Dr. P.Z. Myers’ crusade against religion illustrates defects in civility, empathy and imagination. Dr. Myers, himself, seems to like being a maverick drawing personal attention. It is no secret that the Internet can quickly make celebrities out of little men. Those who “think they are smart” and the impressionable are easily awed by jargon even by third rate minds, no matter whether from a scientist, theologian or philosopher. Those attracted to such fickle flames bask in the anonymity of this technology, posting nasty remarks, pictures and videos, supposing all the time that nothing will ever be traced back to them. Dr. Myers does not seem to care if he hurts others. The fact that many take solace and offer noble witness in the cause of faith does not measure any credit, only ridicule. Like Karl Marx, he regards religion as a drug, something which retards the mind and gives false hope. No doubt he would argue that the great scientists among Christians and Jews made their contributions despite or in opposition to religious faith, and not as an expression of their devotion to God’s majesty and a desire to know the mysteries of his creation.
I know a heart surgeon who gives God the credit for his successes in the operating room. God, he says, literally stills and guides his hand. I would rather have him opening me up than a “shaky-handed” atheist doctor any day! As for imagination, a shortcoming in this regard stifles advancement in any discipline. A theologian can rigidly interpret Scripture and castigate science as a danger to faith. I even read one fundamentalist who so opposed evolution that he argued the devil planted fossils just to sow the seed of doubts and lies in our minds. No, I do not think so. God’s creation is intelligible and he has given us the reasoning powers to explore and know it. Science compliments theology, it is not its enemy. Further, one cannot hold certain postulates from science while also clinging to directly contradictory ones in religion. Such represents a faulty epistemology. The Catholic Church, through her universities and so much more, is a friend to science. God’s created order might be more surprising than we ever thought. The Christian imagination embraces mystery and knows that we have not exhausted all there is to know.
Those scientists with the greatest and most open-ended imaginations have been the ones who have given us the most staggering discoveries. Even those of us who have trouble following the math of string theory and who get headaches from chaos theory, can respect the genius that would make such leaps. Atheism and science seem more contradictory to me than science and religion. Atheism inherently represents a closed mind, a lack of imagination. It is true that not all religions can be right, but why is it that men and women of all cultures and times have had religion? Why are there so many similarities regarding sacrifice to a deity or deities? Why do cultures with little or no interaction have views about the afterlife? Why do so many want to survive the grave? Is the desire for immortality pointing to a great mystery or is it the result of a defective and dishonest gene? Could it be that we are wired for faith and worship? And if so, who or what did the wiring? What is behind the big bang? Could there be intelligence in the universe that we have not discovered with the telescope that would fit the definition of God? I am amazed that certain scientists are more willing to believe in aliens or even UFOs, but not in a God and his angels. They will argue for the BIG BANG, but refuse to inquire about what was happening prior to the singularity and explosive creative moment.
The situation about his lack of censure despite violating school rules is not logically explained because such is impossible. The sad truth is that Dr. Myers is being protected by his friends and colleagues who also have no respect for the religious sensibilities of others. If Dr. Myers wore a sheet and burned a cross while hanging a dummy of a black man (in effigy), I suspect he would have been quickly shown the door for the unpardonable crime of racism. Indeed, use of the “N” word would be enough to get him canned. But he could name-call Christians and commits an act that he knew would offend Catholics as sacrilege with no censure whatsoever. Instead of a host nailed to a Koran; I suspect he would have faced more discipline had it been a naked Barbie doll screwed to a copy of Jong’s FEAR OF FLYING. Sexism cannot be tolerated either. However, bashing religion is okay! No, this is wrong, terribly wrong. Dr. Myers desecrated what Catholics consider as the Holy of Holies and he need not worry about his job security or any punishment from the school. Note the sign of disrespect this sends to Catholic students and alumni. The university is saying that YOU do not matter. Bill Donohue is right, Catholic bashing has become the one acceptable bigotry.
What happens if this situation escalates? Will Dr. Myers take credit when churches are vandalized and tabernacles are destroyed so that hosts might be desecrated? Will he post pictures of priests and nuns beaten in the streets so that his hoodlums can steal the hosts and oils for the sick?
The host is extended to believers who want to receive Holy Communion. Missalettes make it very clear that those who are not Catholic and who are not in a state of grace are NOT INVITED to take the sacrament. Catholics believe in a “closed table” and as such, these villains in the news have taken what does not belong to them. The purpose of the Eucharist is to feed God’s people with the living presence of Christ. This Eucharist is the bread of life and the cup of salvation. We receive it in Holy Communion and we adore the host in the Monstrance. Any other use is prohibited. Those who defile the host or who receive it unworthily (including the enablers of abortion) receive not life but judgment. Desecration is not dialogue, it is terrorism.
So well put, Father. God Bless.
Love you blog.
I still have a feeling the Myers will be sanctioned somehow. Maybe a short suspension. The Catholic League has seemed to put Myers on the backburner (no PR’s going on 2 weeks), but I know Bill Donohue’s make-up and he is too tenacious for this apparent observation – something is going on. Maybe he’s getting a couple of groups together to announce a boycott of UMM, maybe working with UMM to meet them half way with a disciplinary action.
Calm comes before the storm.
I think this Myers situation has been an eye-opener for Catholics that have blogs as to what is out there that requires prayer for protection and prayer for redemption.
Hi all, as a slightly off topic comment/request, I’m hosting a survey on my blog to collect data about people’s use of religious labels — and I’d sure appreciate your input! Thanks in advance. http://truthisawoman.wordpress.com/2008/08/09/religious-labels-an-online-poll-please-help/
He opened the university up to being permanently disgraced and tarnished.
He needs to be fired. Keep sending emails and pressuring his superiors until they get so sick and tired that they have no choice but to hand him his walking papers.
How many Catholics read these posts then do nothing?
Keep sending emails in protest
FATHER JOE: “Dr. Myers does not seem to care if he hurts others.”
MORSE: I imagine PZ would argue that he has harmed no one. Offended, yes. Harmed? No. And in this country, you do not have a right to not be offended.
FATHER JOE: Actually, if you call a gay person by the “F” or “Q” word or a black person by the “N” word, you can face loss of employment, fines, and here in Maryland “re-education classes”, particularly if you own a business and want to keep it open. Women can sue you and get you fired for verbal or acted-out sexism in the workplace. Indeed, there are anti-slander laws nationwide, so there are already limits in how far you might offend someone. Offense and harm are often considered as equivalent terms. Desecrating the Eucharist and calling Christians all sorts of names is also offensive and should be the cause for public censure. Good Catholics love and adore the host. They would sooner face death and torture than to see what P.Z. Myers did to the host. You have no idea the emotional distress he has caused. He hurt good people needlessly.
FATHER JOE: “The situation about his lack of censure despite violating school rules is not logically explained because such is impossible. The sad truth is that Dr. Myers is being protected by his friends and colleagues who also have no respect for the religious sensibilities of others.”
MORSE: His lack of censure occurred because he did not break school rules. PZ expressed his opinion on a personal blog that is unaffiliated with the University where he works. He neither threatened nor discriminated against any individual or group. He did something that a particular group finds offensive, but there is nothing illegal about what he did.
FATHER JOE: Actually, Dr. Morse did break university rules. His name-calling and act of desecration offends Catholics in good standing and all others of good will and decency. Your failure to see this threatens to place you among the blind and depraved. As for legal or illegal, if his enticement to others leads to further vandalism and violence against clergy, then I do think he would have some culpability. There are past cases of sanction (termination) due to behavior outside the classroom by others. The University of Minnesota Code of Conduct requires that faculty members “must be committed to the highest ethical standards of conduct” (II:2) and that “Ethical conduct is a fundamental expectation for every community member. In practicing and modeling ethical conduct, community members are expected to: act according to the highest ethical and professional standards of conduct [and] be personally accountable for individual actions” (III:1). It also states that faculty MUST “Be Fair and Respectful to Others. The University is committed to tolerance, diversity, and respect for differences. When dealing with others, community members are expected to: be respectful, fair, and civil . . . avoid all forms of harassment . . . [and] threats . . . [and] promote conflict resolution.” How can a good Catholic family now trust the university with their children? How could Catholic alumni continue to give grants to the school? How could a Catholic student give the respect that he or she should to a professor who has shown such disdain to that which most identifies them as a Christian believer? The answer to all these questions is a negative one. I would urge Catholics to look elsewhere for a school until or unless the apologies and reparation are made. Certainly the Catholic Student Association (operated by the Paulists) should take serious action, including the safeguarding of the local Eucharist.
MORSE: It seems clear that at no point in any of his classes does he speak about religion, atheism, or his personal philosophical or political views.
FATHER JOE: Actually, there have been statements by past students which seem to indicate his intolerance to expressions or signs of religious faith in the classroom, too. The man is a bigot, pure and simple. The problem is not his atheism, but rather his act of mockery and discrimination against people of faith, Catholic, Moslem, or whatever.
MORSE: Now, if you wish, by all means try and contact scienceblogs and petition them to stop hosting his blog. I would disagree, but that is your right to do so.
FATHER JOE: I am not so worried about his blogs. My concern is that he is not fit to teach at a public or state university. If he was the teacher at a private atheist college, then he could do what he wanted. But wait a minute, we have public schools and then private schools, the latter of which are largely affiliated with churches, hum… I guess the atheists do not have much in the way of private schools. I suppose that is why they are trying to take over the state schools? Curious, is it not, that people of faith who are classified as anti-intellectual or backward, should establish some of the nation’s most important colleges and universities!
MORSE: I would ask you to point out the university rules that state that a professor can neither commit an act of desecration in his private time nor offend others, even groups, in his private time.
FATHER JOE: If you do not see the problem then you are too numb to any act of indecency for a reasonable debate. The words from the Regents already presented here are sufficient to cover such hate crimes and acts of desecration. The fact is that I doubt institutions would tolerate similar acts in regards to race or gender. I might be wrong though; many try to protect such offensive acts as flag burning and the swastika graffiti against Jews, too. Apparently you are among these types of people.
MORSE: Forgive me for not taking your word for it, but I would love to have your sources for this information. If he has shown intolerance to religious students, I will gladly agree with you and condemn those actions. If, however, he merely refused to pass a student who tried to answer biology questions with scripture (for example), I side with PZ.
FATHER JOE: The sources are entirely public. Read the hundreds or thousands of comments all over the Internet. Men with such radical prejudices have a hard time in restraining the expression of such sentiments, even if under the breath or in the unspoken treatment of certain students. Pardon me; I doubt Christian students would resort to Scripture citation in answering biology questions! This is a slight slur on your part. I am afraid your own atheism and prejudice against believers is showing.
MORSE: What threats? Piercing a piece of unlevened bread with a nail and throwing it away is in no way a threat. Neither is it harassment. The only threats and harassments, I will remind you, were against Webster Cook (who also endured physical assault, all for the ‘crime’ of wanting to show a friend the eucharist) and PZ himself.
FATHER JOE: The threat is immediate and real. Dr. Myers urged people to abscond with the host in violation of Catholic teaching and ritual. This creates a situation of possible confrontation and even violence. Further, the unleavened bread is consecrated and thus is regarded by Catholics as God come down from heaven. You do not have to believe this, but you should not deliberately violate Catholic sensibilities about it or urge others to do so. As I said, Catholics like me would rather be put to death than to permit one act of desecration. Maybe that will be Dr. Myers’ next challenge? Would a Catholic step forward to die so that a host might not be desecrated? There would be many takers, including those of us who are well educated, even in the sciences. As for Webster Cook, he endured no personal assault. He was only blocked and urged to return the host. He refused. The Church is not responsible for what crazy individuals might say any more than are all atheists to blame for Dr. Myers and his misbegotten supporters. Good Catholics have suffered a vicarious martyrdom in the desecration of the Eucharist. We are pained beyond words. You do not understand this because you suffer as does Dr. Myers from a defect in empathy and imagination. You cannot imagine and do not care how we might feel about all this.
MORSE: I agree that PZ has mocked the religious. I have done so on occasion as well, though only when I have thought their behavior appropriate to mock or condemn.
FATHER JOE: Again, read the many comments from believers who have had to endure his tirades. It is enough that he has caused scandal in the public forum. No Catholic in his right mind would deliberately take his courses. The problem is not his atheism, but rather that he has deliberately announced himself as an enemy of the Church and Jesus Christ. It is one thing not to believe, it is entirely another to actively seek the destruction of the faith. Catholics today try to dialogue with non-believers and those of other denominations and faiths. We believe we are right, and would not want to compromise ourselves; however, we would not do the types of things today that Dr. Myers did in desecrating the Eucharist. His addition of a Koran is telling, because while the late Pope kissed such a book as a sign of human respect to Moslems (alternative spelling), there is nothing of such civility to be found in his mockery and desecration.
“Curious, is it not, that people of faith who are classified as anti-intellectual or backward, should establish some of the nation’s most important colleges and universities!”—Father Joe
MORSE: Not curious at all. One thing that religions have always done well is raise money. Pope Benedict lives in a palace in his own city, so I would be foolish to deny it. People with money do many things, amongst them setting up Universities…either to teach their particular religion to the masses, or just educate in general. When it is for general education, I applaud any organization that has started a school. When it is to educate about their particular religion, I disagree but do not begrudge them the right to do with their money what they like.
FATHER JOE: St. Peter’s is impressive and is a great church. It was built to give glory to God, not to men. I suspect that you may have more worldly possessions than the Pope. These men often live quite simply. The late Pope’s bedroom was like the cell of a monk. Regarding schools, I think the real reason for the difference is that faith inspires people to search for answers and to know the truth. There is little that is inspirational about atheism. Indeed, it tends toward despair and self-destruction. Are we simply to live for ourselves or a nameless humanity? The cosmos does not care if you live or die, so you might as well die and have done with it. Such are the views which I hear from many young people who have adopted atheism. It is very troubling.
Dear Morse,
You say, that Professor Myers, “neither threatened nor discriminated against any individual or group.”
The group that he threatened is the Catholic Group. Perhaps you mean that he did not threaten bodily harm but that is a very narrow view of a threat. People can threaten other people in lots of ways that are unacceptable in civil society.
How did he threaten us? He threatened AND carried out an act of desecration. He took was what not his and use it for his own selfish purpose. I suppose many people in this day and age don’t reall understand what desecration is.
Something becomes “sacred” when it is set aside for God.
In Catholic practice this happens through a blessing. In the case of the Eucharist, it becomes sacred during the Mass when the priest says the words of consecration. This is an ancient practice and is rich with grace, meaning, and history. Something is desecrated when that sacredness is treated with contempt and disrespect. Professor Myers took what was sacred and threw it in the trash.
He did more than threaten and get a soap box – he publicly and unapologetically followed through on his threats. That should bother you and any civilized person. It shows a great amount of intolerance and bias against something he does not understand.
Why did he do this? Was it an innocent, nonchalant, harmless act? Or was it a deliberate action aimed against Catholics? It was clearly the latter. After he made his threats Catholics worldwide filled his inbox with an outcry for him NOT to follow through. They made it clear to him that his threats would be painful if he did what he said he would. Did he care? No. Did he change his mind? No. At one point he said that his post was just satire but his following actions proved otherwise. It was not just satire. it was not just an opinion. It was an action to prove his point at the cost of causing great anguish to Catholics.
If Catholics had no belief that Christ was present in the Eucharist there would be no punch line for Professor Myers. Our belief is what made his act powerful. We didn’t see him going into the grocery store and filmed the destruction of a box of Ritz. His actions were not against crackers! It was against Catholics
That makes his act an act of aggression.
It would be very much like if Fr. Joe here posted a rant against the neighboring church and asked his readers to A) go to a wedding where there would be childhood pictures on display for the guest to look at and 2) to take one of the photos and 3) send it to him in the mail. These photos, of course, would be extremely valuable to the wedding party but valueless to Fr. Joe. Then, image, if Fr. Joe burned those photos online and said “What? I just burned some paper; it has no value to me. I am not required to value those photos. And, on top of that it’s utterly stupid for those people to value them.”
However there are two big differences here:
1) The value of photos is apparent to all people. Fr. Joe indeed can understand that childhood photos are more important to a mother than they are to him. AND
2) The value of the Eucharist is not apparent to those without faith. (on top of that its value far surpasses any photos)
Does that make it all the more acceptable to treat it with contempt? No, it doesn’t. The fact that *we* value it is ENOUGH for people of goodwill to understand that what Prof. Myers did (not just what he said) was wrong, it was intentionally hurtful, and he ought to be sanctioned for it.
His acts are connected to his work by the facts that a) He had a link from his the university faculty page to his blog until Catholics reacted to his bigotry 2) he still has a link from his blog to the university 3) he states clearly that he is a professor at UMM – he uses his position to give himself credibility, as professors understandable do 4) he posts regularly during work hours. He posts many times a day, everyday. Some online have tracked that he has posted during lab-hours when he was scheduled to be at work 5) As Fr. Joe has said, there are past students who have testified to that his opinions are known in and out of class.
What PZ Myers did was neither his duty nor his protected right. Furthermore, defending his acts is not noble or enlightened. It’s wrong to defend desecration as a “freedom;” either as academic freedom or as freedom of speech. It is neither. Its an act of a bully. We are asking you to uphold *common* human decency.
Respectfully, MaryH
The older that I am getting, the more that it seems that the world is indeed shaping up for some type of battle between the forces of evil and those of good.
P.Z. Myers’s act was reprehensible, as well as completely immature – but what is even worse is that he has spawned copy cats who are posting videos mocking Catholics and desecrating the Host on the internet.
The enemy of man is alive and well……
“How did he threaten us? He threatened AND carried out an act of desecration.”
This is a very broad and disingenuous definition of the word “threaten”. PZ did not threaten anyone’s life, liberty, or wellbeing. His, however, was repeatedly threatened by Catholics threatening to harm or take his life.
I can threaten to hug my mother, but that is not a ‘threat’ in the way it should be used in discussing this issue.
“Or was it a deliberate action aimed against Catholics? It was clearly the latter.”
It was a deliberate actioned aimed at the Catholics who physically assaulted Webster Cook and those who threatened him with death for taking a piece of unlevened bread that was handed him freely to a friend.
It seems many people seem to forget this. Or perhaps simply don’t want to remind people that it is how this issue started.
“The sources are entirely public. Read the hundreds or thousands of comments all over the Internet.”
I’m terribly dissapointed with you, Father Joe. If there are hundreds and thousands of comments, why not link to the ones that convinced you? Half a dozen would suffice. Or two. One, even.
If you cannot provide a single credible source, how can I take any of your claims seriously?
FATHER JOE WRITES:
Sorry, MORSE, but you are not serious about this discussion. Anyone who defends what Dr. Myers did is himself a collaborator in his bigotry and terrorism against faith. I do not have the time right now to try and teach basic virtue to men who should have learned such things as young boys. Maybe later, if ministry allows… but right now it looks like a waste of time.
If Dr. Myers has any students who are reading this Blog and who feel that he has allowed the “cat out of the bag” about his anti-Catholicism and atheism in the classroom, please feel free to comment. I would look up the posts I read, but I did not keep a written record and do not have time right now to research it again. MORSE seems unwilling or unable to search the Internet himself for such references. While I was studying what had happened, I thought and still do, that what he did in public was sufficient to create an atmosphere of enmity that would make it difficult or impossible for Catholics to study anything under him in the classroom.
I know MORSE, you will probably say that I do not play fair… well, yes, that is true… but it is my Blog. I always get the last word and sometimes, THE ONLY WORD.
MORSE,
I feel very threatened by what Cook, Myers and now what others have done. I have become very guarded at Mass and worry more than ever about church intruders. Myers urging others to take the Eucharist has put every priest at risk. No one has lifted a finger to hurt either Cook or Myers. For all we know, they wrote the threats against themselves. Myers most took offense at those Christians who said they would pray for him. Are you saying that prayer is assault?
Cook was not physically assaulted. He was a thief who took what did not belong to him. You are defending a criminal. He pretended to be a Catholic in good standing. He was a fraud, just as you are in pretending to be more open-minded than these sick people. Church law, if you read my post, asserts that he had no right to come up to the altar. He received the host under false pretenses. Having no right to it, Cook should have stayed in his seat. If he took it by accident, he should have respectfully given it back.
We know how it started. Cook started an act of terrorism that Myers completed. He violated the rights of Catholics and committed an act of sacrilege.
Who said that I had to debate with you, MORSE? You have a computer, look for student reactions yourself! Given that you miss even basic facts that I noted in posts here, I am not convinced that this discussion is genuine. I am tired of closed-minded trouble-makers coming to this Blog.
