start packaging and selling them. Here’s my idea, I expect ten percent of all profits, foreign and domestic as my consulting fee.

FATHER JOE: The Eucharist is Christ’s free gift to his Church. It comes along with the offer of salvation and eternal life. Why should we pay the robber or the wolf anything? No sir, but in God’s own good time, you will receive what divine justice says you deserve. I will pray that God will have mercy upon you and grant you the opportunity for repentance and a saving faith.

The late Father John Hardon, S.J. had this to say about the Eucharist:

The doctrine of the Real Presence is, first of all, proved from Sacred Scripture. At the Last Supper, Christ simply declared that He was giving the disciples His Body and Blood. Nothing in the context of His words indicates He was speaking figuratively, whereas everything shows He meant it to be taken literally (cf. Matthew 26:26-28; Mark 14:22-25; Luke 22:19-20).

In the Gospel of John, when Christ foretold He would give His Body to eat and His Blood to drink, many of His disciples left Him because they would not believe this. Yet, instead of taking back what He said or qualifying His statement, He repeated the promise and even asked the Apostles if they also wanted to leave Him (cf. John 6:47-67).

Sacred Tradition from the earliest times teaches the Real Presence. St. Ignatius of Antioch wrote in A.D. 107, “The Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ” (Smyrneans, 6:2). And St. Justin wrote in A.D. 145, “As Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by Him …is both the flesh and the blood of that incarnate Jesus” (I Apology, 66).

The teaching of the Church on the Real Presence is defined revealed doctrine according to the Council of Trent. It declares that the whole Christ is truly, really and substantially present in the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist immediately after consecration. It also declares that the whole Christ is present under each form, and under each part of particle of each species of both bread and wine. By the “whole Christ” in the Eucharist, we mean He is present in the fullness of His divine and human nature. He is present under the sacramental veils with the fullness of His divine attributes as well as all His human qualities.