A Lengthy Battle Against SavagesThis is an odd saga, to say the least.
It begins with an apparently faithful Catholic student by the name of Webster Cook, attending school at the University of Central Florida. Webster, it seems, wanted to show a (presumably) Non-Catholic friend a communion wafer, so he took it home to show a friend rather than eating it immediately.
The story seems a bit odd, as he was apparently caught trying to take it out of the service and was confronted (he complains about physical force being used against him). A local tv station (in an admittedly inflammatory and biased article) suggests that he may have been protesting the fact that (and I thought this was odd) his PUBLIC UNIVERSITY has a CATHOLIC CHURCH on campus -- and uses public funds to support it.
Because, as we all know, the Vatican is completely destitute.
At any rate, he managed to leave with the communion wafer/cracker though, and that, to my mind, would be that. If the church doesn't want him back, they always had the option of banning him. Big deal.
Well, to the good, faithful, and apparently radical Catholics of both the University and the United States, that most certainly was *not* that.
The Church decided to get in on the act, inflaming their local followers (knowing perfectly well the inevitable results):
And thus, wrath was rained down upon this poor schmuck, with the full blessing of the local religious establishment.
They accused him of committing a 'hate crime'. They harassed him. They compared taking the cracker to torture, and kidnapping!They threatened his life... repeatedly. The ultra-right wing Catholic League hate group led a national campaign against this poor student. Here's Donohue trying to ruin the kid's life:
All because he didn't chew... a wafer.
Well, after a few days of terror and threats, the poor, humbled student returned his cracker, and begged for his life/forgiveness.
Huh.
The oh-so-forgiving christian community continued with plans to ruin his life, but put the 'killing him' thing on the backburner, and the story started to die down. The University, for its part, started supplying ARMED GUARDS (presumably also at taxpayer expense) to the Church, to protect the poor, victimized wafer community.
Enter PZ Myers, well-known atheist/science blogger, who was shocked and disgusted at the raving mob trying to destroy, and possibly murder, this poor student. Whether a noisy protestor or apparently ignorant lapsed Catholic, his education, career, even life were now in the hands of the lunatic fringe. Myers thought this was outrageous.
So he came up with a simple plan:
Needless to say, all hell broke loose. Again.
Well, apparently Myers finally got his hands on a wafer/cracker, and did, in fact, carry out his 'threat' against an inanimate object. Despite stalkings, death threats against himself and his family, and, yes, another hate campaign from the Catholic League:
Will this be the end of the saga?
Doubt it. Myers implores his readers, and the world, to exercise a bit of their own independent judgment and reason:
When I first read about this mess, back when Myers made his original 'threat', I thought it might be a bit over the top. Not all Catholics are jerks, I thought; I wouldn't take quite the same tack.
Though, if you could get a hold of a communion wafer from that SPECIFIC Church, the one that tried to rouse a violent mob to terrify someone into obeying them (or failing that, have the person killed).... well, that would be a very different story.
That particular church had it coming, I thought.
Having seen the sheer volume of hate, venom, and terror that people like Bill Donohue spew at Myers, the threats against his family, the attempts to run him out of public life on a rail because he protests the victimization of a college student, at a public university, by the most powerful church in the world...
Well, it's hard not to root for Myers after all. If it comes down to defending a loudmouth or a violent, disgusting thug like Donohue, I'll side with the loudmouth anytime, anywhere.
PS: One last note: the student who started this whole mess? He's still going through a living hell.
That'll teach him to mistake a public university for an institution of higher learning and intellectual freedom.
It begins with an apparently faithful Catholic student by the name of Webster Cook, attending school at the University of Central Florida. Webster, it seems, wanted to show a (presumably) Non-Catholic friend a communion wafer, so he took it home to show a friend rather than eating it immediately.
Cook claims he planned to consume it, but first wanted to show it to a fellow student senator he brought to Mass who was curious about the Catholic faith.Source: WFTV.com
"When I received the Eucharist, my intention was to bring it back to my seat to show him," Cook said. "I took about three steps from the woman distributing the Eucharist and someone grabbed the inside of my elbow and blocked the path in front of me. At that point I put it in my mouth so they'd leave me alone and I went back to my seat and I removed it from my mouth."
The story seems a bit odd, as he was apparently caught trying to take it out of the service and was confronted (he complains about physical force being used against him). A local tv station (in an admittedly inflammatory and biased article) suggests that he may have been protesting the fact that (and I thought this was odd) his PUBLIC UNIVERSITY has a CATHOLIC CHURCH on campus -- and uses public funds to support it.
A church leader was watching, confronted Cook and tried to recover the sacred bread. Cook said she crossed the line and that's why he brought it home with him.Source: WTFV
"She came up behind me, grabbed my wrist with her right hand, with her left hand grabbed my fingers and was trying to pry them open to get the Eucharist out of my hand," Cook said, adding she wouldn't immediately take her hands off him despite several requests.
Diocese of Orlando spokeswoman Carol Brinati said she was not aware of anyone touching Cook. She released a statement Thursday: "... a Catholic Campus Ministry student representative filed a complaint with the Student Union regarding the behavior of the two young men. A Student Government Representative called Catholic Campus Ministry to apologize for this disruption."