If you cannot put yourself into my shoes and appreciate how painful it was to see my Lord and God desecrated, then how can I take you seriously? You do not care. You say you mock Christians yourself. Why should I have anything to do with you?
MORSE
Myers doesn’t understand the severity of his actions and he can never undo what he did.
According to an interview by Scott Jaschik (Inside Higher ED), Myers was please that the university wasn’t taking action against him, but said that he “took for granted” that his freedom of speech was protected. “That’s the whole idea of academic freedom”, Myers was quoted as saying.
This is very interesting, because in August of 2005, the Center for Science and Culture, wrote an article that biology professor P.Z. Myers at the University of Minnesota, has called for “the public firing and humiliation of some teachers” because they question Darwin.
Meanwhile, it looks as if Myers and the university doesn’t know the difference between academic freedom and bigotry/terrorism.
Dr. Myers rolled his eyes when he saw the cross around my neck.
That’s not much, but that’s something.
Daiane
Little does professor Myers know that this is far from being “over”.
All one has to do it to look back to history to see what happens to those who mock God and don’t repent.
I’ve been sending emails to Myers and also to the university requesting that they fire him immediately. We have to keep sending emails to prove to them that we’re not a bunch of passive winers with a benign cause.
Persistence pays off and the squeaky wheel always gets the oil.
As Fr. Joe so aptly put it:
“The man is unfit to teach in a university”
That he is.
ED: What happens if this situation escalates? Let’s be clear on the sequence of events. 1. Catholic fails to swallow at communion (held at a public college, ironically), is bullied, confronted, and according to some, chased from the venue with threats of violence.
FATHER JOE: No, it is like this… an ex-Catholic deliberately decides to play games with the Blessed Sacrament. Although the prohibitions and requirements are clearly noted in the Missalette which he uses at Mass, he decides to come up and take communion although it is forbidden for him to do so. Non-Catholics, ex-Catholics and those in mortal sin are not invited to the “closed-table” or altar. He fails to consume the host and is asked to return the host. As an irate thief, he refuses to do so and despite the pleading of good Catholics and a few upset souls who tried to block him, he runs away with the Holy of Holies.
ED: 2. Local Catholics threaten the fellow. He is threatened with beatings, and murder.
FATHER JOE: No, not one Church and not one priest or bishop threatened this man. I have not read even one name of a Catholic lay person who threatened him or did him any bodily harm. Indeed, the archdiocese said again and again that violence was not the answer… even though his dispicable act had done violence to the Catholic student community. His was an act of terrorism!
ED: 3. P. Z. Myers calls on Catholics to get a grip, to back off of threats of murder. Host desecration is not worth taking human life, Myers says. Perhaps going beyond the pale, he says he will prove host desecration is not something to murder over, and volunteers to desecrate a host.
FATHER JOE: No, P. Z. Myers was looking for a stage to continue his war upon organized religion. He relished the opportunity that Cook gave him and urged others to steal consecrated hosts and to send them to him for desecration. He poured gasoline upon the fire with his rhetoric of hate. He desecrates a host even though the Eucharist is the central mystery of the Catholic faith. Many of us would have traded our lives to have prevented the desecration. That is how serious we felt. We were not prepared to hurt anyone. However, we were prepared to be martyrs for Christ and to witness our faith, no matter if deemed foolishness by others or not.
ED: 4. Bill Donohue comes unglued. While refusing to back off of death threats, he urges Myers be fired.
FATHER JOE: Donohue was right to urge the firing of Myers. He is not morally fit to teach students. Certainly no Catholic family or student should tolerate him or support the university that enables such bigots. As for death threats, there are always crazies, and in this case they talked about attacking one of their own. Again, what are the names of these would be killers? We only have his word and anonymous posters. They might be atheists pretending to be Catholics for all we know.
ED: 5. Myers gets death threats.
FATHER JOE: You have already said this, but again, what bishop or priest urged such things? None! The Church urged a civility and peace that was not reciprocated by this rogue. He should face sanctions for his actions and maybe civil liability.
ED: 6. Dozens of Catholics write to Myers with threats, but also urging that he desecrate Islamic scriptures. Catholics still refuse to back off of threats of violence and murder.
FATHER JOE: Again, you repeat yourself. And Catholics never intended for him to add mockery to Moslems in his act of sacrilege. He disrespected both religions. But the core dispute was still over the Eucharist. The Church and true Catholics have made no threats of violence and murder, that is just the same old shell game that pro-abortion proponents play against pro-lifers. You feign the part of victim while actually playing the part of villain. The acts of violence are so far on the side of these so-called atheists. They took hosts that did not belong to them. Myers desecrated a host and now there are copy cats doing the same dispicable deeds. The escalation is on your side. The Catholic response has been pleading and prayer.
ED: Now you enter the fray.
FATHER JOE: Every priest who dedicates his life to the sacrifice of the Mass and the real presence of the Eucharist is immediately in the fray.
ED: My question is this: Did you intend to endorse murder, as it appears to many of us who followed this from the outset?
FATHER JOE: Murder whom? Are you people insane? The local diocese in Florida disavowed violence and the threats from the very beginning. Do you disavow stealing the host and such acts of desecration? That is the real question and so far you seem to be defenders of depravity.
ED: My plea is this: State that you oppose murder, even for host desecration. Otherwise, you are the terrorist. You have intervened in this discussion on the side of the original terrorists, those who originally threatened murder and have not yet backed off. So, we await your actions: Will you stick with the terrorists, or will you back off? Until you disavow violence, you are the one advocating terror and murder.
FATHER JOE: Excuse me, or you off your head? How can we back off of something we have never espoused? Our Lord suffered the indignity of the cross and told Peter to put away the sword. The two Marys and John follow our Lord to the hill of Calvary. They witness his sacrifice and indignity. That is the Catholic pattern here. We pleaded that the host would be returned and Catholic sensibilities be respected. But no, we were further mocked and the host compromised and destroyed. We have done nothing to anyone except to ask that the madness, which we did not start, should come to an end. We have hurt no one. We have killed no one. We have stolen nothing. But your side is where we find the criminals. This posted comment makes you an accomplice to their moral depravity. Along with this third rate biologist, you are urging the terrorists on. You care nothing about the sensibilities of others or truth. You just spout your inuendo and lies.
Note these facts:
THE DIOCESE NEVER MADE ANY THREATS
Carol Brinati said the Diocese of Orlando didn’t condone those threats [that Cook reported], but was happy Cook had a change of heart and returned it. As for some lady who tried to rescue the host from his hand, goodness, what a wimp to complain when he was the one stealing the host!
I HAVE NEVER MADE THREATS
If you look at my half dozen or so posts on this topic, again and again, I stress dialogue and how Catholics must truly be witnesses of the Prince of Peace in this whole ugly business. Violence is not the answer and Catholic moral teaching holds that the value of human life is incommensurate, something that you atheists refuse to accept. Catholicism is not the religion that places warrants on the heads of others. There are no lines of protesting Catholics with signs that say kill Cook or off with Myers’ head. Enough of this shell game… stop the terrorists and have Myers call back his dogs… otherwise, I fear for our churches and clergy.
HERE COMES THE ESCALATION:
A Georgetown Catholic Church has been closed after a weekend robbery that the church considers a desecration, and it will not be reopened until the pastor performs a special service to resanctify the church. Thieves broke into St. Michael the Archangel in Georgetown last weekend, tore the tabernacle from the wall, took it outside and threw it on the ground. Communion wafers were scattered around, and a chalice and monstrance were stolen. “The church has been defiled and has been closed to worship,” said Joan Ilgenfritz, administrative assistant at the church at 202 Edward St.
It will be reopened after the pastor, the Rev. Daniel J. McCloskey, can sprinkle the sanctuary with holy water and offer a special set of prayers to resanctify the space, said Monsignor Joseph Rebman, vicar general of the Diocese of Wilmington. Weekend services were held at the church because the pastor was unaware that a service to resanctify the space was called for, given that desecrations are rare, Rebman said. He could remember only one other desecration in the Diocese of Wilmington in the past 35 years.
Tabernacles are usually made of wood or marble [or metal] and kept on or near the altar of Catholic churches to store the Holy Eucharist. Catholics believe that once the wafers are consecrated, they become the body of Christ and Jesus is present. The tabernacle was found outside about 100 yards from the church. Inside, screens on the parish hall were cut, stands that held memorial candles were overturned and donation boxes were broken into — but money is collected so regularly that vandals got little, Ilgenfritz said.
Rebman said he hoped that pawn shops would be on the lookout for the chalice and monstrance, though they usually have little cash value. A monstrance is an ornate holder that typically has a glass center through which a communion wafer can be seen, and also has wood or metal radiating out from that chamber to represent the love and power of God. The monstrance is a way for worshippers to meditate on the Eucharist.
The consecrated Host are stored in the tabernacle for adoration and the giving of Communion to the sick. “I would think for the folks at St. Michael there is the sense of being violated,” said the Rev. Thomas Flowers of St. Polycarp in Smyrna. “To have the tabernacle vandalized is a deep spiritual wound.”
After a 7 p.m. Mass at St. Polycarp on Friday, a special prayer will be said for forgiveness and reconciliation at St. Michael, Flowers said.
If a Catholic committed this crime, the person could be excommunicated if he or she understands the seriousness of the offense, Rebman said.
DELAWARE ONLINE
Everyone,
I’ve been meaning to write this message in order to clarify the basis for most of my remarks on this blog.
I’ve been labeled by some as being harsh and perhaps arrogant with my posts and rebuttals to most of the topics that Fr. Joe initiates.
First of all let me say that silence in most of these cases is considered a vice I.e. Myers and desecration, nude rape scene. EWTN priest scandal, abortion and all of the rest of these topics.
In the beginning of the Mass we repeat these words: ” In what I have done and in what I have FAILED to do.” This means that God holds us accountable for sins of omission.
Not speaking up in the face of wrongdoing is a sin of omission. Those who maintain a culpable silence are responsible for allowing evil to perpetuate. The opposite to this is admonishing a sinner, which is a spiritaul act of mercy. It doesn’t matter if they adhere to what we’ve said. What matters is that we plant the seeds of truth always and everywhere popular or unpopular. It’s likely that they will eventually sprout later on down the road.
I’m not apologizing for writing things that people may find harsh or offensive. Some times the truth hurts and it also demands immediate action or change. I’m not seeking any popularity. What I am seeking to do is to defend God and all that He created. I may not have the education that some of you have, but what I do have I desire to share with all of you.
Great signs of Christian love is admonishment and generosity. We, unfortunately, live in a world of self righteousness and self-centeredness. That doesn’t excuse us from God’s call to be lights in darkness.
The Lord said: ” When the son of man returns, will He find any faith?”
Lately we keep hearing and seeing the word CHANGE from one of the Presidential candidates. The only way we can experience any positive change is for spiritual renewal to occur. No man or woman can ever take God’s place in a person’s life, regardless of what they promise.
Please remember that on November 4th.
If we want positive change, we need to speak out openly and prayerfully without fear of reprisals. All we have to fear is the loss of our souls and eternity in hell.
Jesus doesn’t ask us to do something He hasn’t done Himself already.
We need to boldly speak out against wrongdoing.
“This is a very broad and disingenuous definition of the word “threaten”. PZ did not threaten anyone’s life, liberty, or wellbeing”
Actually it isn’t a broad definition of a threat; it is a specific example one.
Just to help you out, here is the definition of the word “threat” from the dictionary:
Noun
1. a declaration of an intention or determination to inflict punishment, injury, etc., in retaliation for, or conditionally upon, some action or course; menace:
2. an indication or warning of probable trouble: The threat of a storm was in the air.
3. a person or thing that threatens.
PZ Myers made a declaration of his intent to DESECRATE the Eucharist in retaliation for the wrist-grabbing done to Webster Cook. He did it to hurt Catholics. If it did not hurt Catholics he would have no reason to do it. IF we approved, enjoyed, saw the humor in, or appreciated his actions he would not have done it.
To say that there was no threat on the one hand and that he did it as a reaction to poor Webster Cook’s treatment on the other hand is really disingenuous. Why would he do something in protest if it didn’t harm us in some way? If we liked what he threatened to do it wouldn’t be punitive. There would be no point to his protest.
You can’t have it both ways.
BTW, to say that Webster took a peice of bread that was given to him freely (as if we were handing out samples at a grocery store) is hogwash. A second grader could tell the difference and so can you.
For the record: Ed Darrell, too, is a Myer’s supporter who has been a regular fixture on the blog-circuit since July. His death threat ‘victim’ attack defense has been shot down on every other site, thus far.
No surprise he shows up here trying to revive it.
No explanations necessary, Michael. Just follow your conscience, man. Never mind anyone’s editorials.
ED: This is the first denial of the news reports I have seen. If your claim is accurate, you should report it. However, no one in Florida questions that the man in question was threatened.
FATHER JOE: How old are you? What are your reading skills? I feel like I am talking to an ignorant child or someone who needs special education classes. I am serious, no disrespect intended. The newspaper reports and the official statement from the Orlando diocese, even prior to the host’s return disavowed violence. My question remains, who are these crazy people who supposedly made threats? What are their names? How do we know they are Catholics? I get threats all the time from atheists and others, am I crying about it? Anonymous threats and insults, particularly in emails and on the Internet is commonplace today. I suppose one might regard it as another instance of the erosion in civility.
ED: Moreover, there is no doubt that there were death threats by Catholics against Dr. Myers. Now, here is the point: You steadfastly refuse to condemn the death threats. Donohue refuses to back off of the death threats, and throws gasoline on the fire.
FATHER JOE: The Church has never urged violence and neither have I. Did you read my comments in your last posting? Citing the archdiocese, I wrote that “violence was not the answer”. I added, “We were not prepared to hurt anyone. However, we were prepared to be martyrs for Christ and to witness our faith, no matter if deemed foolishness by others or not.”
ED: Father Joe, you have been patient and polite. Why do you continue to turn a blind eye to the death threats?
FATHER JOE: What blind eye? I am a firm believer in non-violent, non-threatening civil protest. I wrote: “As for death threats, there are always crazies, and in this case they talked about attacking one of their own…. what bishop or priest urged such things? None! The Church urged a civility and peace that was not reciprocated by this rogue…. The Church and true Catholics have made no threats of violence and murder….” I have made no death threats and I would condemn anyone for so contradicting the Gospel of Life.
ED: What is the difference between this situation and the cartoons that depicted Mohammed, with regard to this: Death threats against the cartoonists were beyond the pale. Do not tell me that the host requires murder. That is unholy, or should be, and your refusal to condemn it does more to support terrorism of all stripes, particularly religiously-based terrorism.
FATHER JOE: I wrote: “If you look at my half dozen or so posts on this topic, again and again, I stress dialogue and how Catholics must truly be witnesses of the Prince of Peace in this whole ugly business. Violence is not the answer and Catholic moral teaching holds that the value of human life is incommensurate, something that you atheists refuse to accept. Catholicism is not the religion that places warrants on the heads of others. There are no lines of protesting Catholics with signs that say kill Cook or off with Myers’ head. Enough of this shell game… stop the terrorists and have Myers call back his dogs… otherwise, I fear for our churches and clergy.” Sorry Ed, but you are not making sense. The Church’s response has been one of petition and prayer. Even this was mocked by Myers who became furious that believers would pray for him. He threw their goodwill back into their faces.
ED: Renounce terrorism first, we can talk about host desecration. But if you refuse to live by the rules of civilization renouncing murder in these cases, do not expect support for your condemnation of the lesser crime, especially when it clothed so similarly to self-defense.
FATHER JOE: The Church always has renounced terrorism and violence in this regard, first with Cook, later with Myers and now with the copycats. You are not listening to either me or the Church. You fight a strawman Catholicism of your own making. Why? I suspect it is because you are trying to give yourself a moral high ground that just does not exist. Taking the host for a purpose for which it was not intended constituted an immoral act. The subsequent desecration of consecrated hosts were also immoral acts. Any threats of murder were immoral acts. Any maligning of believers were immoral acts. Any urgings for future thefts and desecrations were immoral acts. And trying defend the indefensible, no matter whether it is murder or Eucharistic desecration (both mortal sins), is also quite wrong.
ED: Catholics have no right to murder people who offend their religious services. No religion has such a right. Religiously-based hate crimes are despicable; murder is the most despicable.
FATHER JOE: Who have we murdered, Ed? Throwing out such a false charge is the sin of calumny. Now I am going to do something you are really going to hate:
Dear God,
I would ask that you bring the gift of faith to those who hate us. Shower them with your Holy Spirit and bring them to a love and devotion toward our Eucharistic Lord, Jesus. Right now, so many do not believe. Many have fallen away from faith. Some of them feel that they must enter a crusade to expose the wrongs of religion and to topple a faith they do not understand.
We are all sinners. We all fall short of the glory of God. We ask that those who have been poor witnesses of faith might be corrected, renewed and refreshed by the Gospel of Life. We are all your children, some close to you and others prodigal. Allow none of your children to be lost. Help us to treat one another with fairness and respect. Open eyes to see the truth about you and your providence in the world.
Help us to love one another, yes, even those who hurt us. We pray for young Mr. Cook, that he will one day receive the host as it should be received, with a contrite heart and a soul filled with saving grace. We pray for Dr. Myers, help us to love and forgive him. It is so very hard and yet this too is a mandate of the Gospel. He has imaged himself as our enemy and defiled the Holy of Holies. And yet, our dear Jesus also forgave us who crucified him on Calvary by our sins. We pray for the copy-cats who commit unspeakable crimes against the host. We pray for the vandals who destroyed a church. We pray for MORSE and ED. They have posted their comments on this Blog, not understanding the deep pain and sorrow that the desecration of the Lord caused us. We hope that one day they will care just as we must care and be concerned about the needs of our many neighbors in justice and charity.
They might judge our prayers as threatening but we ask not for their condemnation, but for their healing and conversion. We ask that you bless and keep them and their families. We ask that you guide their footsteps and give them happiness and peace.
We ask all these things in our Eucharistic Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.
The great historian, Durant, once wrote that to study a cosmic without known cause or fate is an intellectual prison. Science gives man ever greater powers but ever less significance; it improves his tools and neglects his purposes; it is silent on ultimate origins, values and aims; it gives life and history no meaning or worth that is not canceled by death or time. If religion had not existed, the great legislators would have invented it. But, they did not have to, for it arises spontaneously from the hearts of man.
Myers is unfit to teach anything to anyone. Not only is he a bigot, but he is stuck in an intellectual prison
durck
That’s the problem today.
No one follows their conscience. People are too sheepish to speak out against sin because in today’s world sin doesn’t exist.
Greed, lust, and stupidity have been ruining the United States of America in every way while “good men” sit back and do nothing.
Have you taken notice of the price of food and gas lately? The wealthy dumb asses who set the prices don’t realize that they are only hurting themselves.
What comes around goes around
You’re absolutely right, Michael.
State your points kindly, clearly and without apology. If Father Joe has no objections to the comments you’re posting, neither should any of us.
Be mindful of the distortions of definitions we’ve been witnessing from the beginning of the entire incident.
Christ’s Peace to you.
HERE IS ANOTHER DELETED COMMENT FROM THE ABORTIONIST SOMG. He now says that he would be willing to desecrate the sacrament daily. Is this a surprise? Such is his perversion. His latest comment is added to the password required post. I am beginning to consider it a little reminder of hell on my Blog.
I may have to exorcise ED next.
I’m not fighting any straw man. The threats of violence are a matter of record.
Your prayer is a start, a good start. Pray also for understanding.
And by the Grace of God, Daiane, he’ll be paroled sooner than later.
Daiane
History have proven time and time again that man will never out smart God no matter how hard he tries.
Michael,
I believe I am with you on speaking out. I am so sick of moral relativity. I am so sick of people telling me “I’m against abortion, but I can’t say what other people should do.” As Edmund Burke once said, “The only thing necessary for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing.” I feel this all over as I try to raise my kids in an evironment where they have to watch Whoopi Goldberg kiss a girl on TV at 10 in the morning. Anyway, I feel I am becoming slightly unpopular with my friends because I have been expressing my opinion. My friends who want to give their 12 year old daughters Guardisil have been informed by me that they are endorsing sex for their 12 year old. Anyway, I am trying to stay faithful to God, while treating other people with respect but informing them of what I see to be moral lapse. Sometimes, I am overwhelmed by the world. Just so you know, I too wrote to the University about Mr. Myers and asked that he be fired.
Colbert, a lot of people have denied that the news reports of the death threats existed, but none of them have ever been pulled back, or corrected. Myers posted several of the more entertaining threats of violence he got.
Father Joe, is denial of reality a sin of any kind?
Susan
I hear you loud and clear.
When my nephew was in 2nd grade, the teacher gave his class a book tor read on human reproduction. My christian sister (his mom) thought that it was “cute” and said nothing more about it, which made me very angry.
The kids today are being robbed of their childhoods for no apparent reason. I can assure you that if it were my kid and a teacher did that, my angry rear end would be over there so fast. I would have rampaged the place and would have probably ended up in jail.
These dumb ass parents sit still and let ignorance, immorality, and stupidity raise their children. This is why we have an entire generation of juvenile delinquents devoid of God and devoid of moral absolutes.
I say take the freakin cell phones off of all of them and limit their computer time too.
I came up without a cell phone and I didn’t know what a computer was. I had to go to work every day after school, pay my tuition, and hand money over to my mother on pay day.
This is a fact.
Here’s a good question:
How many Catholics out there own a Catechism? Here’s another good question: How many Catholics even care what the Catechism says?
Jesus said that if we are to love Him, then we have to keep His comandments. How can we keep His commandments if we don’t know and understand what the church teaches?
The point is this:
Parents cannot give what they do not have.
They send their kids off to school and expect a miracle.
Sorry folks, but education and spiritual formation begins in the high chair.
Don’t expect the world nor anyone else to turn your kid into a saint. I has to come from you.
There you go again, Ed. And slam dunked once more. Keep trying, though.
I understand your pitt bull mentality in refusing to let go of the death threat defense, but seriously, have you anything else?
May I answer that for you? No, you haven’t.
Right again, Michael.
Truth is, most of the schools aren’t teaching children how to think at all, but rather, what to think–specifically that morals are valueless and values are relative. Right and wrong are not absolute because all that matters is how you feel about them.
My cousin is being yanked out of an expensive and ‘reputable’ private school. Why? Because her father took one look at her school books and commented that they weren’t fit for him to read, let alone his 13 year old daughter. Godless is the word.
Colbert,
No forget our pact. Precedent is: If no goodwill, no discussion.
durck
That doesn’t surprise me and I don’t blame the man for yanking her out of there. He’s one in a million.
The nation has become very complacent with regard to the foundations, principles, and values upon which it was founded. We’ve become a nation of money hungry, self-centered, and immoral people devoid of God and of objective truth. I think that what helped to ruin this country was the TV (idiot box, satan’s tabernacle) whatever you want to call it. Most Americans spend a total of 6 to 8 hours per day in front of a television. Now we have Ipods, cell phones, and the computers.
No wonder we’re in the moral mess that we’re in. Parents sit back and allow their children unlimited access to these things without any restrictions. They’re afraid that if they say NO then their children won’t like them and won’t be their friends anymore. I say that they already have friends. What they need are parents who give then some tough love. There’s no family prayer time and no incentive for children to live morally sound lives.
Greed, lust, ignorance, and stupidity are killing this country while “good men” sit back and do nothing. I can’t help but believe that we’re headed for certain disaster. How much more do we expect God to take? Simply look at our leadership in this country and that will tell you.
Fr. Joe,
You’ve written that China has blocked this blog. I’ve also heard that they are blaming the American internet for demoralizing their society with pornography and other immoral websites. This amazes me. On one hand, they imprison Bishops, priests, and other Christians. On the other hand, they worry about their society becoming demoralized and westernized. It doesn’t make any sense.
We can hope and pray that the blessed Mother does the same for China as she has already done for Russia
Reported by Diocese of NASHVILLE:
On the morning of Dec. 8, 2006, Pastoral Associate Janet Moore-Caso arrived to set up for morning prayer and discovered that overnight vandals had knocked over the tabernacle, desecrated the altar by putting a cigarette out on it, left urine and feces throughout the church, and smashed one of the Stations of the Cross.
The vandals tried but were unable to open the tabernacle, however, several hosts were found lying on the floor apparently after slipping out of the bottom when the tabernacle was knocked over, said Father David Perkin, Vicar General for the Diocese of Nashville.
There was disbelief and hurt upon seeing the damage, Moore-Caso said, and then parishioners felt a need to pray for the people responsible. “It’s very obvious this individual is deeply troubled and very much in need of prayer.”
Reported in CATHOLIC MISSIONS:
“These have been very tense months for Catholics in Pakistan,’’ says Fr McCulloch, whose base is Karachi.
“Since late last year, five churches, two convents, four schools, and one clinic have been attacked and burnt down by Muslim fundamentalist mobs,” he adds. “There were deliberate sacrilegious attacks on the tabernacles in all cases, and the Blessed Sacrament was desecrated. The mobs knew exactly what they were doing. But the temple built of living stones continues to grow!”
Reported in THE CATHOLIC REVIEW:
EMMITSBURG, Md. – The Eucharist was desecrated at St. Anthony Shrine in Emmitsburg after a frustrated thief or thieves apparently exacted revenge for failing to open a safe and poor box, according to Sister Marietta Culhane, OSF, temporary pastoral life director of St. Anthony and Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Thurmont, Md.
A cleaning lady discovered the open tabernacle and consecrated hosts strewn on the church floor Feb. 2, 2008. Police and archdiocesan officials were immediately notified.
“We took it as a willful attack against the Blessed Sacrament,” said Sister Marietta. “I think they were so angry about not getting any money they wanted to offend Catholics. They wanted to let us know they were angry.”
Reported in DELMARVA NOW (Aug. 14, 2008):
The Rev. Daniel J. McCloskey will celebrate a Catholic Mass for the Reconciliation of a Desecrated Church and sprinkle the sanctuary at 202 Edward St. with holy water.
A Mass of forgiveness and sanctification is necessary because of a weekend break-in, said Monsignor Joseph Rebman, vicar general in the Diocese of Wilmington.
One or more intruders tore the tabernacle from the sanctuary, took it outside and threw it on the ground. The gold-plated tabernacle was used to store the Holy Eucharist and was installed in the church when it was built 50 years ago.
Outside, the consecrated hosts were scattered around, and a chalice and small monstrance were stolen.
“You’re never prepared for something like this and it takes awhile to sink in,” McCloskey said.
“We’ve been gratified that people have been calling the church offering their prayers and asking what they can do,” McCloskey said.
Whether the tabernacle can be repaired is being studied. A replacement could cost thousands of dollars, McCloskey said.
The church received no threats prior to the criminal act and the break-in may have been people seeking money, McCloskey said.
Reported by CNA:
Winona, Feb 17, 2008 – Bishop of Winona Bernard Harrington lamented in his diocesan newspaper a series of vandalous acts and desecrations and suspects a “satanical attitude” of driving the latest incident in a string of attacks. He connected the vandalism to a 2002 sacrilegious attack on a church in which consecrated hosts were desecrated.
Bishop Harrington also told of a church desecrated in October 2002. St. Joseph’s Church in Theilman was broken into and the tabernacle was desecrated. Intruders threw consecrated hosts across the sanctuary floor.
Desecrated churches must be re-consecrated before any other services can take place. Bishop Harrington told how the whole parish came out for the ceremony, in a “wonderful demonstration of faith and respect for the Eucharist.”
The bishop said that night had fallen before the Mass had finished.
“I decided that the desecrated hosts should be reverently placed in the ground in the parish cemetery, just above the church. It was quite a sight to have the parishioners walk up the hill to the cemetery with only the lights from a few cars showing the way. Two of the men dug an appropriate grave on the cemetery ground and the desecrated hosts were reverently placed into the soil. It was truly a burial in sacred ground,” he recounted.
Reported by THE STAR ONLINE (Aug. 17, 2007):
IPOH: Parishioners attending the early morning mass at the Our Mother of Perpetual Help church here yesterday were shocked to find that its sacred relics were missing.
They believe that thieves had broken into the building and carted away the church’s tabernacle containing its five sacred vessels worth RM5,000.
The church community is now appealing for the return of the items before they end up as scrap metal.
Parish priest Father Joseph Stephen said the theft was discovered at 6am when a church volunteer arrived to prepare for the 6.30am mass.
“The church relics are very sacred to us and our community and we would like to have them back,” he said after lodging a police report here.
According to a church official, the thieves are believed to have gained entry into the church after removing some wooden panels.
Reported by Stuart Duncan and Elvia Aguilar:
July 15, 2008
The Eucharist was stolen Friday from the tabernacle at Corpus Christi Cathedral on the 500 block of North Upper Broadway, police said.
Corpus Christi Police Lt. Raymond Lara said the Eucharist, the consecrated bread used in Catholic Mass, was taken after someone entered the church through an open door. The exact time of the theft has not been determined and there have been no arrests made in the case, Lara said.
Corpus Christi Cathedral officials would not comment when reached Monday.
Reports LIFE SITE NEWS:
GUAYAQUIL, August 11, 2008 – In response to criticisms by the nation’s Catholic bishops regarding pro-abortion and anti-family language in Ecuador’s new proposed Constitution, a group of people entered a chapel in Guayaquil, grabbed the Eucharistic host that was exposed for adoration, tore it apart, spat on it, and stepped on it, according to ACI Prensa.
The profanation is reportedly the third that has occurred in recent weeks, as frustrated partisans of the socialist party Alianza PAIS lash out at the Catholic Church for criticizing their newly-proposed constitution.
ACI Prensa reports that similar desecrations have occurred in recent weeks at the Church of the Holy Trinity in Nobol, and the Church of the Holy Supper in Guayaquil.
Guayaquil’s Archbishop, who leads the nation’s Episcopal Conference, has also received numerous death threats for his defense of the right to life in recent weeks, as has pro-life leader Amparo Medina, who recently received a dead rat inside of a shoebox with a note attached that read “DEATH TO PRO-LIFERS”
In response to the string of profanations, Archbishop Antonio Arregui Yarza of Guayaquil held a mass yesterday in reparation. The diocese explained that “when a sacrilege is carried out, especially concerning the Eucharistic species, the entire Church is called to pray together to heal the offense committed against the Lord Jesus Christ, who is alive and present in those hosts.”
The diocese also reportedly warned that the events were not “isolated and without importance.”
“In Guayaquil we have returned to flagellating our Lord, who like a silent lamb has received all of these offenses.”
The controversy has arisen from the Episcopal Conference’s warning that the new proposed constitution of Alianza PAIS would open the door to the legalization of abortion and the promotion of homosexuality, rob parents of the educational rights of their children, and create the framework for an excessively powerful government
President Rafael Correa, the founder of Alianza PAIS, regularly quotes the Cuban communist Che Guevara at the end of his speeches, and calls Cuba a “democracy.”
God have mercy on our souls! This is sad and tragic.
Does anyone have primary sources for these church vandalism/desecratons mentioned above? This is big (and terrrible) news if true.
The Nasvhille one is listed on the Diocese of Nashville’s web page. I believe it was at the Church of the Good Shepard.
Reported in STAR-LEDGER:
August 06, 2008 – Officials at Saint Jude’s Roman Catholic Church in Mount Olive opened the church doors Monday morning and discovered vandalism and theft.
An intruder apparently pried open the collection box next to the candles, which parishioners light in memory of those who have died. About $200 was taken and several hundred dollars worth of damage was done to the tables and candles in that area of the church, police said.
“It’s sad to see something like this happen, stealing from a church,” said Mount Olive Police Chief Mark Spitzer, “Especially when Father Bob Mitchell has always been willing to help those in need.”
Reported NEWS CHANNEL 5:
DECHERD, Tenn. – Police arrested three young men accused of vandalizing a small Catholic church in Decherd last year.
Detectives said the mess they found at Good Shepherd Church represented the worst vandalism they had ever seen.
Police said a strong tip and DNA evidence linked three Franklin County men to the vandalism.
The suspects threw chairs, damaged wall hangings and flung the tabernacle to the ground. Catholics use the vessel to hold the Blessed Sacrament.
Investigators believe a night of drinking sparked the crime but there could be much more. William Bowman, one of the suspects, told police he was a former church member and knew the church well.
“Said they didn’t believe in God and anything like that,” Summers said. “Kind of an atheist attitude.”
“This case of vandalism is one of the most significant and serious acts of desecration and vandalism to a Catholic church in recent memory,” said Rick Musacchio, Diocese of Nashville spokesman.
Detectives said the men also ripped out pages from Bibles to use as toilet paper. They also urinated on the pews and in the holy water fountains and defecated to the tabernacle.
“For someone to come in and coldly, viciously vandalize it is just not acceptable in our society,” Musacchio said.
Detectives have not pinpointed a motive.
“They have not, to this day, admitted anything,” said Glenn Summers, a Decherd police.
The three men face received felony charges.
Police hope the charges provide some justice to a case memorable even in among seasoned officers.
“Under the circumstances I’d like for them to go to jail,” Summers said. “As far as I’m concerned this is kind of a hideous crime.”
In a telephone interview one of the suspects Nathanial Davis said it was a dumb drunken incident. He said they were looking for a warm place and in no way targeted the church.
He said he is a Christian and wanted nothing to do with the vandalism.
Davis, Bowman and Cory Huskey are scheduled to appear in court later this month.
After the incident, Bishop David Choby had to bless the church again because of the desecration.
Reported in DENVER POST:
On January 13, 2004 the Denver Post reported that St. Catherine of Siena church in Burlington was set on fire and vandalized, causing an estimated $400,000 in damages.
“The statue of St. Catherine, the patron saint of firefighters, was knocked from its stand in the rear of the church early Friday morning after vandals set fires inside the church. They also destroyed pages of scriptures, tore down the 14 Stations of the Cross and attempted to set afire wooden statues of the Virgin of Guadalupe and Jesus.
In addition, Rev. Frank Quezada’s vestments were set on fire and the holy Eucharist was taken from its tabernacle and thrown about the church.
Now Catholics in this border town of 3,500 people are struggling to find peace amid the destruction to one of the community’s cornerstones.
‘This is an explicit attack against Roman Catholics,’ Quezada said.
The town’s resident priest for 1 1/2 years, Quezada said he wondered whether the attack was also directed at Hispanics, not just Catholics.”
Reported in WATERTOWN DAILY TIMES:
AUGUST 2, 2008 – PYRITES — St. Lawrence County sheriff’s investigators charged a Pyrites teen Friday with vandalizing St. Paul’s Oratory.
Anthony M. Leonard, 17, of 72 Church Hill St., is charged with third-degree burglary and second-degree criminal mischief. He was arraigned in Canton Town Court and sent to the St. Lawrence County jail, Canton, on $2,500 cash bail or $5,000 bond. The investigation is continuing.
Norene E. Sheridan couldn’t believe her eyes Friday while slowly glancing around the sanctuary in St. Paul’s.
“It really hurts to think that someone could do this,” said Mrs. Sheridan while attempting to hold back tears. “There is no reason for it.”
The small cobblestone Gothic-style chapel on Pink School House Road was damaged extensively. The oratory’s caretaker discovered the damage Thursday evening. The vandalism occurred within the last 10 days.
The damage included all of the exterior doors being nailed shut from the inside, several stained-glass windows being smashed and all of the pads from the pew kneelers being ripped out. A majority of the green-colored Naugahyde kneeling pads were individually nailed across the top of two oak pews closest to the altar to form a crude shelter or fort.
“It’s a blasphemous act against the people of Pyrites,” said the Rev. Timothy G. Canaan, pastor of St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church in Canton who oversees St. Paul’s Oratory. “It’s a desecration of what we hold most dear. It’s very deliberate and very disrespectful to our faith.”
The plywood backings of the kneelers were used to board up two doorways and nails prevented several stained-glass windows that swivel in the confessional room from opening. No graffiti was found in the building.
The vandal or vandals also broke the beard and nose of Jesus Christ on two panels of the Stations of the Cross; the nose on a small statue of Mary also was broken off. A cost estimate of the damage wasn’t available.
“It has just been really hard to fathom because we are so close to the church,” said caretaker Edward K. White, who constructed the chapel’s wooden altar, which is now marred by several large scratches. “It’s disheartening to see this happen.”
The vandal or vandals also ripped off the door of the tabernacle that holds the Communion host, chopped it into several smaller pieces and tossed the pieces behind the altar. A screen door also was attached to an interior doorway. Foam padding from the kneelers was strewn about in the sanctuary and auxiliary rooms.
A carpet was nailed to block a doorway, along with furniture being moved around to other areas of the building. The hooligans steered clear of defacing two angels on the altar and large statues of Jesus and Mary.
“It is one of the worst acts I have ever seen,” said Mrs. Sheridan, who was married in St. Paul’s in 1954 to Robert C. Sheridan. “This is like another home to us.”
Sheriff’s investigators spent Thursday night and Friday morning collecting evidence, hoping to generate leads. Detective Sgt. Augustus T. Burns said the destruction was probably done over several days.
Fingerprints were still visible Friday on a priest’s garment, along with a shoe print on a pew in the rear of the sanctuary.
Mr. White said three extension cords and speakers for an iPod left behind by vandals were taken as evidence. Black electrical tape used to form a cross that was stuck to the altar was collected by investigators.
The Pyrites building had been vandalized a few weeks earlier when a shed covering stairs leading to the basement was destroyed, parishioners said.
It was the second Roman Catholic building this week targeted by vandals. Three Massena teenagers were charged Monday in connection with a spray-painting spree that targeted St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church and other property in Massena. The building housing its Christmas Nativity scene and a statue of the Blessed Virgin and baby Jesus were vandalized with blue, red and silver paint.
Bishop Robert J. Cunningham said Friday the two acts of vandalism were separate and isolated incidents.
“It’s always a source of great disappointment to me when people vandalize things that people hold scared,” Bishop Cunningham said. “We hope those that have vandalized the church are brought to justice.”
Reported by BUCKS COUNTY COURIER TIMES:
Feb. 11, 2008 – Parishioners showed up to a Levittown church Sunday morning to see their house of worship vandalized. And a Philadelphia bomb squad was called in to check out what police said appeared to be a pipe bomb in a field behind the church.
At Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church on the 1700 block of Woodbourne Road, sayings like “God is dead” and “[expletive] Jesus” were written in green spray paint at the Our Lady of Fatima shrine in the church’s front yard. The face of a statue of Mary was spray painted dark green and other statues were knocked over.
Vandals even desecrated the church’s faade with a phallic symbol painted on its wooden doors. They also placed the head of a broken lamb statue on its front doorstep and sprayed various bright-colored “tags” and vulgarities on the rear and sides of the structure.
The act, which some parishioners are calling a hate crime, occurred sometime between 5 p.m. Saturday and 8 a.m. Sunday. Parishioner Kay McFarland found the vandalism when she arrived at the church at 8 a.m. She then called police.
While searching a soccer field behind the church, Middletown police found what they suspected was a pipe bomb, but when the bomb squad blew it up, no explosives were found.
“It’s just a sin,” said McFarland, who has gone to Our Lady of Perpetual Help for 17 years. “If a church isn’t sacred, what is sacred?”
“It’s a pretty big mess. And I think it’s a hate crime,” she said, adding that she has no idea why her church was targeted.
As a half dozen members of the church worked to power wash and clean off the graffiti, they said Our Lady of Perpetual Help is no stranger to vandals. Six months ago, a statue was stolen from the property, McFarland said. Several other times, lights and windows were broken, various church members said.
One man, a 40-year-parishioner who did not give his name, said he has cleaned graffiti from the church about a dozen times.
“I just have no words to describe it. This is the worst,” he said.
Reported in COURIER-GAZETTE:
Sept. 28, 2007 – Vandals Wednesday or early Thursday defaced the west side of St. Michael’s The Archangel Church on Paula Road by painting offensive rhetoric and symbols on the Sanctuary doors, walls and church parking lot.
In black spray paint phrases such as “God touched me here” with a caricature pointing to its groin area and “666″ were painted on a 46-year-old guardian angel that adorns the entrance.
Other offensive speech is also visible from the street.
Some of the language is not publishable and the photos for this story may have been cropped to eliminate the offensive language.
A passerby saw the graffiti and contacted police to report the incident.
The Rev. Stephen Bierschenk, pastor of, St. Michael’s, said the phone rang early Thursday.
“I received a call about 6 a.m. (Thursday) morning from McKinney police because a citizen who drove by had notified them there was vandalism on the church,” Bierschenk said.
Bierschenk said nothing within the Sanctuary was damaged.
“It was only on the outside,” he said.
It looks to me as the children of Dr. Myers are busy.
Sexually mocking God is a symptom of the depravity exhibited in militant atheists. “God is dead” is one of their more familiar mantras.