Cook filed an official abuse complaint with UCF's student conduct court regarding the alleged physical force. Following that complaint, Brinati said church members filed their own official complaints of disruptive conduct. Punishment for either offense could result in suspension or expulsion.
"The church feels that I'm the problem here," Cook said. "The problem is actually that this is a publicly-funded religious institution. Through student government here, we fund them through an activity and service, so they're receiving student money."
Cook is upset more than $40,000 in student fees have been allocated to support religious organizations on campus for the 2008-2009 school year, according to student government records. He denied he is holding the Eucharist hostage to protest that support.
Because, as we all know, the Vatican is completely destitute.
At any rate, he managed to leave with the communion wafer/cracker though, and that, to my mind, would be that. If the church doesn't want him back, they always had the option of banning him. Big deal.
Well, to the good, faithful, and apparently radical Catholics of both the University and the United States, that most certainly was *not* that.
The Church decided to get in on the act, inflaming their local followers (knowing perfectly well the inevitable results):
Regardless of the reason, the Diocese says its main concern is to get the Eucharist back so it can be taken care of properly and with respect. Cook has been keeping the Eucharist stored in a plastic bag since last Sunday.Source: WFTV
"It is hurtful," said Father Migeul Gonzalez with the Diocese. "Imagine if they kidnapped somebody and you make a plea for that individual to please return that loved one to the family."
Gonzalez said the Diocese is willing to meet with Cook and help him understand the importance of the Eucharist in hopes of him returning it. The Diocese is dispatching a nun to UCF's campus to oversee the next mass, protect the Eucharist and in hopes Cook will return it.
Cook said he'd consider returning the Eucharist if he gets an apology and a meeting with the Bishop's office to discuss the Diocese's policy on physical force.
Gonzalez said intentionally abusing the Eucharist is classified as a mortal sin in the Catholic church, the most severe possible. If it's not returned, the community of faith will have to ask for forgiveness.
"We have to make acts of reparation," Gonzalez said. "The whole community is going to turn to prayer. We'll ask the Lord for pardon, forgiveness, peace, not only for the whole community affected by it, but also for [Cook], we offer prayers for him as well."
And thus, wrath was rained down upon this poor schmuck, with the full blessing of the local religious establishment.
They accused him of committing a 'hate crime'. They harassed him. They compared taking the cracker to torture, and kidnapping!They threatened his life... repeatedly. The ultra-right wing Catholic League hate group led a national campaign against this poor student. Here's Donohue trying to ruin the kid's life:
For a student to disrupt Mass by taking the Body of Christ hostage--regardless of the alleged nature of his grievance--is beyond hate speech. That is why the UCF administration needs to act swiftly and decisively in seeing that justice is done. All options should be on the table, including expulsion.That's right, if you disagree with someone, forget reason, forget discussion, forget the law: just terrorize them.
Webster just wants all of this to go away. Especially now that he feels his life is in danger.Source: Pharyngula
All because he didn't chew... a wafer.
Well, after a few days of terror and threats, the poor, humbled student returned his cracker, and begged for his life/forgiveness.
"I am returning the Eucharist to you in response to the e-mails I have received from Catholics in the UCF community," Cook wrote in a letter to the church. "I still want the community to understand that the use physical force is wrong, especially when based on assumptions. However, I feel it is unnecessary to cause pain for those who are not at fault in this situation."Source: WFTV They didn't 'condone' those threats - but they sure didn't put a stop to them either.
Cook said some threatened to break into his dorm room to rescue the Eucharist. Brinati said the Diocese of Orlando didn't condone those threats, but was happy Cook had a change of heart and returned it.
Huh.
The oh-so-forgiving christian community continued with plans to ruin his life, but put the 'killing him' thing on the backburner, and the story started to die down. The University, for its part, started supplying ARMED GUARDS (presumably also at taxpayer expense) to the Church, to protect the poor, victimized wafer community.
Enter PZ Myers, well-known atheist/science blogger, who was shocked and disgusted at the raving mob trying to destroy, and possibly murder, this poor student. Whether a noisy protestor or apparently ignorant lapsed Catholic, his education, career, even life were now in the hands of the lunatic fringe. Myers thought this was outrageous.
So he came up with a simple plan:
So, what to do. I have an idea. Can anyone out there score me some consecrated communion wafers? There's no way I can personally get them — my local churches have stakes prepared for me, I'm sure — but if any of you would be willing to do what it takes to get me some, or even one, and mail it to me, I'll show you sacrilege, gladly, and with much fanfare. I won't be tempted to hold it hostage (no, not even if I have a choice between returning the Eucharist and watching Bill Donohue kick the pope in the balls, which would apparently be a more humane act than desecrating a goddamned cracker), but will instead treat it with profound disrespect and heinous cracker abuse, all photographed and presented here on the web. I shall do so joyfully and with laughter in my heart.Source: Pharyngula Yes, Myers determined that he would do to the wafer what this poor student never had: he would obtain one, maliciously, and desecrate it.
Needless to say, all hell broke loose. Again.
All of the regular readers have seen it — thousands of mindless comments by Catholics, demanding that no harm come to a cracker. My email is melting down with swarms of insults, threats, pleas, and promises of prayers because I threatened to violate one of their holy crackers. In my years of loud and often inflammatory blogging, it is the most impressive demonstration of mass lunacy I have ever seen.
Never mind that the Catholic League demands that I be fired, thousands of Catholics write to me demanding I be kicked out of the university immediately, and that they send me death threats, both the explicit kind and the vaguely menacing kind. Let's not forget Webster Cook, who started this all by simply walking back to his seat with a cracker, and now faces censure and possible expulsion from his university. Oh, those Catholics sure are forbearing and tolerant.Source: Pharyngula
And since I mentioned yesterday that I was taking my oldest son to the movies, these good Catholics have leapt to the opportunity. Since I'm not demonstrating any fear over their threats against me, well hey, let's try a new target! KJ Atkins of Bellarmine University thinks cowardly warnings against my family might be effective.
"You fool, the vengeance for your sacrilege will not be . exhausted against you, but it will be carried out on your child. Wait and see."
Well, apparently Myers finally got his hands on a wafer/cracker, and did, in fact, carry out his 'threat' against an inanimate object. Despite stalkings, death threats against himself and his family, and, yes, another hate campaign from the Catholic League:
OK, time for the anticlimax. I know some of you have proposed intricate plans for how to do horrible things to these crackers, but I repeat…it's just a cracker. I wasn't going to make any major investment of time, money, or effort in treating these dabs of unpleasantness as they deserve, because all they deserve is casual disposal. However, inspired by an old woodcut of Jews stabbing the host, I thought of a simple, quick thing to do: I pierced it with a rusty nail (I hope Jesus's tetanus shots are up to date). And then I simply threw it in the trash, followed by the classic, decorative items of trash cans everywhere, old coffeegrounds and a banana peel. My apologies to those who hoped for more, but the worst I can do is show my unconcerned contempt.Source: Pharyngula
Will this be the end of the saga?
Doubt it. Myers implores his readers, and the world, to exercise a bit of their own independent judgment and reason:
By the way, I didn't want to single out just the cracker, so I nailed it to a few ripped-out pages from the Qur'an and The God Delusion. They are just paper. Nothing must be held sacred. Question everything. God is not great, Jesus is not your lord, you are not disciples of any charismatic prophet. You are all human beings who must make your way through your life by thinking and learning, and you have the job of advancing humanity's knowledge by winnowing out the errors of past generations and finding deeper understanding of reality. You will not find wisdom in rituals and sacraments and dogma, which build only self-satisfied ignorance, but you can find truth by looking at your world with fresh eyes and a questioning mind.Source: Ibid
When I first read about this mess, back when Myers made his original 'threat', I thought it might be a bit over the top. Not all Catholics are jerks, I thought; I wouldn't take quite the same tack.
Though, if you could get a hold of a communion wafer from that SPECIFIC Church, the one that tried to rouse a violent mob to terrify someone into obeying them (or failing that, have the person killed).... well, that would be a very different story.
That particular church had it coming, I thought.
Having seen the sheer volume of hate, venom, and terror that people like Bill Donohue spew at Myers, the threats against his family, the attempts to run him out of public life on a rail because he protests the victimization of a college student, at a public university, by the most powerful church in the world...
Well, it's hard not to root for Myers after all. If it comes down to defending a loudmouth or a violent, disgusting thug like Donohue, I'll side with the loudmouth anytime, anywhere.
PS: One last note: the student who started this whole mess? He's still going through a living hell.
The University of Central Florida's student Senate voted to impeach one of its own late Thursday night -- the student who sparked a firestorm of controvery after taking off from a Catholic Mass on campus with a sacred Communion wafer in his pocket.Source: Orlando Sentinel.com Blog
All but two of the 35 senators present voted to impeach Webster Cook, but the action did not result in his automatic removal from office.
...
Although the Senate could kick Cook off the student government's legislative body, it does not have the authority to suspend or expel Cook from the university. That could happen only if he's found to have violated serious conduct code violations in student court. UCF is barred by federal law from confirming whether any complaints have been filed against Cook. But the statements included in the affidavit refer to a formal complaint against Cook by the campus ministry for disrupting the service.
That'll teach him to mistake a public university for an institution of higher learning and intellectual freedom.
1 comment:
I honestly feel kind of cheated. In all my years of attending public universities, why, why did I not think of declaring that something was sacred according to my sky-god, waiting for someone to act toward the sacred object in a way that my sky-god did not approve of, and then subjecting that person to a hell of death-threats, censure, and possible expulsion from said public universit(y|ies)?
I mean, it's okay for this one community of Catholics to do it, so why not me and whatever completely-undisprovable shit I can come up with?
Oh, right, right. Because their fantastical, supernatural, impossible-to-prove-or-disprove beliefs are truer than mine. According to, uh, those same beliefs. Man, that's convenient.
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