There is no connection between the grafitti and P.Z. Myers.
Sow the wind, you’ll reap a whirlwind. Miscasting blame for such things, blowing other things out of proportion, all of that contributes to an atmosphere in which such destructive acts become the norm. Terrorism.
Dr. Myers made no threat to any church building, nor did he ever suggest that vandalism is a good idea.
Father Joe, you’re throwing rocks down a hill, and others are on the trail — the sort of dangers Dr. Myers warned about. I hope you don’t turn him into a prophet.
ED: Creating a climate of fear: Does host desecration really demand a terroristic response?
FATHER JOE: I never suggested a “terrorist” response to those who would desecrate the sacrament. I do believe the Church has a right to regulate who receives Holy Communion and to dismiss those from our worship who have come for disruption and sacrilege. I have spoken out against violence again and again. But this seems to be the only argument Ed has and so he refuses to let it go. The terrorism to which I refer is the disruption of Catholic services, desecration and vandalism that could escalate from Dr. Myers’ urging the theft of hosts.
ED: Father Joe took issue with P. Z. Myers’s complaints about the Central Florida University incident at a Catholic Mass held on campus. That’s fair. Anyone can see why a Catholic priest would find Myers’ complaints to be at least a sharp rebuke, if not offensive.
FATHER JOE: There was no “if” about it. What Cook did was offensive and it violated that central mystery of the Catholic faith.
ED: But Father Joe is off the track, following others. He insists that the Church has no reason to call for calm, that the Church is absolutely blameless if others, like Bill Donohue, either advocate violence or otherwise carry things beyond the pale.
FATHER JOE: It is here that Ed enters his own little world. His failure to portray my views honestly speaks to his own disingenuous agenda. I said that the Church’s response must be one that espouses non-violence and yet he says that I saw “no reason for calm”. This is a misrepresentation of my views; more than that, it is an outright deceit. He asserts that the Church is to blame and yet no bishop or priest ever made any threats that I could find. Certain anonymous persons did so and the Church deplored these actions. Bill Donohue has never advocated violence, although he is within his right to insist that bigots render apologies and that those who persecute others because of their religion or lack of faith should face penalties, like the termination of their positions. This is not violence; this is justice.
ED: In comments, the entire discussion grows very disturbing. Father Joe now claims that Myers encouraged acts of violence against the Catholic Church — a patently false claim — and he and others now list any act of vandalism against a Catholic Church, and blame it on Myers (see also here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here). (Nor will Father Joe allow me to comment on that thread any more — the old fingers-in-ears defense against reason and criticism. Censorship is one of the first signs of totalitarian idiocy.)
FATHER JOE: Urging people to steal the host is a criminal act. The host is only offered to Catholics in good standing who will receive it as their spiritual food. No one else has a right to it. This is spelled out in the Missalettes that we use for liturgies. Stealing hosts at Mass is bad enough, but the crazies who are listening to him may opt to break into churches and take the Eucharist from our tabernacles. They may even target priests who carry the host in their sick calls. I have not listed any such acts of violence yet, but rather have spoken about it as a potential problem that could logically develop. He says I will not allow him to comment, and yet everything he has said so far is posted on my Blog, with the appropriate corrective, of course.
ED: Casting blame falsely — there’s a commandment against such action. Do you think these guys know about it?
FATHER JOE: Given that Ed is an atheist, this comment shows how contradictory and hypocritical his argumentation actually is. He cares nothing about the commandments. All he wants to do is to either silence or to ridicule those who question Dr. Myers’ admonitions for worldwide sacrilege and blasphemy against the Catholic Church. He charges me with false witness when the evidence against Dr. Myers is entirely in the public domain for all to appraise. Dr. Myers has made no secret about his view of religion and Christianity. His remarks are well documented. He is a self-attested bigot. And, by the way, so are his supporters.
ED: The acts of vandalism, burglary and destruction noted at Father Joe’s blog, especially those in churches, are grotesque demonstrations of depravity. The culprits should be caught and punished. They aren’t the fault of science, they aren’t the fault of a guy who asks Catholics to back off of terroristic threats. From the use of religious symbols, we can be quite certain that few if any are committed by atheists.
FATHER JOE: I have made no list of such activities! Here again is another deceit. The problem is that he associates my views with those who post comments on my Blog. I no more support all their views any more than his. Indeed, in many cases I make objections. It is interesting that while he criticized me for censorship, here he criticizes me for my liberality against censorship. As for the use of religious symbols indicating that vandals were not atheists, it is dubious that fellow Christians and lovers of Christ would do such atrocious acts. As one of them said, “God is dead!” Dr. Myers himself uses religious imagery in his desecration of the Eucharist: the Koran and the nails (harking back to the nails of the crucifixion). Indeed, it appears that the person who posted the various acts of vandalism against churches is himself a brother atheist to Ed.
ED: Ironic, no? Asked to renounce terrorism, Father Joe claims to be a victim. Then he stirs up a mob with tales to cast blame on those who asked for calm and reason. If it’s true, as Father Joe claims, that “Dr. P.Z. Myers’ crusade against religion illustrates defects in civility, empathy and imagination,” then it is equally true that a Father Joe-led jihad against civility, empathy and imagination illustrates defects in religion.
FATHER JOE: All good Catholics are victimized by Eucharistic desecration. We see ourselves as members of the Mystical Body of Christ. St. Augustine even used the admonishment that in Holy Communion we Christians receive our own mystery. We are bonded or grafted to Christ. Christ is the term of our unity as a Church. When Dr. Myers desecrated the Eucharist, he offended and attacked every member of the Mystical Body. Moving deeper into the nonsensical, he says I had “led jihad against civility, empathy and imagination” and that this demonstrates “defects in religion”. He offers no middle term, no logic for such conclusions. It is just the guilty man’s way of trying to turn the judgment that faces him upon others. Despite his dispersion against me PERSONALLY, I am on the record (in several posts) for espousing the following:
1. Atheists have the freedom to express and to debate their ideas in the public domain.
2. Atheists do not have a right, either personally or through their emissaries, to disrupt or to corrupt religious services and/or to perform acts of theft, vandalism or sacrilege in our churches or at our services.
3. Those who urge desecration of Catholic sacraments have crossed the line and should be censured by society and the institutions with which they are associated.
4. Catholics have a right to safeguard the conduct of worship, the sacraments and sacramentals, and their churches; however, again and again, I have disavowed violence from Catholics.
5. Empathy means that I can appreciate that, short of the gift of faith, one might look at the world, the advances of science, the problem of pain and evil, etc. and either deny or doubt the existence of God. If I were an atheist, I would not go out of my way to malign or to ridicule believers like Dr, Myers and his supporters do.
6. Civility means that I support cooperation between atheists and people of faith, particularly in the sciences, in philosophical discussion and in building a better more just society. If I were an atheist, I would object to the violation of services and the sacred signs and symbols that believers hold as sacred.
7. Imagination means the momentary suspension of belief (or unbelief). I do not for one moment disbelieve in God, but I could imagine a cold universe ruled only by mathematics and pragmatic habits. If I were an atheist, I would try to appreciate how believers feel if their tenets were actually true.
ED: Nuts. We can’t get these people to stop venting and pounding their breasts, let alone talk. Dare we let them alone in a room with one another? We’ve seen it before. Beirut. Sarajevo. Berlin. Bertlitz. Brussels. Segovia. On St. Bartholomew’s Day. In the Cultural Revolution. Madness creeps in, and soon is epidemic.
FATHER JOE: The whole Blog business is an effort to talk. He gives me no credit for this. When people are stealing hosts and mocking them with videos and photographs of desecration on the Internet, civil dialogue becomes very difficult. I am amazed at the restraint and good manners of most Catholics. Look at the many posts on the Internet. The vulgarity and lack of civility and peacefulness is heavily on his side. Dare we let the atheists into the room where the Eucharist is reserved? Will there be talk or stealing of hosts? He tries to give moral weight to his position, but Ed really has not foot upon which to stand. He throws out a list of places in history where there was violence and war in the hope that something will stick. He is blind to the fact that the madness sometimes comes with atheists, as with the Nazis and Communists.
ED: We wish worship services could proceed without interruption, without insult, with joy and encouragement of good deeds. We wish religionists would demonstrate the love they claim to seek, and that others would show it to them.
FATHER JOE: But how can they when you rubberstamp the actions of Dr. Myers and his associates? Good atheists should deplore both the actions of Cook and those of Myers and all the copycats. Good Christians deplore vulgar responses and threats of violence from so-called Christians. An official statement from the Florida diocese was civil and to the point: return the host undamaged and (regardless) no one should respond with violence. But Ed does not really mean what he says here. This momentary lapse of sanity is defiled in his many other statements. He refuses to admit that throughout this terrible business, the Church has maintained the moral high ground. This whole Eucharist desecration fad is a serious black mark upon the atheist movement and their credibility as a respectful segment in the larger community. What should they have done? Something like this should have been said:
“While we as atheists place no faith in the consecrated wafer as anything more than the product of flour and water, we condemn the violation of the Eucharist because of the importance it holds for our Catholic brothers and sisters. We ask that it be returned, not as a capitulation to any theism in its regard, but as a sign of human respect in a society where we must work and live together as people with diverse ideas and beliefs. We appreciate that this issue is very emotional for many and, while deeply concerned about threats from certain quarters, we commend those who have responded with civility and peace.”
After painstakingly tracking down all these vandalisms, I find that only one may be possibly a result of crackergate. One was simply a robbery, and the rest happened prior. So along with not providing links to your sources, you’ve inflated your claims beyond any credibility. Does it occur to you that these phallic symbols and sexual mocking may be related to the Church’s history of abuse and continued sheltering of same? It’s hard for those of us who were your victims to extend sympathy for you, especially when you keep lying and defending everything from molestation to genocide; then you claim Myers is unfit to teach Biology because he desecrated religion. How about your church is not fit to teach morality because you desecrate the physical bodies of children in your care; and even now continue insisting on the right to violence against one who does not follow a ritual to your satisfaction. I did my best to see things from your side, but you just keep shooting yourself in the foot.
Ed Darrell & Watercat,
I listed cases from the news about church desecrations and vandalism. Some of these served an atheistic agenda, some did not.
It was not my intention to ridicule Myers for his exhortation. Rather, I think that many of us are on the same page with him. The priest here is RIGHT, Myers is urging a form of terrorism.
But is this so bad? If pedophile priests will not be punished by the state or handed over by the church, then maybe we have to take things into our own hands.
If their superstitions are allowing millions to die for lack of a condom, then maybe it is time to shut down their churches, by hook or by crook, and silence their clergy!
If Catholics view the taking of a host as kidnapping and its desecration has murder, then maybe it is time to give them real violence?
I do not blame Myers for these acts of violence, I praise him as a prophet. The Christians destroyed the pagan world. Maybe it is time to destroy the last remnants of the Christian world?
The rise of atheism is the final fruit of the Enlightenment. we should put sickly Catholicism out of its misery. Let us pick up again the battlecry of the French Revolution: Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity! The papacy is the last of the monarchies to be toppled. When that institution is gone, pathetic Christianity will fade away into the back alleys of history. What happened before will happen again. Convents were sacked, churches desecrated, priests and nuns guillotined; blood ran in the streets. Godlessness seemed to triumph.
We win! And to think, the spark that set off the fire was a little known biology professor and a struggling college student. It is time for the giants to fall! Let us brush aside superstition and the folly of faith.
Fr. Joe,
I think that it’s great to have this blog because of your valued insights. It’s nice to be able to get feedback from a priest who isn’t afraid to expound the church’s teachings.
Since the church is and always has been under constant attack from day one, it doesn’t suprise me that so many rats have come out of the wood work here either. That only proves that Catholicism is the one true faith and that your criticisms and rebuttals hit the bulls eye every time.
Keep on shooting these rats as you’re doing.
They will crawl away, die, and continue to stink.
ED: Some people are too busy nailing delinquents to crosses to stop and do the right thing. Can we at least lock up their hammers?
FATHER JOE: I can admit that Cook was a delinquent, but the rest of this statement made no sense. A girl tried to block him from leaving the Mass with the host. This was hardly an assault. Now it looks like the school will not censure him at all. So, where are the crosses and hammers? Again, Ed tries to give the atheists involved a moral high ground, but it cannot be done. Maybe he starts to realize this in one of his last remarks?
ED: I wish Myers would apologize for unnecessary offense he may have made. He won’t.
FATHER JOE: Sorry, I was wrong, look at the conditional language. He calls Myers’ desecration an “unnecessary offense he MAY have made.” No qualifications can be made about it. Myers committed a heinously evil act and encouraged others to do likewise. He will not apologize and the rest of the atheist community should disown him instead of making excuses and/or supporting his shenanigans.
ED: I wish the crazies calling for his scalp would apologize for the unnecessary offenses they may have made by insisting others grant their faith privileges it should not have, and especially for the unnecessary offenses from the threats by their fellow travelers. They won’t. ‘We were insulted. Death threats should be expected. If I didn’t personally make the threat, I’m not responsible.’ No one is a keeper of anyone’s brother. Claims of not being part of the mob are offered as reasons for why nothing was done to stop the mob.
FATHER JOE: Ed wants those who have been wronged to apologize to the one who hurt them. That is like a violated woman thanking her rapist. The true crazies are the ones who threatened his life and person. The Catholic community asked that he face censure from the school that he represents. Other forms of discrimination and/or bigotry would certainly have earned serious rebuke. But as Donohue laments, anti-Catholicism has become the one acceptable bigotry. The “faith privileges” we demand are basic to the natural rights of men. We are asking for nothing more than is proper. As of this writing, no Church official has made any “death threats”. My request for names of these so-called Catholics who made these threats has never been answered. His words about the mob are nonsensical. What mob? I see no marchers with signs demanding Myers’ head… poor Ed is having delusions. It is all just jargon and misdirection to avoid culpability and embarrassment from the atheist community.
ED: If I had an answer for how to stop stupid bellicosity, I’d be on my way to Moscow and Tbilisi right now. Any suggestions out there?
FATHER JOE: Yes, you could open your eyes to the truth and stop defending the indefensible. The issue is desecration of the Eucharist. And about that, you simply do not care. All the violence has been against Catholic sensibilities. Your response to criticism and guilt is simply to transfer as much fault as possible to Catholics. You think we are guilty for just being believers. You feel that any people crazy enough to think a wafer is their God deserves everything they get and have no right to complain. That is your true position. He is a house of cards, held together by lies and prejudice. What is my suggestion to you? Open your eyes and ears more while wagging your tongue less.
ED: Father Joe responded: “Urging people to steal hosts and to desecrate them is the sort of thing once reserved to crazy people and dabblers in the occult. It can escalate into all sorts of other crimes.” Coming from anyone else other than a priest, that could easily be construed as a threat. Unfortunately, Father Joe gives us little ground to argue it should not be so considered in this case.
FATHER JOE: The escalation may already be happening. Priests are getting anonymous threats and churches are being vandalized with tabernacles broken open and hosts desecrated. You and your cronies are the ones who made the threats. The Christian response will probably be one of martyrdom. If radical atheists start killing priests for their sick-call hosts, will you still say it is our fault?
Catholic Clergy Call for Reparation in Response to Communion Desecration
HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania, July 29 /Christian Newswire/ — The Confraternity of Catholic Clergy (a national association of 600 priests & deacons) respond to the sacrilegious and blasphemous desecration of the Holy Eucharist by asking for public reparation. We ask all Catholics of Minnesota and of the entire nation to join in a day of prayer and fasting that such offenses never happen again.
We find the actions of University of Minnesota (Morris) Professor Paul Myers reprehensible, inexcusable, and unconstitutional. His flagrant display of irreverence by profaning a consecrated Host from a Catholic church goes beyond the limit of academic freedom and free speech.
The same Bill of Rights which protect freedom of speech also protect freedom of religion. The Founding Fathers did not envision a freedom FROM religion, rather a freedom OF religion. In other words, our nation’s constitution protects the rights of ALL religions, not one and not just a few. Attacking the most sacred elements of a religion is not free speech anymore than would be perjury in a court or libel in a newspaper.
Lies and hate speech which incite contempt or violence are not protected under the law. Hence, inscribing Swastikas on Jewish synagogues or publicly burning copies of the Christian Bible or the Muslim Koran, especially by a faculty member of a public university, are just as heinous and just as unconstitutional. Individual freedoms are limited by the boundaries created by the inalienable rights of others. The freedom of religion means that no one has the right to attack, malign or grossly offend a faith tradition they personally do not have membership or ascribe allegiance.
The Chancellor of the University refused to reprimand or censure the teacher, who ironically is a Biology Professor. One fails to see the relevance of the desecration of a Catholic sacrament to the science of Biology. Were Myers a Professor of Theology, there would have been at least a presumption of competency to express religious opinions in a classroom. Yet, for a scientist to ridicule and show utter contempt for the most sacred and precious article of a major world religion, is inappropriate, unprofessional, unconstitutional and disingenuous.
A biologist has no business ‘dissing’ any religion, rather, they should be busy teaching the scientific discipline they were hired to teach. Tolerating such behavior by university officials is equally repugnant as it lends credibility to the act of religious hatred. We also pray that Professor Myers contritely repent and apologize
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=13391
Desecration of Host Not Seen as Free Speech
Confraternity Proposes Prayer Day in Reparation
HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania, JULY 30, 2008 (Zenit.org).- The Confraternity of Catholic Clergy is proposing Friday as a national day of prayer and fasting in the wake of the desecration of the Eucharist by a Minnesota professor.
Father John Trigilio, Jr., the president of the confraternity, a U.S. association of 600 priests and deacons, sent a statement this week asking Catholics “to join in a day of prayer and fasting that such offenses never happen again.”
Paul Myers, a professor of biology at the University of Minnesota at Morris, says he desecrated the Eucharist by piercing it with a rusty nail, then he threw it into the trash.
The self-professed atheist wrote about the incident on his blog and posted a photo of the desecrated host.
The statement of the Confraternity of Catholic Clergy said it found the actions of Myers “reprehensible, inexcusable, and unconstitutional. His flagrant display of irreverence by profaning a consecrated Host from a Catholic Church goes beyond the limit of academic freedom and free speech.”
“Attacking the most sacred elements of a religion is not free speech anymore than would be perjury in a court or libel in a newspaper,” added the text.
Father Trigilio told ZENIT that the congregation is asking the faithful to make a holy hour before the Eucharist on Aug. 1, the feast of St. Alphonsus Ligouri, and to fast in “reparation for the sacrilegious desecration of the Holy Eucharist.”
NOTA BENE: Since some parishioners and clergy may not be able to make reparations this Friday, August 1st, we are also suggesting as an alternative, Thursday, August 21st, the feast of Pope St. Pius X (the pontiff who promoted frequent Communion and lowered the age for First Holy Communion). It is not imperative that only these days are available since it is more urgent and important that at least ONE day this month every one of the faithful make a DAY of reparation by fasting (one full meal, two smaller ones, no snacks) AND making a Holy Hour before the Blessed Sacrament. While this can be done communally by a parish, it can easily be done privately by each person on a day convenient for them. We only ask that it be done sometime this month of August if not on August 1st or 21st.
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will draw and quarter me, cut out my entrails, and burn them before my eyes omigod make it st-o-o-o-o-o-o-p!!!
It’s not persecution when you just don’t get flattered as much as you think you’re entitled to. Grow up.
God delights in the existence of Fr. Joseph Jenkins.
He is a true son of faith and also a great pastor.
Dear Scott Hanley, he asked people to go out of their way to enter our churches to take what was not theirs to take – who gave him, or the person who took the host, the right to do that? You say that’s only a lack of flattery?
Yesterday a priest was martyred just because he was a priest:
http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=13005&size=A
My son is in the seminary and when I read these things – when I see that people will go out of their way to insult, to steal, to murder just because we are Catholic or because we place importance on things these people despise – my eyes fill up with tears because I wonder what will happen to my son. Who will hate him just because he is a priest? Who will break into his church and take whatever they want? Who will want to gouge out his eyes? And after these things happen, who will say “So what? What’s all the fuss?”
What Meyers did, though I am sure he doesn’t realize it, is a seed for this type of hatred.
BTW, Fr. Joe, Thumbs down for Mad Marvin. We all need support and hope not more hatred and grand standing. Although I do see your point that he makes our point.
I do not know if Myers and his supporters are motivated by evil, but I sense they cannot bear the purity of the truth and therefore seek to destroy the Church.
What they fail to understand is that authentic religion is first of all transcendent. It originates beyond human culture and it therefore enables us to refuel and regenerate even when the surrounding civilization is hostile. Its survival after whatever deadly blows by Epicurus, Humes, and Voltaire are evidence of the Church’s strong resilience. And it will survive and prosper even in today’s secular and scientific age.
“but I sense they cannot bear the purity of the truth and therefore seek to destroy the Church.”
If by “purity of truth” you mean “protection of pedophiles” then yes, we do seek to destroy the church.
THE CHURCH WILL NEVER BE DESTROYED
KOSHOUSC: By all accounts, Ducker grabbed Cook. Under the laws of the state of Florida, that legally constitutes the crime of assault. At least three times you have stated that Cook was not assaulted. Are you denying that Ducker grabbed Cook, or are you denying that Catholics are subject to the law?
FATHER JOE: The discussion referred to “death threats” not to good people upset and blocking a rogue from taking (under false pretenses) the consecrated host. Bouncers in bars, ushers in churches, and secret service agents protecting politicians all put their bodies on the line. Profane or sacred, there is a role to play in the security of persons, places or things. If there had been true assault then Mr. Cook should have filed charges and had people arrested. Did anyone go to jail? If police will arrest peaceful prolifers on our public streets, I suspect that congregants might also get arrested for wanting their religious services not to be violated. But nothing much happened, probably because there was no real case. This issue about violence against Mr. Cook is simply an effort to avoid the subject at had: the violation of religious freedom and anti-Catholic bigotry by “certain” atheists. I say “certain” because not all atheists are bigots; indeed, well-meaning and honest non-believers can still be good friends. Much can be established by mutual human respect and decency.
KOSHOUSC: My simple question “is Ducker legally guilty of assault?” is not a discussion of ‘death threats’, and its ’subject’ is Ducker’s legal culpability, not anything to do with religion.
FATHER JOE: The atheists with whom I debated stressed that the matter was “death threats” and it was to that accusation that I offered some response. Your argument about whether threats or assaults measures more importantly is with them, not me. My point was that the host should not have been stolen nor any hosts desecrated. You non-believers can fight over these other peripheral issues all you want. However, now that you bring up the matter of this girl, Ducker, it seems that charges of assault are rather exaggerated. I read the following: “Cook said the woman giving out the Eucharist grasped his elbow, and a woman next to him ordered him to eat it. According to Catholic Campus Ministry worker Michelle Ducker’s statement in the affidavit, Cook pretended to consume it. When Cook returned to his seat, Ducker realized that he had not eaten it and moved toward him. Cook said that Ducker told him that if he did not eat it, she was going to make a huge scene. According to Cook, she tried to remove the Eucharist from his hand, and he asked her to stop touching him.” The poor girl was distressed that this fiend had taken our Lord and God improperly and for ‘who-knows-what” reasons. She was right to demand the return of the host, although I would not have touched him. (It should be noted that touching the hands of others, as formally with the sign of peace and often informally with the Lord’s Prayer, is routine to the liturgy these days.) It is Holy Communion, not a trophy and not an object to be abused. Catholics do see the host as a person and in that sense, the situation was analogous to kidnapping. The booklet he used to follow the service explictly stated who could and could not receive the sacrament. He had no right to it. Although, if a believer in Christ, he could have made a spiritual communion from his seat. She did not slap or hit him. He created the scene, she did not. She acted in good faith. Cook was a thief and a liar, a true juvenile delinquent. He returned the host days later, not out of civility, but from fear about legal action and reprecussions that should rightly fall upon such villains. Radical atheists make a big deal about Ducker because any other argument shows the depth of moral bankruptcy to their apologia on Cook’s behalf.
KOSHOUSC: A person who held sacred the ninth commandment would simply say “yes”, and then move on to discuss what ’should have’ happened next.
FATHER JOE: You are certainly not one to talk about the commandments! Strip away the earlier ones about our obligation to God and you destroy any pending rationale for following the rest. The gravity you place upon a supposed assault is so silly that you violate the commandment about false witness yourself. Given that we are discussing this matter in a Catholic context, the Catholic catechetical commendment would be eight, not nine: “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” This makes nine: “You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife.”
KOSHOUSC: In contrast, your attempt to shift the discussion onto Cook’s actions ‘is simply an effort to avoid the subject at hand’, rather than admit the truth.
FATHER JOE: Goodness, you still do not know what this conversation is really about? Remember to whom you are talking: I am a priest of the Most High God! I am one who daily celebrates the re-presentation of the sacrifice of Calvary in an unbloody way upon the altar. I act in the person of Christ, the head of the Church, and consecrate bread and wine into the body and blood of our Lord, the Savior of the World. God is called down from his heaven and is given to the People of God as saving food, the bread of life and the cup of salvation. This is my body. This is the cup of my blood. We are not orphaned. We are not abandoned to our sins and death. Jesus pours himself out for the forgiveness of sins. We believe that which you count as folly and lunacy, why? We believe because Jesus said so, and we believe everything he told us. He abides with us in his sacrament and in the Church which extends it to us. The Catholic Church is sustained by the Eucharist. It is the life’s blood of the Church. We celebrate a profound unity between the real presence of the Eucharist and the Mystical Body of Christ that is the Church. Jesus told us that his blood is real drink and that his flesh is real food. “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you” (John 6:53).
If you have any honesty and imagination, then smash through that wall of incredulity, and imagine how you would have felt if you believed as we do as Catholics. You are at the service where Cook takes the host, how would you respond? Someone has stolen the host! You are filled with astonishment and then fear. Who knows what he intends to do with it? Oh my God, what can we do? You begin to panic. Please give it back. It is the sacred host, our most adorable Lord. You can’t do this, it is wrong! You begin to cry. Please, I beg you, don’t do this. Your heart is beating out of your chest. You stand before him, blocking him. Your hands reach out. You touch him. You are pushed aside. He leaves with the Holy of Holies. You felt so helpless. You feel guilty, but what more could you have done? He did not care what you and the others believed. You feel raped. That which you most revere and treasure has been stolen from the service. Everyone falls to their knees. You pray for reparation. The culminative sins of all mankind throughout human history crucified our Lord upon the Cross. Nevertheless, instead of condemning us, he rendered forgiveness and redemption. You know that divine justice is terrible, but count on his infinite mercy. You pray for the thief’s soul, that he will repent and believe– that he will be spared the fate of Judas.
KOSHOUSC: Had you admitted Ducker’s guilt, you would be clear to raise the issue of whether her actions were justified.
FATHER JOE: I am not a policeman, but a priest. I am not her Confessor, and there is little if any evidence of guilt from a moral or spiritual perspective. I do not equate touching someone’s hands or elbow with assault or a crime. There was no karate chop, no knife, no gun, not even an old fashioned slap across the face. As one who does not believe in God or sin, you are in no condition to judge this woman, either.
KOSHOUSC: You equivocate on this issue as well, say she didn’t do it but she was justified when she did it: No prosecution followed therefore no crime occurred, but the crime was justified on grounds of security. Again, a person who held sacred the ninth commandment would honestly state their position: “Our religious beliefs abrogate the laws of the United States.” Conceding this to be true, it is glaringly obvious that you do not respect the very set of laws you propose as an alternative. Which makes you not only hypocritical, but quite frankly dangerous.
FATHER JOE: As I said before, my response was toward the so-called death threats. The poor movements of this frightened woman never really came into the range of my radar. It is all just a silly aside from a man who did wrong and from his allies who hate the Church and will bend over backwards to defend him. Does Church law take precedence over civil law? It is totally non-topical to the discussion. Rather, you have detached yourself from plain old common sense. If the topic were not so serious, the desecration of the Eucharist, I would think you and your cronies just silly extremists.
You want to talk about violence and intimidation? I lived in a rectory where hoodlums shot two bullet holes through my bedroom window! My deacon was pistol whipped and robbed outside the church! I hid a little boy in the kitchen who was being chased by drug pushers looking for their money and ready to put a bullet in his head. The priest’s house was invaded and robbed at 2 AM in the morning and I went down to face them in my bed clothes! Did I respect the law? Sure I did! DC had a strict anti-gun law and I complied by living unarmed in a war zone next to crack houses and street-walkers. I chased away gang members raping a woman behind the parish dumpster. The police response time was from 45 minutes to 2 hours. I did not back down or run away. Was I afraid? Hell yes, but hopefully no one will ever call me a coward! The hoods had guns, but I had Christ. Cook had no one on his side, by choice, except maybe you guys. He panicked because a girl touched his hand. He should be more worried about what God is going to do to him… as should you about yourself.
Good Lord, save us from wimps and fools and bigots!
Wow! You could’ve saved yourself 1600 words by just saying “the second one.”
I am sorry Father Jenkins, but I really do believe you have wasted your life. This does not mean that I agree with what Dr. Myers did to the host. What he did was hurtful and wrong. I would even agree with your analysis that his desecration and that of others is a form of religious terrorism. The church near me was broken into this past Monday and vandalized. It is criminal and disrespectful. But, I do not believe in your Eucharist. I do not believe the wafer is anything but a baked product of men. It is not God. Your Mass might bring some consolation into the lives of others, familiar ritual can do that, but there is nothing supernatural about it: no return to Calvary and no sacrifice. Indeed, given the small host, it is a pretty poor supper of the Lord.
My doubts about religion began when I was young. My mother was a devout Catholic, always saying her rosary and trying to get me to do it with her. But then there was my father. I guess he was an atheist, but mostly he was a monster. He would drink until he was senseless.
Sometimes he would enter these terrible rages and beat my mother. I would try to help when it first started, but I was just a little girl. He easily threw me aside. Mother would cry throughout the night. She would take me aside and tell me that it was not his fault. Life was hard and he drank to survive, she said. She still loved him. I stopped so long ago that I do not know if I ever did care for him. She would pray for him, the fiend that busted her face and left bruises all over her body. She said we had to forgive him and that things would get better. They didn’t.
Mother made me go to religion classes on Tuesday nights at the church. She wanted me to take my first communion. But she got sick. Afraid to go to the doctors, she made the best of it with over-the-counter drugs. She got worse and then one day she did not get out of bed. My father yelled at her to get up. But it was no good. She was dead. We did not even have a funeral for her. My father said it cost too much. She was cremated. I have no grave to visit, just fading memories of her. After that it was just me and my father. As I got older he looked at me for hours, up and down my body. One night when I was trying to sleep I heard him enter my room. He smelled of perspiration and liquor. His breathing was hard. The next thing I knew, he was on top of me. He took me like he used to take mother. If I told anyone, he said I would die, too. The abuse went on for many years.
There is no God, Father Jenkins. Even priests have sex with young boys and girls, just like my father. In this sick world of ours, that is all men want. My father was no homosexual. But it was still the same. I can tell you from experience that we are only animals. Young boys want sex with young girls. Old men want sex with young girls. They act proper in public, but when they think it is safe or that no one is looking, well, they all want the same thing. I was pretty, guess I still am. Everyone wanted a piece of me: my father, teachers, boys at school, my employer, and yes even a minister of the Gospel. And why not, what does it matter? I can always use a few extra dollars and I try to play it safe. Sometimes it is fun, at least for awhile.
I feel bad about breaking your bubble. I suspect that a few priests might be innocents, children who never grew up. Are you a Peter Pan or are you also a wolf who pretends to care while hiding your dirty secrets? I do not know you, and given my history, I could never trust you. I am a woman now, but my girlhood was a living hell. Where were my guardian angels when daddy was regularly raping me? Did God care about me? Did your priests really care about the children they abused? Did your bishops care when they were hiding child-rapists and moving them around so that they could get some fresh victims? If the Church will not care, then why should I believe in its God? You are all supposed to represent him, right? Given what I have read about Jesus, it sounds like pretty poor imitation to me. But wait, he did say to his apostles, let the little ones come to him and do not hinder them. I am so cynical, but I cannot help it.
Nothing matters, we live and we have sex and we eat and we poop and we pee and we get hurt and then we die. That is the long and short of it. There is nothing more. No one cares and no one is in charge. There is no heaven and hell is on earth. When the grave comes, if we get a space of ground, we become fertilizer. The lights go out forever.
I know all your objections, but they do not suffice. How am I to blame for what Adam did? If Jesus has redeemed us then why do bad things still happen? Nothing has really changed. If Jesus really rose from the dead he could have stayed with us as proof. He would be living with us now for all to see and touch. If God really cared, my mother would not have died and he would have struck my father dead with lightning bolts. But the bad guys win, Father, almost every time.
And please, don’t give me the lecture about free will. Where was my free will when I was being abused? Where is the free will in this world where children die of hunger while the fat cats watch HD television and drive fancy cars? Even your Catholic buddies who pamper you on this blog, they are fakers, too! Millions are starving. Millions are dying from curable diseases. Millions do not have healthy drinking water. If all your fat cat Catholics truly embraced poverty, these people would have a chance. But, surprise, we like our possessions way too much. We tithe and get our tax breaks and think we have done enough. We might always have the poor, but even if it saved one life, wouldn’t your Jesus say that such divesture and poverty would be worth it? Sure, if he was real, but Catholics do not even follow the rules of their own fairytales any longer.
We are all the same, believer and non-believer. We try to get as much as we can and throw crumbs away to the suffering or the poor to make ourselves feel better.
This God of yours, if he was real and almighty could put an end to all this tragedy. But he has neither real existence nor any power. Maybe the answer is global suicide? If your God was real that would be the most suitable gift to give him. He could not be all good, at least not as we know “good” to be. This God of yours, like my father, would be a monster. We would owe him no allegiance and no veneration. All he could claim from us would be hatred and spite. The blame for things cannot rest upon poor weak human beings. We know from evolution that there was no perfect moment and no blond haired and blue eyed Adam and Eve. We represent a successful primate line. Our brains were bigger and our hands had these nifty thumbs. We survived while others went extinct.
I could almost love your mythical Jesus, at least he knew what betrayal and suffering is about. But I could never love his Father that permitted his passion and the passion of the whole world.
Your church and God make many rules that are nonsensical to me. You condemn the pill even for those families who cannot afford a child. You forbid condoms when they might stop HIV and AIDs for millions of people. You excommunicate women who have abortions, even when it regards an embryo as small as a jellybean. You forbid divorce and force people to remain in loveless marriages and where sometimes women are abused by their spouses. You tell gay men and lesbian women that they cannot love each other, and yet, who does it really hurt? Does your God really like to make people suffer more? Why does your church raise up loneliness as a sacrament? Goodness, even your priests are forced into celibacy, drowning their tears in alcohol or food or pornography or secret affairs or abuse!
I am sorry to be so blunt. It must be very painful for you to hear the truth. Did you give up a girlfriend for the priesthood? You will not even have children to console you in your old age. I have known priests. They get grumpy as they age and the one who knew me too well, he died very much alone. Even his bishop did not want him anymore. Rumors more true than false were leaked. He said I reminded him of his Kate, a girl he knew as a young man. He left her for God. He left her for nothing but an illusion and a church that uses its ministers as cheap managers of its properties and for endless fundraising. Money, money, money, it makes both the world and the church go ’round.
There is no one in charge, Father Jenkins. The train is running wild and the conductor is out to lunch. There is no reward waiting for you. Dead loved ones, like my mother, are gone forever. The only thing we are heading for is a train wreck. The whistle is blowing, thanks to a few scientists and atheists. But is anyone listening? Maybe it does not matter? But you all seem to think it does matter. I could almost wish I shared your fantasy, but it is too late. I have seen the face of the devil and I can never escape his stare. I have looked into the mirror.
Minnie,
Have you ever sought any professional help? You have so much emotional baggage weighing you down. Get rid of it because it’s destroying you. This is the work of the devil, and YOU are certainly NOT the devil. It’s time for you to shift from reverse into 1st gear.
I too came from a very troubled past…even worse than yours, which to me was a great gift in hindsight. The worse things that happen in life usually turn out to be the best things that happen. I’ve written in a prior post about an older Polish woman that I’ve recently met. She was held captive in a forced labor camp during WW2 for many years. Is she angry with God? No, quite the contrary. Only God knows what happened to her in that camp. I know that she came out a stronger person and also very thankful that God saw fit to keep her alive to be in her 80’s. Everything happens for a reason and God doesn’t ask us to go through things in life that He didn’t experience Himself.
In fact, He’s still being abused and rejected for over two thousand years.
When is His abuse ever going to stop, Hmmm?
Remove the dark cloud of doubt and you will clearly see that God does exist. Look at all of the good that you’ve done for others then ask yourself where it came from. You work very well at your job. You give good service to your employer. You’re thoughtful, compassionate, and I know that you would always give a starving person some food and water. You would. The devil would never do that. The next time you look in that mirror, see in you the good that God created. You’ve never murdered anyone right? You realize that what happened to you was inherently and intrinsically evil. It was. You have to also realize that your father was very sick, in every aspect of the word. What he did was inexcusable, and I’m sure that he regrets every shameful thing that he did to you.
After reading your post I cannot help but recall the passage where Jesus is asleep on a cushion in a boat on a storm in the lake.
The apostles were all in doubt about their security. It seems as though that our Lord has vanished with His ascension or is very passive and doesn’t care about what happens to us or the way that we feel. This is a complete falsehood. God is so close…..closer to us than we are to ourselves. Stop doubting and believe in God. You can’t change the past, the world, or anyone in it. You can only change Minnie. Life is built on trust in the source of life. Not on money, food, water, nor any of the other things that you’ve mentioned.
The 2008 election will not bring Eutopia to modern day America, regardless of who gets the keys to the Whitehouse.
Our help is in the Lord who made Heaven and earth. Please give God a chance.
He’s waiting for you to come around.
You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.
TRY, TRUST, and TRUTH.
Father Joe, would you please post under what circumstances the Host can be removed from the Church? Of course we know, as Cook did, that approaching the alter to receive Holy Communion under false pretenses in order to show his friend, was clearly not one of those reasons.
All this rhetoric I’m reading in his defense is taking time away from my life that I’ll never get back, so I’d like to read in writing and for the record, just what would constitute an acceptable reason for removing the Host from the Church.
Thank you, Father
Thank you, Father.
Would folks please take Father Joe’s response, regarding the Eucharist, and post it on other sites so that Cook’s defenders can read before they write. Not that they will stop defending him, but at least they’ll know how ludicrous his excuse was–depending upon, of course, which excuse he’s presently using, since none of his versions would be acceptable reasons, as Father Joe has pointed out above.
Thanks and God Bless.
Michael,
Although, naturally, God has the final say in all matters human regardless of who sits in the Oval Office after the 2008 elections–hopes for Utopia aside, who gets those White House keys will affect us differently, depending upon the holder.
Should they fall into the wrong hands, and you know whose hands I refer to, hell on earth will be unleashed to reign wildly for four to eight years.
All due respect to you, but we have to take responsibility for doing all we can to protect our country; a country that was designed under the guidance and protection of God.
I understand what you’re saying in that we need never despair despite appearances, but as I know you know, we must always pray as if all depends upon God, but work (for right) as if all depends upon us.
opus,
God does have the final say, BUT He also respects the gift of free will that He gave to us.
People constantly abuse and misuse their gift of free will, which certainly does affect others.
Just look at America now. That’s why this country is in the financial and moral mess that it’s in, and we can’t blame God for it either.
The government threw us a little piece of cheese in May just to shut us up, while they subtly took it back in gasoline and in food hikes. America hasn’t been a democracy since JFK was murdered, conspiracy or not. Long gone are the days of Truman and Eisenhower.
Just so you know, I’m on my knees every night asking God to protect this “free” country.
At the rate it’s going it will surely self-destruct.
Okay. I won’t excuse this.
I don’t think I’ll ever understand ~why~ you feel the way you do about this (thinking it’s better to DIE yourself rather than have an ‘unworthy’ person abscond with a chip of bread?). But that doesn’t matter now. Some of my fellow godless folk have been mean, and I apologize in their behalf. I am sorry.
If any of these wafers should ever come into my hands, I’ll see that they make it back to where they belong. Deal?
~M
G ATHEIST: Firstly I should say that I wouldn’t take the actions Dr. Myers did, for a range of reasons. Among others, I’m disinclined to offend people, but also because religions generally don’t excite me enough either way to do much. (If they impose themselves on others, that can be another matter.) I’m not a “militant” atheist either. (It’d be a contradiction in terms to impose your views on others… and the term itself is something of a contradiction in terms to me personally anyway.). Point is, I’m reasonably neutral in all this, neutral as anyone is likely to be given its not entirely possible.
I haven’t time to read all the posts here, so excuse me for replying directly to the original. Its a little random and in no particular order.
Your paragraph starting “The situation about his lack of censure” left out that his blog isn’t hosted at the university, nor represents the university, and that university indicated as much themselves. I understand that they did remove a link to the blog.
FATHER JOE: I know full well that his blog was not on the school server. However, at the time of the offense he was linked to the school site as one of its professors. The guidelines of the school do not mandate that all punishable misconduct must take place on campus or during school hours, although it has been noted by Donohue that Myers constantly logs on and posts during school hours, even while he is giving classes. Further, what he does effects the reputation of the school and will necessarily make good Catholic parents look elsewhere to educate their children. Any Catholic students would have a difficult if not impossible challenge taking his classes since he has violated any respect that they should have in a professor. Repercussions will also come from Catholic alumni incensed over the incident. His mockery of Christians and desecration of the most sacred element of Catholic Christianity shows a terrible insensitivity and bigotry; had the subject matter been racism or chauvinism, he would have been shown the door. His blog is an extension of his teaching and he posts scientific items on it for others, including for his students to view. He publicizes his blog for this purpose, and I suspect, to spread his negative views about religion without fear of retaliation.
G ATHEIST: You could be accused of putting him on a pedestal to knock him down, using his university position, etc. I’d have thought it wiser to focus on what was said (or done), not who said it (or did it): that’s what should matter, isn’t it?
A few of the statements made don’t ring true to me. I’ll just tackle one. (My time here is running out!)
“Atheism inherently represents a closed mind, a lack of imagination.” Hardly. This is very close to, if not literally, framing others to suit yourself. Among other things, atheism involves not limiting your world view to pre-set beliefs. For many this means being open to what is actually around you, without first constraining your understanding of what is around you with beliefs. The latter being one reason why atheism and science generally fit together well. (Science works best if you don’t constain the answer with pre-set beliefs.)
FATHER JOE: No, I think atheism, at least in its extreme form, does represent a lack of imagination. Otherwise, the best for which one might hope is a form of agnosticism. As a Christian and a realist, I believe there are many signs, footprints so to speak, of God’s presence within creation. However, given that these bits of evidence should be unsatisfactory to some; God or a Supreme Being is under no obligation to show his face to men. Mathematics and natural laws might seem adequate to various searchers of truth; although I am of the mind the laws require a lawgiver. A non-believer might imagine alien life forms but cringes at the thought of a great being. Obviously, this is apart from the matter of creeds and purported revelations to men. Scientists might not believe we are being visited by aliens from Outer Space, but might acknowledge the possibility of intelligent life elsewhere in the Cosmos. Carl Sagan did as much. If we will grant this, then why not the possibility of a being of a whole order we might not yet understand, as well as a dimension with beings deemed “spiritual” because we are unable to further explain their substance? Certain scientists might reject institutional religion, but a little imagination might make them admit that an entity could exist who is so far above us that it would rightly be labeled a deity.
As for limiting science by pre-set beliefs, science itself sometimes sets up these beliefs, which are later overturned. There is a world of difference from Newton to Einstein to Witten/Townsend/Polchinski/Maldacena. As a believer I have no problem with the notion that the human body evolved from early forms or with the realization that we are mostly empty space. I believe in intelligent design but this does not inhibit my openness to the mysteries of creation. Further, the thing that is left unsaid is this, what if a number of the world religions have elements of truth and what if one of them really is true? It might seem outrageous and mad, but it seems to me that there is no way to absolutely rule out faith as something more than subjective, but pointing to an objective reality. Given that God is real, does it not make sense that he would try to communicate with us in a way that we would understand? Sure, instead of coming down to primitives from the sky with tech manuals and Star Trek hardware, he gives us as much as we can process and not wanting to destroy our development, grants us the rational tools to figure out the rest.
G ATHEIST: With all respect, I believe the wise thing to do in defining other groups’ beliefs or what they represent, is to not to “impose” what you think they represent at all, but to let them speak for themselves in saying what they represent. Atheism does not represent being closed-minded: you are quite wrong about that and I believe you are wrong to “frame” people in that manner.
FATHER JOE: Sometimes we are too close to something to see clearly. Catholicism claims that all truth is complimentary. Philosophers, scientists and theologians need to respect each other but also to offer critiques of each other. However, this should not be combatative. Myers is saying that religious folks have no part in the dialogue. He even criticizes believers among scientists. You imply something similar by trying to shut down any synthesis or analysis others might make. Atheists have a right to discuss how they see religion and believers, but the discussion should be civil. Clergy study atheism as part of their philosophical formation. They are not totally in the dark. Sure, believers are always hoping to make converts as part of our mission mandate; but at the least we should respect each other and be friends. I still think that a radical atheism represents a closed mind; however, I never said that believers have totally open minds. I believe as a Catholic that there are certain doctrines that are perpetual; however, Cardinal Newman stressed that our understanding of these things can develop and grow. Science has given us many answers regarding cosmology and the physical nature of things. I suspect that many more mysteries will be answered in the days ahead. My faith has not short circuited such research, but of course Catholics are not fundamentalists or literalists. I am also aware that there are many reasons for atheism, not all of them because of mental reservations but sometimes because of the emotions. The problem of pain is a significant reason. Scandals and hypocrisy in the churches have not helped either.
G ATHEIST: I’m not trying to be rude in writing that, but telling others “how they are” (greatly) lowers any impression I might have of you.
FATHER JOE: It may be that I erred by making an overall generalization or stereotype. I had in mind comments made by Myers and a number of his supporters spamming my blog. If my comments do not apply to you, then I would certainly apologize. But I still feel that this new breed of atheists will make mutual cooperation in the days ahead difficult if not impossible.
G ATHEIST: One small piece of philosophy that left an obvious answer out of the list of answers you suggested:
“Why do so many want to survive the grave? Is the desire for immortality pointing to a great mystery or is it the result of a defective and dishonest gene? Could it be that we are wired for faith and worship?” is followed by a swift shift to “And if so, who or what did the wiring?” and more, which doesn’t necessarily follow. More to the point, here’s a simpler solution you left out: we’re wired for survival.
FATHER JOE: A belief in an afterlife is more than physical survival. It is a desire for transformation— no more suffering or pain, no more death, and on top of that REUNION. No, I still think there is intelligence behind the wiring. Yes, I want to endure, but I also want to know— a yearning that takes me beyond the here-and-now.
G ATHEIST: And a bit of rabble-rousing that you really shouldn’t have stooped to:
“Will Dr. Myers take credit when churches are vandalized and tabernacles are destroyed so that hosts might be desecrated? Will he post pictures of priests and nuns beaten in the streets so that his hoodlums can steal the hosts and oils for the sick?” This is honestly silly.
FATHER JOE: You think so? I have a list of emails and pictures and videos of desecrated hosts or people claiming to do so. I have been contacted by an oratory in England looking for the culprit who stole a host, placed it in a condom, and mailed it to Myers. I have exchanged emails with a campus minister about a student’s email being used to threaten desecration. Have you read the vulgar emails I have received? However, unlike Myers, I am not condemning the whole atheist community for the crazies threatening and insulting me. I do point the finger at Myers! A parish church not far from mine was recently vandalized and the hosts scattered on the floor. The Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in D.C. is on special alert and the ushers are closely watching communicants for trouble. This is just in my locale. Who knows what the national situation may be. Myers has indeed started something, and it will not be silly if someone gets hurt. However, the fact that just one host was desecrated is in our eyes an infinite offense against almighty God.
G ATHEIST: Trying to whip up a storm are we? By all means correct me, but Dr. Myers did none of these things, nor invited anyone to do any of these things. I don’t agree with all of what was done, but my recollection is distinctly of him asking people not to be silly.
FATHER JOE: Myers told people to steal the host and to send them to him for desecration. If you do not understand how reprehensible that is for Catholics, then you too fail to have enough “imagination” to empathize with our deep pain. Can you not in any sense put yourself into our shoes?
G ATHEIST: In any event, as I understand it, nothing even approaching these things have happened, nor are likely to. To me it reads like a beat-up–what we’d expect from rouble-rousing politicians.
FATHER JOE: I just came back from giving a man the Last Rites tonight. It made a world of difference to him and to his family. He knows that both God and the family of the Church love him. I have tried to see the world through your eyes, and I find it an experience that leaves me quite cold. If you can find comfort in such a view of things, then so be it. I wish you well.
You can ask questions and make comments about believers as I can about atheists and others. But please, spare me any apologetics for Myers. I really do think he has started a terrible ball rolling and I pray that it stops soon. I have known people who have died in the missions for the faith. Some of our saints were murdered for hiding the Blessed Sacrament. Are we immune in the United States from such calamities? I no longer think so.
G ATHEIST: Along with this, other claims appear to be extensions, and in some cases distortions, of what was actually done. But putting all that aside, a few loose thoughts:
I believe that without an understanding of the true history of your “thing”, whatever that might be, science, a particular religion, carpentry, pottery, painting, whatever, you don’t really understand it properly. Dr. Myers included a potted history of the origin of the use of the wafer in Catholic churches. I’m not in a position to verify it (I don’t have time, for one thing). But how many people here know the history of it? Not what it now ascribed to it, but how the practice really arose and the reason it came about, etc.? If you don’t, then perhaps you should consider you don’t know the basis of your “thing” well enough? I’m not trying to be rude, its the same for understanding science and where it comes from. And art in its various forms. And music. And all the crafts. I could tell you how I believe the history goes of it goes, but I think its for you to learn for yourselves, so I’ll leave there. If you write to me and I don’t reply my apologies in advance. I may not be around for discussion–not trying to duck anything, its just I’ve used my share of time on this and I’ve a lot of work to do. I wrote this post more by way of something for people to think about than argue.
FATHER JOE: Do you think Catholic priests only know about religion? Many of us have degrees in Theology, Philosophy, English and History. My deacon is one of the most significant physicists in the country and along with a crew at Catholic University developed the storage process currently used for nuclear waste. Our priests were teachers, scientists, doctors, dentists, etc. We are not fools.
Myers’ view of the Eucharist and its history is pathetic, borrowing (it appears) from the anti-Catholic Protestant fundamentalists, of all people! The Gospels and 1 Corinthians give us variations of the Last Supper and the institution of the Eucharist. Each varies somewhat because of the differing theological perspectives of the churches from which they emerged. St. Paul’s version is the oldest, maybe as early as 63 AD. These were actually the words and manner that these churches celebrated the Lord’s Supper or Mass. The Eucharist was taken to the sick and to captives. One of the earliest saints was a young man stoned to death while taking the Eucharist to condemned Christians. If you read the early Church fathers, especially from the second to the sixth and seventh century, you will find volumes about it. The faith was the same as today. They believed it was Jesus! If you want to know more about the Eucharist, look at my instructional pages posted on this blog.
I am not so concerned about Myers’ rudeness to Christians as I am about his desecration of our Blessed Lord in the Eucharist. It is extremely hard to forgive such a vile rape of the Holy of Holies, particularly since he is unapologetic. You do not appreciate how devastating this is. A priest would sooner die himself than to see the Blessed Sacrament so rudely treated.
“The iconoclast proves enough when he proves by his blasphemy that this or that idol is defectively convincing—that at least one visitor to the shrine is left full of doubts. The liberation of the human mind has been best furthered by gay fellows who heaved dead cats into sanctuaries and then went roistering down the highways of the world, proving to all men that doubt, after all, was safe—that the god in the sanctuary was a fraud. One horse-laugh is worth ten thousand syllogisms. – H. L. Mencken”
PZ’s isn’t a bigot, he’s an educator, and his desecration was an instance of superb educational outreach. He proved that the god in the sanctuary was a fraud. But he also proved that doubt isn’t safe, because voodoo practitioners like yourselves are quite dangerous when your fantasies are demolished. PZ is a hero, for he had the courage to tell the Emperor he is wearing no clothes. Religion is a fraud, easily exposed, but violently safeguarded. Only lies need to be protected by such threats of violence. The truth can stand on its own. All of you should be ashamed not only for the lowly foolishness you believe, but to the lengths you’ll go to remain in ignorance.
FATHER JOE: The lack of censure is proof that guidelines about respect and tolerance from educators and students is a fraud. If Myers was a member of woman-haters club that met off campus after hours, he would still have gotten into trouble. If he spent his day off wearing a sheet with his Klan brothers, lynching effigies of black people, he would be gone. If he wore a swastika and railed against the Jews, he would be looking for a new job. But desecrate the Eucharist and mock Catholicism is regarded as okay. It truly is the acceptable prejudice. This is so sick. The Church has done so much good for the world, but bigots like H.H. will have none of it. There is no level of perversion they will refute if against believers. Avoiding philosophical argument, they appeal not to reason, but to vulgarity, name-calling and religious terrorism. Religion answers basic needs, and for this reason even false religion oftens hits upon actual truths. Catholicism is true religion, or as one commentator wrote, the end of religion as we knew it. It speaks to the supernatural but is not occult or superstitious.
SAM:
Doublethink– “The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them . . . . To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies — all this is indispensably necessary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth.” – George Orwell – 1984
So, let me get this straight; The Church disavows what any “crazies” in its ranks might do on their own accord but Professor Myers is directly responsible for what any “crazies” might do in response to something he said. This is doublethink in its highest degree. Or you might just call it by its older and more straightforward name. Hypocrisy.
Nice. So the only “real” Catholics are the ones who “would never” act in such an irresponsible manner the rest are just “crazies” over whom “The Church” has no control (but is happy to accept tithes from).
Double think again. You don’t “ask for their condemnation” but are quick to offer it up yourselves in the name of “justice”.
So, when the Muslim “Authorities” call for the quick suppression (on pain of death) of cartoons that depict their great and noble prophet Mohammed on the grounds that such depictions are “immoral” acts (according to their beliefs) are you then saying that this is a demand that people should “respect”? You might want to think carefully about the implications of that. The hyper-sensitive, hyper-totalitarian “sensibilities” of today’s Muslim clerical community will out-fanatic the Catholics into oblivion if you’re not careful.
The only way to avoid an inevitable clash of your morality vs. theirs is to respect the fact that everyone does not share your “morality” down to the finest detail and that yes, some of us do consider the host to be “just a cracker”. In that light, it makes no sense that you should ask us to “respect” your view of the aforementioned cracker and to hold it in the same regard you do (seeing the “desecration” of such a symbol as immoral) any more than it makes sense that a Muslim ask you to “respect” his view that exposing women’s’ flesh to public scrutiny is “immoral” and to “keep your women covered”.
FATHER JOE:
I wrote various statements that Sam construed as contradictory. I will cite two that will suffice for purposes of clarification:
1. “The Church is not responsible for what crazy individuals might say any more than are all atheists to blame for Dr. Myers and his misbegotten supporters.”
2. “As for legal or illegal, if his enticement to others leads to further vandalism and violence against clergy, then I do think he would have some culpability.”
The middle-term that Sam conveniently misses is that the Church never urged theft or violence against Cook or Myers or anyone. Indeed, the few Church officials who came forward supported civility while requesting that hosts not be purloined or desecrated. Cook on the other hand took that to which he had no right and Myers deliberately urged others to steal hosts and to send them to him for desecration. Catholics that threatened any of the particulars did so in opposition to Church authorities. The radical atheists, on the hand, deliberately, deliberately incited violence against the Eucharist and were unapologetic in doing so. There is no double-think or hypocrisy in these statements; however, your analysis shows a deliberate omission that is either caused by ignorance of simple logic or because you want to rationalize Myers’ agenda.
My question still has value: “Who are these crazy people who supposedly made threats? What are their names?” How do we know they are Catholics, tithing or not? I have explained at great length how the Church would not espouse violence. Catholics held the moral high ground in this whole discussion. That is why various defenders of Myers targeted peripheral matters so as to give the appearance of legitimacy. Decent people do not desecrate the sacred signs or symbols of others. One may not believe in the Eucharistic Lord, and that is one’s choice; however, deliberately desecrating the sacrament hurts good people needlessly. It is juvenile behavior and that is why Myers should be reprimanded, given that he is an adult and supposedly a professional educator.
There is no double-think in the Catholic appreciation of justice. It can imply both vindication and condemnation. Myers did something very wrong, not only from a Catholic perspective, but from that of basic human decency. No one has wronged Myers, but he has wronged the Catholic Church. He should apologize and attempt reparation. As terrible an act as he committed; we would still forgive him. That is what Christians are supposed to do.
I already noted the real point of conflict: “Taking the host for a purpose for which it was not intended constituted an immoral act. The subsequent desecration of consecrated hosts was also immoral acts.”
Sam asks a question: “So, when the Muslim ‘Authorities’ call for the quick suppression (on pain of death) of cartoons that depict their great and noble prophet Mohammed on the grounds that such depictions are ‘immoral’ acts (according to their beliefs) are you then saying that this is a demand that people should ‘respect’?” You need to work on your logic. Your question falsely makes a connection between the death penalty and religious desecration. Let me make a few distinctions:
1. We should respect Moslem sensibilities in regard to the prophet Mohammed, not because of threats, but because we should love them and not want to needlessly offend the religious sensibilities of others.
2. Death threats from Moslems or anyone else are inappropriate. Indeed, from the Catholic perspective, a person who threatens another with murder is already guilty of the mortal sin of murder.
3. While the Moslems are offended by images of Mohammed, but particularly by profane ones; the Eucharist desecration is a higher level of offense given that Catholics believe that the consecrated host really is Jesus Christ, Son of God.
Unlike the upset Moslem Imams, there were no bishops or priests placing death threats on Myers’ head. Blasphemy and sacrilege hurts Catholic Christians, but our Lord has told us to love our enemies and to forgive our persecutors. Unfortunately there has been no sign of contrition from Myers or any of his supporters.
You do not believe in our Eucharistic Lord. That is your right in a free society. However, I am troubled that you think you are entitled to mock and ridicule others by desecrating the Eucharist. The sacrament is given to believers as their spiritual food. We do not extend it to others for any other reason. I am a Catholic and a priest. But I would consider the desecration of objects or persons in other religions also to be wrong and immoral. I put no faith in Hindu idols. I do not believe that the Koran is God’s holy book. Further, I reject the notion that Mohammed is a true prophet. But you will never see me burning or hammering nails into copies of the Koran or entering Hindu temples to smash their statues.
You say you see no more need to respect the Eucharist, which you call “cracker” than “to ‘respect’ his [the Moslem} view that exposing women’s flesh to public scrutiny is ‘immoral’ and to ‘keep your women covered’”. We really do part company and I grieve about your insensitivity toward others. I do not like the notion of Moslem women being forced to wear certain traditional Islamic attire; however, I can certainly respect those women who do so as an expression of their modesty and fidelity to their faith convictions. The world might be a better place if our Christian women showed less skin and more vigorously safeguarded their virtue.
Terrorism, wow….
Please STOP smoking crack, and lay off the alterboys ya sick f%$#!
censored by frjoe
MMMMM… re-reading my post above I see a point that might be (deliberately or otherwise) misconstrued. When I state that strongly held beliefs should encounter violence I trust that you will understand this comment as I intended it. Namely that they should encounter metaphorical violence in the spirit of words and actions that strongly refute or deny those beliefs or point out where they have overreached themselves, not that those who hold those beliefs should encounter actual physical violence.
HH: Father Joe, the reason you can’t compare PZ to klan members, gay bashers, or women haters is because in all of those cases, people are being discriminated against on the basis of some fact of biology over which they have no control: race, gender, or sexual persuasion.
FATHER JOE: You cannot so narrowly define discrimination. The Irish were mistreated as immigrants even though they were the same color and the same basic ethnic group as those from Wales, Scotland and other parts of the British Isles. Many of them were largely discrimnated against because of their religion. Similarly, religious persecution drove pilgrims of many faiths to the New World. What you fail to appreciate here is the traditional Catholic psyche. When I was a boy and someone asked where you were from, the first thing you said was the church you attended on Sunday. Our faith helped define our identity. At the center of Catholic identity is the Eucharist. We are a Eucharistic people, a nation within a nation, so to speak. Desecration of the Eucharist was not only an attack against the mystery of Christ which we hold dear, but was a defamation of every Catholic who still worships and lives out his faith. The Eucharist is what binds Catholics, not simply gender or race. We see the Eucharist as the body of Christ. We also speak of the Church as the Mystical Body of Christ. We are one in the Eucharist, one in the body of Christ. Myers assaulted not just a consecrated host, but every believer who sees himself united to it.
HH: Religion, on the other hand, is not a fact of biology. People aren’t born religious, they are indoctrinated into religions. People can even change their religion, or drop out of all religions entirely. People CHOOSE their religions, which after all are only sets of ideas, always open to critique, and even mockery if deserved.
FATHER JOE: I am not sure homosexuality is always a matter of biology either. It can also be cause by trauma. I knew gays who tried to get heterosexuals to turn gay. Sorry, your rationalization will not wash. Even the Jews count bigotry against Gentile converts to Judaism as bigotry. Such prejudice is wrong. I am ashamed of you for trying to be an apologist for bigotry.
HH: The fact that you self-identify so strongly with your religion that you feel like an attack on it is a personal attack on you doesn’t make it so!
FATHER JOE: Ridiculous! Who are you to tell us how to feel. Myers perfectly well knew that devout Catholics would be hurt. He did not care! This is callous and wrong. We believe there is a spiritual bond as well as a deeply emotional one. He hurt us and you do not seem to care either. You remind me of a rapist who placed the blame on the woman he assaulted because she wore short skirts and smiled at him. No doubt he argued that her experienece of assault did not make it so. Baloney, buster!
HH: Criticism of religion is not a criticism of you.
FATHER JOE: Criticism is fine by me, desecration of the Eucharist is not criticism but terrorism!
HH: PZ is directly criticizing bad ideas, not people, and certainly not over things over which they have no control.
FATHER JOE: Did you read what he called Christians? Sorry, it went way beyond ideas. He not only desecrated the host, he encouraged kids and readers to send them to him for desecration! Is such behavior supposed to enamour me and other Catholics to his ideas? No, all he did was throw gasoline upon a fire he started. That is when the crazies started sending him hordes of emails. He knew what the host meant to Catholics. It did not matter that he did not believe it. The civilized thing to do would have been to give the Eucharist back to the Church. He could have ridiculed and laughed at us all he wanted. But no, he drove a nail through the Blessed Sacrament and threw it into the trash.
HH: Catholics should stop moaning about how badly their feelings were hurt actually take responsibility for the beliefs they hold. Defend them in the marketplace of ideas. Use reason and argument. Convince us that the wafer actually becomes the body of Christ with evidence and facts.
FATHER JOE: It is hard to dialogue with someone who has driven a nail into that which we prize more highly than our own lives. Would you sit down and talk calmly with someone who kidnapped one of your children or who just burned your house down? That is the emotional impact of the act. If we are right about what the host is, then we have every right to be this upset. Myers is not interested in debating Catholics. He has already made his mind up. Destroying one’s most sacred symbol of faith is a deplorable act of barabarism. That is why he is unfit to teach. You don’t fool me either. This is just a continuing attempt to justify what could backfire for the atheist movement. Those who defend Myers cannot be respected by the Christian community. There is a whole segment of society that will consider him and his disciples unfit for association, self-inflicted lepers who must find comfort among their own because all decent people find them foul and corrupted. I will not be surprised that his university will take a serious financial hit. Certainly I would urge all Christians, Jews, Moslems and other people of good-will to refrain from supporting an institution that gives approval and sanctuary to this man. If the man does not pay the price, I am confident that his school will. Just as blacks fought for civil rights. Catholics and other believers will also have to struggle for rights in a society increasingly secular and hostile to them.
HH: But declaring your beliefs “sacred” and thus not open to criticism? That’s just not going to wash. I am under no obligation to treat your beliefs as sacred, since your beliefs are not you. Ideas are not people. Whining that YOU are being mistreated because you cannot defend your religious beliefs on rational grounds is about as silly as it gets.
FATHER JOE: Who said my beliefs are not open to criticism? We are complaining about the theft of the Eucharist and its desecration. Again, these are acts to terrorize the Catholic-Christian community. If I stole your car, would you call that criticism about the price of gas? The Eucharist means more than your car or house to us. Why should that surprise you? Some comic books on poor degrading paper go for tens of thousands of dollars. Regardless as to whether you believe what I believe, the value is what people would sacrifice for it. I have given my whole life. I have sacrificed having a wife and family to serve at the altar and celebrate the Eucharist. As for trying to prove our faith, well, that is the typical atheist deception. You want us to define our faith and sacraments using scientific methodology. That is like me saying you should prove your science using only the tools of theology. We ask different questions. But you do not respect this. Further, as a Catholic I also claim science. I read journals and study constantly about the origins of man, astronomy, the newest theories of physics (dumbed down somewhat for my leaking brain), bioethical questions and medical developments, etc. But while I have an interest in all these things, and History, Philosophy and English besides; each field must be respected for what it is. There is some crossover, but it is minimal. Faith can be supported (and even corrected) by rational discourse and complimented by philosophical and scientific discoveries; but it is still a divine gift. Unless God grants it to you, all the theorems and proofs would be meaningless. Ours is faith seeking understanding.
HH: Catholics do not get to define reality.
FATHER JOE: Oh, and does that mean that only you or Myers can tell us what is real and not real?
HH: The host remains bread and does not change into Jesus, not in essence, substance or in fact. To believe so is absolutely no different from any other supernatural, occult or superstitious belief. The fact that you THINK Christianity is a “true” religion is just another delusion. Christianity is no different than voodoo. It’s all the same old time magical thinking.
FATHER JOE: And here you go, speaking your mind, but I am glad that the posturing is over. You are wrong and you have no means to prove otherwise. The Eucharist does indeed change substantially from bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus Christ. As an atheist, I do not expect you to believe it. You can call it voodoo or whatever else, but I believe it is true. The accidentals of bread and wine remain. What should you care what I believe as long as I allow you the freedom to not believe or to believe in something else. This is still a long way from theft and desecration. Such acts say that we have no right to believe. That is really what you are about. You are as totalitarian as your conrad Soviet atheists. They also mocked the Eucharist. They burned our churches and turned others into museums. They desecrated our hosts and imprisoned our priests. They were no different from you, except that a strange movement of history and an unfathomable step in divine providence allowed them to come to power.
HH: And while I do feel strongly about what I believe, and about the wrongness of your beliefs, I do want to thank you for publishing my comment. While I am critical, perhaps even harsh, I am only telling you things as I see them. So you do deserve to be commended for being willing to address critics and not simply resort to censoring out dissenting voices.
FATHER JOE: I am harsh, and in your eyes probably the ultimate fool. I have given up everything a normal man wants in life… no sex… no wife… no children… no freedom of movement… and for what? …for what you guys call that crazy little cracker.
“So Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me. This is the bread which came down from heaven, not such as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live forever.’ After this many of his disciples drew back and no longer went about with him. Jesus said to the twelve, ‘Will you also go away?’”
I come from a Catholic family and I really love all of ‘em. However, from an outsider’s perspective (I was not raised Catholic) your position is hilarious.
You seriously contend that a cracker is the body of an ancient god who died and resurrected himself. And you expect others to not just double over in laughter at your claim?
Wow.
In all honesty, I know you don’t want to be offended and all, but this is the silliest thing I’ve ever heard of. I mean, just, wow. You guys got great architecture, but this is right up there with… man, I don’t know… it’s just plain insane. I don’t know how people have believed such a silly idea for this long and it’s kinda scary to me that people who believe in such absurdities are out loose in the general public.
I still love my grandma, and all my Catholic relatives, but it’s disconcerting to me that they believe this too. I had no idea that otherwise rational people could believe in zombie-god-crackers.
My fault – I logged in from a different computer and couldn’t see the post “awaiting moderation” It seems I was a bit over sensitive. Still, the approved and replied to post was meant as clarification to an earlier post and not meant to stand on it’s own (as is this one).
G ATHEIST: Can I ask where my reply went?
FATHER JOE: Moderated (when I get time)
G ATHEIEST: OK, let’s try post this again…) @post 76: Now I understand that style of this blog: what I took to be dialogues actually aren’t. Could I suggest you leave people’s posts in their original form and reply to them in a separate post?
FATHER JOE: The suggestion is noted, but I cannot make any guarantee about compliance. All comments are moderated and I usually only leave untouched those posted comments that either do not challenge the faith or which are so outrageous that even standing alone they make the Catholic case. I run my blog with a heavy hand and it is true that while I do not like deleting comments, I do censor and attach corrective responses. Some would say that this is not playing fair. My blog is also a teaching tool for Catholics and as such I try to keep it orthodox. There are plenty of other sites and blogs where people might go for the other side of things.
G ATHEIST: Yours is the only blog I’ve seen where the owner takes the liberty of inserting their reply into the original post from the onset. For example, you cut my paragraph about a “beat up” into three pieces, likely changing my meaning to readers through dislocating words that reflected on eachother. Others will not realise that, as there is literally no way for them to know has been broken apart or joined (as you did to my final paragraphs).
FATHER JOE: They know now.
G ATHEIST: Some of your replies, whether you mean to or not, ignore what I wrote and go off on a tangent! :-) While I’m sure these are topics close to your heart, a problem with this for me is these tangential replies imply that I raised the tangential material in my post, when I didn’t. With that in mind, I feel compelled to clarify (below).
FATHER JOE: I saw the connections and application. I always get the last word.
G ATHEIST: It’d be nicer if you could leave in the HTML. It was there to place emphasis on particular words, so that my intended meaning was conveyed. (Post 80 has italics, so I’m assuming that the HTML itself isn’t an issue.)
FATHER JOE: That might be an issue with my template and the general coding? I will check.
BLOG: I know full well that his blog was not on the school server.
G ATHEIST: I’ll assume you mean you knew, i.e. at the time you wrote the piece. To my mind you should really have also made this clear to your readers as well: that was the reason I mentioned this. The way its written an association with the university is implied that, to my understanding, was never there. In the rest of this reply, you then go off a on a tangent about other stuff. The trouble for me there that is I didn’t raise any of these points and they don’t have anything to do with the point I was making. My point was about your article, not Myers, the university, etc.
FATHER JOE: The point is that the professor is never totally disassociated from the university and must thus act in a way that would neither harm the school’s reputation nor his own good name.
BLOG: No, I think atheism, at least in its extreme form, does represent a lack of imagination.
G ATHEIST: You’re welcome to think whatever you like–in your own time–but its poor taste to tell others “what they are”, especially so in a public forum. My suggestion, I think, was sound: the others’ speak for themselves.
FATHER JOE: Poor taste? Remember I am a priest and part of my job is to refute heresy and error. I do not play by your rules or allow non-believers to tell me what to say. More about atheists and atheism can be found at:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02040a.htm
G ATHEIST: You then take this as an excuse to give a spiel about “why G-d exists”, etc. While I’m sure quite its a topic you’re keen on give who you are, it hasn’t got anything to do with the point I was making!
FATHER JOE: It has everything to do with it. Myers has committed sacrilege, offended God and upset millions of believers. He should pay a price for such poor behavior.
BLOG: As for limiting science by pre-set beliefs …
G ATHEIST: Science doesn’t work with beliefs at all; it works with evidence, etc. While it might build on previous work, they’re not “beliefs”, certainly not in the religious sense.
FATHER JOE: No, what you say is what atheists would have us believe. They make various jumps in reasoning and stretched interpretations of scientific data that are precisely abased upon belief assumptions. The word “beliefs” is not limited to the teachings of established religions.
BLOG: …but it seems to me that there is no way to absolutely rule out faith as something more than subjective, but pointing to an objective reality.
G ATHEIST: If you’re open-minded you don’t start by presuming any one of of the possibilities is true, you start by assuming none of them are until there is evidence showing that they are true. Your reply in effect misses what I was saying.
FATHER JOE: Actually, while both believers and non-believers are scientists, the scientific method also proposes something and then investigates to see if whether or not it is true. Science is riddled with assumptions and various beliefs, not all of them opposed to Christian faith. Even efforts to discover a unified theory of everything require the uncertain presumption (a kind of faith) that man is that type of animal that has the capacity to understand such a solution. It might also be argued that we have a general belief in a rational universe which is governed by certain rules. My head spins when I try to rationalize this with Chaos Theory. I do not believe that science proves the non-existence of God. Atheists sometimes ask theological questions of science, even though science is not prepared to give answers to them. Similarly, I would be critical of fundamentalists who force science to be the slave of a rigorist Biblical literalism.
BLOG: Given that God is real …
G ATHEIST: …this starts with an assumption… if you take this as a given without first proving it, you’re not being open-minded ;-)
FATHER JOE: Your very label, “Gentile Atheist” is not being open-minded either. You are telling us from the very start that you do not believe in God. Certain Christian apologists and philosophers might allow a “methodical” doubt but certainly nothing more. No mind is a clean slate.
BLOG: Sometimes we are too close to something to see clearly…
G ATHEIST: …maybe, but this reply also can read as a long-winded excuse to your earlier framing atheists.
FATHER JOE: I do not apologize for that either. Atheists and believers alike tend to fit certain patterns.
BLOG: You imply something similar by trying to shut down any synthesis or analysis others might make.
G ATHEIST: What? Where? I have absolutely no idea of what you are on about here. I’m not “trying to shut down” anything.
FATHER JOE: YouR response resists the categories I would use for atheism, and although this is a faith-blog operated by a priest, you take exception upon my “presupposition” that God exists. All of this is taking us increasing far afield from the subject matter of Myers and his desecration of the Eucharist.
BLOG: It may be that I erred by making an overall generalization or stereotype… If my comments do not apply to you, then I would certainly apologize.
G ATHEIST: …by definition a generalisation or stereotype applies to a large group of people: you aren’t just be miscasting me, but many others, too. Apologise to them, not me.
FATHER JOE: Are you worthy of an apology? Note the subjunctive language, “may be”. About atheism in general, I think you are wrong and resent that you would tell me my business about surveying deficiencies in atheism. Catholic sites that do a lot of debates with atheists pretty much all remark that atheists try to get others to play by their rules. That would be a mistake. The rules or parameters of a discussion are half the debate. Stop telling me what to think and how to post responses. Get your own Blog if these things trouble you.
BLOG: “Catholics are not fundamentalists or literalists.”
G ATHEIST: …but you claim to believe in creationism/ID, so you must be.
FATHER JOE: Do not atheists believe in creation, albeit absent a Creator? What do you call it then, the Great Accident? I take it by your remark that you are not so gentle an atheist as your label suggests.
BLOG: I am also aware that there are many reasons for atheism, not all of them because of mental reservations but sometimes because of the emotions.
G ATHEIST: …framing others again, and terribly at that. (Note the loaded language: “mental reservations”, and the high-handed “the emotions”.) You should include that many people might be atheist simply because they are open-minded, without any “baggage”, period. (Philsophical food for thought: if you aren’t able to entertain this thought, you’re not being open-minded.) I should add that you also need to consider that this may be the case for the majority of atheists. In fact, if you’re really open-minded, you’d include considering that Catholics have the “baggage” and atheists don’t. (I’ve seen plenty of posts from ex-Catholics expressing just this sentiment, for what its worth and even you don’t like or agree with their views, you can’t just dismiss them.) But this is off-topic, really.
FATHER JOE: You are trying to frame me as well, by insisting that any discussion with you requires that I negate my belief in God. Why should I do this? I told you that I have no interest in debating God’s existence with you. You might disagree with how I and others see atheists, as we disagree with your notions about Christians… but at least I make no qualm in your regard. If you have been observing events online like the Blasphemy Challenge and have watched the videos and read the scripts, you would see that the young people and others are incredibly angry. They are not breaking away from the Church or God for philosophical and religious reasons. They are mad about how their lives have gone or about the plight of the planet or hypocrisy among ministers or parents who seem too strict. Emotions are leading this new wave of atheism, not philosophical ramblings or scientific conjecture. The kids who stole hosts were upset about AIDs and condoms and about the lack of acceptance for homosexuals. Even the young man who sent his host to Myers said as much. Remember, that the topical setting for these comments is Myers and the Desecration of the Eucharist. It was not a post about Intelligent Design and Creation or even Proofs in the Existence of God. Some jerk put links on Myers’ site and I have bombarded by comments, most of them vulgar and thus deleted. You are not vulgar, but incredibly contrary. For me, to be open minded, is to hear someone out. It does not mean for one moment that I could disbelieve in God with whom I have had an intimate relationship since I was a child. Catholics have negative baggage but Christ and the cross is not counted as such. Indeed, the yoke of Jesus makes our burden light.
BLOG: A belief in an afterlife is more than physical survival.
G ATHEIST: A “belief” in, or a desire for, an afterlife can follow from survival instincts (not wishing to die). I didn’t fill this in as I thought it was obvious. It should be obvious how to connect the dots, too, but I haven’t time for an essay on this here and again its off topic. (Note the emphasis on the word ‘follow’, though.)
FATHER JOE: Any elaboration on such topics as this is not to argue with you but to help explain what Christians actually believe. The hope that eternal life brings is not simply a “pie-in-the-sky” reward beyond the grave, but a participation in such a life right now among those who are in a state of grace. Believers want to survive death, but more than this, they yearn for the following: perfect happiness, reunion with loved ones in the communion of the saints, healing and liberation from sickness and death, and the beatific vision (full union and entry into the divine mystery). More than just a survival mechanism, there is an existential openness to the transcendental. Why some seem defective in this regard, I cannot explain. It is as if for some the walls between this world and the next are somehow thicker. I know in my ministry I have witnessed things that even challenged my credulity.
BLOG: You think so? …
G ATHEIST: You broke my paragraph at this point, disassociating the pieces that are actually about eachother, as it were. (To be clear: I’m not making an accusation, I’m making it clear to other readers that the structure is different from what was written.) What others did/do to you isn’t particularly relevant to the point I was making. (This paragraph is also broken into third piece, after Joe’s next reply.)
FATHER JOE: Yes and this response to the response has been adapted as well.
BLOG: Myers told people to steal the host and to send them to him for desecration. If you do not understand how reprehensible that is for Catholics, then you too fail to have enough “imagination” to empathize with our deep pain.”
G ATHEIST: Yes, perhaps I would if it were true, but th reality is that I didn’t write about that AT ALL: you are, in effect, putting on me something I wasn’t referring to. I wrote about the “extrapolations” that YOU wrote in the article, not about Myers or the original incidents. You also seem to miss that I wrote “I don’t agree with all of what was done, but my recollection is distinctly of him asking people not to be silly”, too. I trust you are aware that the bit reading “If you do not understand … pain” can read as a poor attempt to “paint me black”. A number of your replies come horribly close to putting words in my mouth or framing me in various ways. It’d be kinder if you’d stuck to replying to what I actually wrote.
FATHER JOE: The so-called “extrapolations” are in my judgment quite logical interpretations of the events and where they might lead and have, indeed, led. You should not believe in any of that which was done by Myers. The whole business from beginning to end is reprehensible. If you fail to understand our pain, and in any way rationalize for Myers, then yes, you should wear a black hat and share in the guilt. There is no middle-ground about Eucharistic desecration. This ranks as a high crime in Catholicism. Desecration of the Eucharist, in my mind, ranks Myers with the murders of children, serial killers, and others who commit heinous acts. Given that the topic is the Eucharist, we would not return violence against the sacrament with violence. But, there should be some form of retribution or punishment. The student Cook who stole a host was removed by his fellow students from the school senate. They had the presence of mind and courage to do what the middle-aged university staff failed to do. Students should boycott Myers classes and alumni should keep back school support until he receives censure and removal. This is the gravity of the post, no matter what those making comments say.
BLOG: I just came back … I no longer think so.
G ATHEIST: …none of this seems to be relevant to what I wrote (nor addresses it). My point was the approach you took is the same as a common politicians’ ploy: take a incident, extrapolate it to all the horrible things that might, just, possibly occur that can be made out to be related in some way (not necessarily honestly), then foist the lot on the opponent. But… leave out that they aren’t doing that, and in fact asked others not to, nor is it likely to happen, nor that if it did happen, it’d be a consequence of a broader issue. Its a common enough ploy, but essentially a “beat up”. My point had essentially nothing to do with Myers or the incidents themselves, but to the approach taken in your article.
FATHER JOE: We must always think about where the dominoes might fall. That is one of my fears about blogging. I make myself a target for those who hate the Church and that for which she stands. Unlike almost all those who leave comments, my identity is not secret. I have no clandestine label behind which I can hide. Similarly, Myers must also anticipate what the reactions might be for his words and actions. I really believe this matter could balloon into other heinous acts and I have evidence that such is the case. However, churches are afraid to advertise such atrocious acts for fear of escalation.
BLOG: But please, spare me any apologetics for Myers.
G ATHEIST: …please take this back. I’ve explained why above. I’m not an apologist for anyone and as you should guess I don’t like being framed. The kindest thing I can say of you writing that is that you’re entirely missing what I wrote, perhaps because you’re so determined to make everything about Myers, etc. It certainly misconstrues what I wrote. Whatever my views on Myers’ actions are, they not relevant: I was writing about your article.
FATHER JOE: Sorry, there is no middle ground. Decent people would utterly spurn his acts as those of a juvenile and out of control bigot. I had thought better of atheists, for those I knew many years ago were noble philosophers and scientists. They were content to use words and ideas. I was hoping that men and women of their likes today would have joined their voices to the chorus asking for sanctions against Myers. The lack of reaction and/or the mocking of Christian sensibilities really surprised me. My fight here is not with your atheism as such, but with this terrible turn toward stunts of terrorism against people of faith.
BLOG: I believe that without an understanding of the true history …
G ATHEIST: … to the end of my words were originally a series of smaller paragraphs. Merged as one paragraph and with the HTML removed, I feel that some of the original emphasis and focus has been lost.
FATHER JOE: I told you before that I do not play entirely fair. Your remarks are intact and that will have to be enough.
BLOG: Do you think Catholic priests only know about religion? … We are not fools.
G ATHEIST: I did not imply or say any such thing, so please don’t misconstrue me, thank you. I was asking “But how many people here know the history of it? Not what it [is] now ascribed to it, but how the practice really arose and the reason it came about, etc.?” to your readers, not to you personally. (That’s probably not clear enough, but I did use the plural). I think its a fair question. Many people aren’t familiar with the actual history of their “thing” and without that they’re missing a deeper, and often more realistic, understanding. I can’t really take take your version of the history of the use of the wafers–not to “dismiss” you or whatever, but simply because its best to use sources without vested interests ;-) Also, my understanding is that history usually works by comparing independent sources of information: the “gospels” can’t be independent sources in this context (or the argument would become self-referential).
FATHER JOE: Given the scarcity of materials, a refusal to use the Gospels forces discussions to either terminate or to turn to heretical Gnostic documents. Historical literature and sources knew nothing of the objectivity you prefer. Indeed, even today, it is amazing how one-sided so-called independent and/or objective efforts really are. The Eucharist belonged to the Church and was often misunderstood by others. It is mentioned throughout the fathers of the Church in the earliest centuries. However, pagan Romans could not figure out what the Christians might be doing. Some speculated about ritual cannibalism or the eating of babies. Sensationalism often got the facts wrong. Only the most hard-headed critics would deny that the Eucharist did not come to us from Christ and his apostles. However, the atheist would acknowledge the antiquity of the ritual while denying the real presence. Similarly, many modern exegetes suffer from an element of atheism, delineating between the Christ of faith (elaborated upon by believers) and the human Jesus (who could neither perform miracles nor even rise from the dead). Such a pathetic stance makes the Christ of the kerygma into a fiction or fantasy. There are no two sons in my faith. My faith says that Jesus is both God and man. My faith tells me that he could perform miracles, forgive sins and give us his body and blood as food and drink.
BLOG: “You do not appreciate how devastating this is.
G ATHEIST: And now its become a “definitive” statement! Good grief. Nowhere in my post do I write directly about this, nor stated my views on this, and quite intentionally. If I want to put my views on this, I can do it for myself, please. You have no right to put these words in my mouth. I’d have appreciated you replying to what I wrote, and just what I wrote, certainly without the “framing”. Its hard for me to try be polite to you if attribute to me words or whatever that aren’t mine.
FATHER JOE: Your post treats the issue lightly, as if it is no big deal. What I am trying to drum into your head and other atheists is that for faithful Catholics, this is as big a deal as they come. When I talk about a lack of imagination it has to do with empathy. Have there been any organizations of atheists who have taken it upon themselves to apologize for this errant action of one of their own? No, they start of by saying things like, “I do not entirely agree with him” while others endorse him whole-heartedly. I am still waiting for the right words to come out of some atheist’s mouth.
BLOG: No, I will not be dictated to as to how this blog operates.
G ATHEIST: I wasn’t trying to dictate your forum in my last post! I just wanted one post where it’d come out as I wrote it, so I was saying wouldn’t get mangled. Breaking up text can subtly alter meanings to those who haven’t seen the original. Thanks for doing it, btw ;-)
The “immorality” I was referring to wasn’t to your having the final word in itself. I’m sure I wrote that was what bothered me was that your replies were misrepresenting my position, intentionally or not, by crediting me with words or positions that I hadn’t written or taken. With nothing about “the last word”. It may simply be a consequence of your trying too hard to place me on one “side” or other (rather than on neither), in which case ‘immorality’ is over-stating the point (but the sense of offence remains-!!)
FATHER JOE: You criticized how I insert responses. You criticized my analysis of atheism. You criticized my using my faith as a starting point, etc., etc., etc. Any agreement at all with Myers in regard to the Eucharistic desecration is immoral. If you utterly denounce the act and recommend censure I will retract this estimation.
G ATHEIST: I appreciate that you at least post the things! I’ve written to other forums where they have simply “censored” my posts despite making every effort to be polite, etc. I’m not in the habit of issuing threats. I am ticklish about others subsequently casting my words outside of the meaning I was making, even if occasionally its done innocently. I strongly prefer for my words to speak for themselves. People can always ask for more or for clarifications, after all, but asserting assumed meanings on others’ words is dodgy, as its likely you’ll make them say things they didn’t as it were. (That’s one reason why your “having the last word” is risky: you’re leaving yourself open to ending a “conversation” by recasting someone’s words outside their meaning because its the meaning you’d like to see in it.) I try to avoid it myself, although I’m sure I occasionally goof.
FATHER JOE: My having the last word on the Blog is not negotiable. No priest could otherwise operate a Blog. I would not want the weak in faith moved by falsehood. This Blog is ultimately my personal self-expression. I allow others to briefly interact, but that is all.
BLOG: Some of your colleagues…
G ATHEIST: Just because I have read Myer’s blog doesn’t (necessarily) make them “my colleagues”, certainly not in the cosy meaning that usually implies. I’m open to reading things I don’t always agree with, or agree with only with part of. Its not a black or white thing. The people that post there differ in their views quite a bit too.
FATHER JOE: I will never post on Myers’ blog. I would treat him on his home ground as Jesus did to Herod… silence. I would feel corrupted or infected to have anything to do with it.
BLOG: I am not interested in a full-blown debate or argument to prove God to atheists.
G ATHEIST: I wasn’t either, but you initiated dialogue in that direction ;-) Its why my replies to these were fairly brief. Briefer than they might be, anyway.
FATHER JOE: Mine were also brief. My mention was in passing given Myers’ stance and the assault upon my Blog by boat loads of atheists. I traced them back to Myers’ blog where a now banned person placed a link. He lamented my treatment of him and despaired of his inadequacy to put up a coherent defense. He put out a call for help. All his buddies could do were utter threats and four-lettered words.
BLOG: That is why posts and comments are moderated to insure that little or nothing is said counter to Catholic beliefs.
G ATHEIST: You will be aware, of course, that this can be read as having other meanings than the one you give. I’ll take the given reason with a pinch of the proverbial salt myself ;-)
You say you’re busy: I’m very busy myself. I jam these posts into odd corners of time, as breaks from work.
FATHER JOE: I am not sure what you mean. The Church used to have an INDEX of banned books. My control of this Blog is in that sense, to avoid material that might poison minds.
Goodness, this response took awhile. Look how long it is! There is one other poor person in moderation with a book for me to read. I will get to that one next week. Peace!
GENTLE ATHEIST: I’d appreciate this being posted in full, as it stands, please, with no modifications, including “replies” inserted in the body of my post if you don’t mind. That is, I’d like my words to stand as delivered, please. (You’re most welcome to add your reply after all of my words or in another post.)
re post 83:
I guess, at least you’re open about being unscruplous. I’ve always thought one of the key points of being a Christian was to have decent moral standards and sense of fairness to others. (You don’t need a religion to do this: morals don’t require theism.) The impression I come away with is that you have difficulty with letting others’ speak for themselves if their views don’t fit your agenda.
Your latest reply (post 83) removed/omitted large sections of my post, the majority of it in fact. In particular, while you left in “With that in mind, I feel compelled to clarify (below)”, you omitted all of my clarifications. I would like to think that you intend posting these later: I presume that’s why you left in that portion. But seeing you grant yourself the right to reply in part “in advance”, allow me to, too ;-)
Many of your “corrective” words (as you put it in your latest post), intentionally or not, placed words/actions/etc. in my mouth that were not mine. As such, whether intended or not, the effect was not corrective, nor seeing “the connections and application”, but to re-frame my position. I wrote mainly to correct these, as I don’t particularly like others speaking for me. I wanted to make clear to your readers what MY words are, as opposed to your, in my eyes heavy-handed, “re-interpretations” of them.
After I posted it occurred to me that part of the trouble you had with my post was that were essentially making posters either “on Myer’s side” or “on your side”. You might want to consider that some people think BOTH of you are wrong (not necessarily in the same ways). You might also want to consider that some people see you as “bleating”: creating and extending the “victimisation” of your own lot, so that you can cry victim. (An essentially political, rather than moral, act.) You might also want to credit others’ with seeing in shades of grey (or colors!), not black or white, so to speak.
This would explain, to me, why your replies were frequently about Myers, the original incidents and a number of other aspects, when my post was about your article in, and of, itself.
FATHER JOE: No, I will not be dictated to as to how this blog operates. My rules here, and I am somewhat whimsical. You seem like a nice person, but that is how it is. Not fair, well, in life and ministry, YES… but on my blog, fair or not, it is my choice. One thing I will promise you… I will never urge roving bands of disgrutled Christians to desecrate the calculators of atheists or their autographed pictures of Carl Sagan. As for the tardiness in moderation of comments, remember I am a working priest… offering Mass, making reparation for blasphemy and consecrating hosts to replace those desecrated by radical atheists. I am not about to tell a person dying in the hospital to wait up because I have yet to respond to your comments. I anointed the poor man and gave him absolution! I will not post your comments without correctives. I always get the last word on my blog. People can say what they want and slander me all they want on their own sites, but not here! No, I am not saying you ever slandered me… but you should see the other posts lately!
I see nothing immoral about having the final word and teaching what one wants to teach on his or her blog. I could have deleted your words entirely, like one of the other atheists did to me who has commented here on his blog. But hey, it was his blog… he is within his rights.
I am still “meditating” over those large sections of post currently omitted. I did not have time to make an adequate response. They will be posted, but not as stand alone. If you do not like that then stop posting comments. Since some creep posted my link (for the second time) at Myers’ blog, I have been bombarded by hits and comments from atheists. Some of your colleagues have a peculiar and very colorful vocabulary, no doubt they would make a sailor blush! I do delete threats entirely, and you are NOT in that category, thank God!
The issue is bigger than you or me. But part of the trouble is that you may not see the same ripples that I do regarding these recent events. Nothing was said to be mean-spirited. I have no personal animus against you.
The trouble is that anyone who makes apologies of any sort for Eucharistic desecration is not on my side. You might never do such acts, personally, but I cannot stomach any qualification that would lend this creature Myers credit for his monstrous deed. As for atheism, obviously I am negative to such a hermeneutic of privation. It is not a way of seeing reality that I share. However, I would not go out of my way to hurt or belittle atheists with crass acts any more than I would actively ridicule those of religions I regard as false or in error. I will say what I think about their ideas; I will always try to be cordial to persons… with the addendum that such respect is returned. No one should do violence or use vulgar words for Myers; however, he should be punished.
The reason for this post is Myers. I have almost never addressed myself to atheists. This is why the gravity of these few remarks is still upon what he did. I am not interested in a full-blown debate or argument to prove God to atheists. Faith is reasoned but it is also a gift. Debates only seem to result in greater embitterment between the parties. This blog is open to all but it targets the Catholic community. That is why posts and comments are moderated to insure that little or nothing is said counter to Catholic beliefs.
Jay Hovah
You were probably one of them. Now put on your nice suit and go knock on some doors with your magazines.
FATHE JOE: “It is hard to dialogue with someone who has driven a nail into that which we prize more highly than our own lives. Would you sit down and talk calmly with someone who kidnapped one of your children or who just burned your house down? That is the emotional impact of the act. If we are right about what the host is, then we have every right to be this upset.”
HH: But you aren’t correct about what the host is, and so you do not have the right to be this upset. That’s PZ’s point.
FATHER JOE: No, the point is that Myers wants to mock and belittle the faith of good people. He and you are both snobs for thinking you are so right that you will not give others the freedom to be wrong. And from my perspective, I am certain that we are right, that the Blessed Sacrament is the real presence of Jesus Christ, Son of God. Again, we are not talking about a simple discussion. The both of you claim that Catholics have no right to believe what they do. You are his apologist for an uncivilised and juvenile act that hurts millions of good people.
HH: For you to compare the theft of a wafer with the kidnapping of an actual flesh and blood child is simply mind boggling. The two aren’t remotely in the same category.
FATHER JOE: How dare you try to limit the measure of the human heart! We as Catholics love our Eucharistic Lord. We feel that we have a relationship with Jesus through his Blessed Sacrament. For some of us, this is the most important relationship we have. Okay, you don’t believe or feel it. But a little imagination and empathy would surely help. But you and Myers are the type of atheists who do not care about what others feel. You think you know best for all of us. Despite the many gaps and unanswered questions of atheism, you think you know it all and callously brush aside all the answers that come from religion, an area outside your discipline.
HH: Your beliefs have utterly corrupted your mind. Absorbed in your rituals, deeply and personally invested in a grand fantasy, you have lost all touch with reality. Your faith is not a gift, it is a sickness. A delusion. A kind of mental illness. When you place dogma above actual human life, you can no longer claim the moral high ground. PZ isn’t a bigot, he’s just willing to stand up to zealots who are all too eager to shed blood over crackers or cartoons.
FATHER JOE: Such was the view of Marx and Engels. However, I would contend that a radical and now a militant atheism has corrupted your mind and sense of fair play. Great and good and wise men and women have believed the Eucharistic mystery throughout the centuries. I would rather be counted in their ranks than with you and Myers. If you are right and I am wrong, then we will both one day end as worm food and I will be none the worse for my beliefs. If I am right and you are wrong, then my beliefs may bring me to the joy of paradise while you will suffer the dispair and fire of hell. Sorry, but you seem to get a raw deal either way.
FATHER JOE: Myers is not interested in debating Catholics. He has already made his mind up.
HH: That’s right, there is no debate here.
FATHER JOE: I am sure I am right too. The difference between us is that I woudl not deliberately steal or desecrate something sacred or important to you. I would also give you the liberty to not believe and to criticize. However, you go too far by both espousing desecration and a totalitarian or dictatorship attitude toward believers. You are literally saying that I have no right to believe in the Eucharistic presence and that you have a right to mock and persecute me and other Christians, with efforts like stealing and committing sacrilege with the host. That is wrong.
HH: As time passes, so your religion will fade into the dustbin of history. Your god no more real than the gods of the ancient Greeks, your most holy texts regarded as no more than outdated fables. Humanity will eventually shake off the last remnants of unnecessary superstition. People will look back on men like you and shake their heads and wonder how anyone could have let themselves become so lost.
FATHER JOE: Unless Jesus consummates everything pretty soon, I suspect the faith will still be here long after you and I have returned to the dust. The papacy is the world’s oldest institution and the latest World Youth Day shows a young and vibrant faith is coming our way. There may be martyrs of course, that is if people like you get tehir way.
FATHER JOE: I am harsh, and in your eyes probably the ultimate fool. I have given up everything a normal man wants in life… no sex… no wife… no children… no freedom of movement… and for what? …for what you guys call that crazy little cracker.”
HH: Yes, a wasted life is always sad. I hate to see it, even in one so deluded as yourself. I know, psychologically, that the pain of admitting to yourself that you have wasted your life on lie pretty much means that you’ll defend your delusion to the death rather than give it up (you’ve said as much). I can still hope that you wake up one day. Others in your position have done it. It isn’t impossible. Even Mother Teresa came close to admitting it was all a lie. It’s never easy to face a hard truth, but I hope you find the strength one day. You have much to atone for.
FATHER JOE: Mother Teresa suffered a dark night that almost all great Christians experience. But I have something you cannot know. I have a deep and abiding faith in Jesus Christ. I talk to him and he talks to me. I have witnessed supernatural events and miracles. I have witnessed the demonic and I have experienced the power of Christ’s love. And now my poor Hell Hound, I will banish you back to the pit. Did I exorcise you before? Sometimes the worst demons sneak back, often hiding behind those unknowingly oppressed by them.
Begone, Satan, inventor and master of all deceit, enemy of man’s salvation.
Give place to Christ in Whom you have found none of your works; give place to the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church acquired by Christ at the price of His Blood.
Stoop beneath the all-powerful Hand of God; tremble and flee when we invoke the Holy and terrible Name of Jesus, this Name which causes hell to tremble, this Name to which the Virtues, Powers and Dominations of heaven are humbly submissive, this Name which the Cherubim and Seraphim praise unceasingly repeating: Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord, the God of Hosts.
An update on Cook and his seat on the student senate:
http://vivechristusrex2000.blogspot.com/2008/08/webster-cook-kicked-off-ucf-senate.html
噢，親愛。 现在您歌頌您的伏都教在我？ 设法驅逐邪魔？ 呀，我們之间的通信就是不是可能的。 我在2008年居住，并且您仍然是某處在中世纪。 并且再事不要說一样愚笨象「进一步，作為我也要求科學的天主教徒」。 您是魔術的一個人和迷信，不是科學。
Father, could you check and see if one of the robots can read Chinese?
@89: My guess is that HH’s intended implication is that you have to live in 2008 to use a robot called “Google” to translate it… ;-)
You’d have to ask HH to really know, of course. (I’ve no wish to place a reason for HH’s actions on HH: HH can speak for themselves I’m sure.)
Google can. It says: [translation deleted]
FATHER JOE: Sorry, no translations allowed. Remember, our friend is no longer with us. Messages from the other side (of the world) must be left in Oriental script. But it is nice to know he had friends who will miss him.
Great news CG, it looks like college kids have better sense than university officials!
Webster Cook, the UCF student who took the Eucharist hostage and changed his stated motive from a political protest to just showing the Eucharist to a friend when the outrage ensued, was voted off the UCF Senate last night.
HH is not my friend and he does not speak for me. I don’t disagree with everything he says, though some I do, particularly with how he arrogantly proclaims to know the motivations of those he disagrees with, it reminds me of something (I just can’t quite put my finger on it…). At any rate, I think HH chooses a poor way to express himself.
Dan asked for a translation – I provided one, simple as that.
I hope you don’t imagine my intent is to annoy hardworking clergy?
My dear Khristian friends,
The wonderful and wacky Dr. Myers must truly be delighted that he still has disciples doing his bidding in stealing hosts from Catholic Masses.
The story was reported this week that six or seven parishioners of St. Martin de Porres Church in Jensen Beach, Florida, piled upon this poor guy who was kidnapping their G-d. He swiped around 25 wafers and they pried to stale bread from his hands! I guess he was really hungry for Jeezus!
They restrained him until the police deputies arrived. Instead of charging them with assault, the police arrested him! We read: “Police in Florida said they arrested a Connecticut man after he tried to steal communion wafers during a church service. The Martin County Sheriff’s Office said a 33-year-old man was cornered by fellow churchgoers when he grabbed a handful of wafers from the priest during communion services Saturday” (The Associated Press, Nov. 11, 2008).
They charged him with (2) counts of simple battery, theft and the disruption of a religious assembly. He was being held at the Martin County Jail on $2,000 bond. A couple of the old church thugs, ages 82 and 61 years of age, suffered slight injuries. But none of them were charged.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27667151/?GT1=43001
http://www.stmartindp.com/
Stories about Catholics are the most amusing in the whole world!
THE BIG DEE
I’m pursuing some questions regarding this act of desecration with a Catholic lawyer and legislator. I see several problems in the free speech argument.
Treating only the physical realities of the Eucharist and the assembly, and viewing the situation within current legislation, it seems that:
1. The host, while in possession of the church/priest celebrating, is private property. An individual could not run into the church, steal the hosts from the altar and leave and say he was exercising free speech. He could be prosecuted for theft.
2. The transfer of the host from the owner to a third party (the communicant) may be an implied contract. That is, ownership/control is only transferred on condition of immediate consumption within the premises.
3. An intruder who enters a lawful, private assembly (such as mass) with the intention of fraudulently acquiring private property and carries out this intention might be liable to some sort of prosecution.
Great idea! Sue a communicant for breach of contract for failing to consume the host!
What will your prayer for relief be?