It’s happening in Minnesota again. The church is peddling nonsense, and people are believing it. Catholic congregants are finding corpses hidden inside the church. Oh, wait…not corpses. Crackers.
In recent weeks, parishioners at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church in Hastings have approached their pastor, Rev. Jim Perkl, “heartbroken and with tears in their eyes,” he says.
The cause of such sadness? The discovery of communion hosts found between the pages of about 30 hymnals in the pews. Catholics believe the communion wafer becomes the actual body of Jesus once it’s consecrated during mass.
Thank you, priestly abusers, for once again finding a way to wring pain out of your parishioners lives, all over little pieces of bread. This behavior is childish and ridiculous.
Although it’s unknown whether these wafers were consecrated, the incident has led Perkl and the Twin Cities Archdiocese to wonder: Is the church doing enough to emphasize the sacredness of the host?
The church is doing too much. It’s not sacred, it’s a CRACKER.
They have the power to talk to their god and know all his wishes and thoughts. And they have the power to have their god consecrate their wafer on demand but they have no ability to tell if said wafer is consecrated after the fact?
The undo reverence shown to crackers is the least of the problems with the Catholic Church. But it did make me laugh. :-)
No problems, eat the hymnals!
If you want to see the depths of the wackiness of Catholic doctrine regarding the hosts, go check out the local perpetual adoration chapel. There’s usually one in every parish. Basically, they put a wafer in a thing called a ciborium, and place it on an altar. Then, there is always supposed to be at least one person worshipping it at all hours of the day.
“Although it’s unknown whether these wafers were consecrated,”
If only there was a verifiable, reproducible, predictive, and falsifiable way to find out if they were consecrated.
There isn’t? You mean comparing them to unconsecrated crackers yields no differences whatsoever?
Then how do we know “consecrating” does anything to the cracker in the first place?
We don’t?
I think I smell a larger controversy than the cracker.
Matt @1
You’re asking a bit too much logic from people who think a cracker becomes the actual body of a 2000-years-dead guy who may not even have existed.
Religions have some pretty dumb shit in them, but this whole “transubstantiation” thing has to rank pretty close to the top of the dumb shit scale.
There must be something special going on – apparently it’s a piece of bread and a cracker. If it were a cookie too that’d be the sort of Trinity I’d be totally down with.
(also it strikes me as odd that they’re upset by people not eating the actual body of christ, I’d be far more upset about the whole cannibalism of the lord on a massive scale rather than preservation of his carb rich corpse in a book)
This recalls two things:
1. The hysteria from various Catholics over Crackergate.
2. That one passage in their scripture. You know, the one about the “mote in thy neighbour’s eye” and the “beam in your own”.
I thought it was a frackin’ cracker?
I just had a thought about holy™ water.
There are now such serious concerns about bacteria that some churches have bottles of hand-sanitizer beside the fonts.
Couldn’t the priest just cut out the middle and bless the hand-sanitizer?
So it’s just like that Far Side comic where the flower discovers the grisly fate of her boyfriend when she opens a book and finds him pressed inside.
They’re assuming the hosts were abandoned there. Maybe it’s a miracle! Maybe Jesus has returned, trapped in a cracker, and he’s trying to get their attention! “Help me, I’ve been turned into a cracker!”
OH NO, somebody been killing biscuits, the horror. I hope the Hastings police and the FBI have dropped everything else and are looking for the monster who committed such a heinous crime. I hope they don’t waste time investigating less serious offenses such as humans being murdered when the monster who killed a cookie is still out there. /sarcasm/ (Just in case anyone missed it)
I too would be saddened if the sacred wafers were crushed within the pages of the hymnals. So much lost potential. They should have crushed them within the pages of the Bibles. That’s double the blasphemy, just within their grasp. So easily attainable, yet not reached. It is truly a tragedy. /waterfalloftears
It’s been decades since I’ve been in a catholic church – do they just hand the host to you now, or are people going back to the pew and spitting them out of their mouths? I guess those thirty people expected the body of christ to taste better.
I like how they have a special sink that’s not connected to the secular sewer system. Where does it go? A consecrated septic tank?
OMG leaving what they foolishly believe is actually flesh just laying around? That’s murder! Instead of putting what they believe to be flesh in a book, I’m sure they think it’s better to eat it.
Wait, cannibalism is better?
wait, that sounds vaguely familiar…
Ugh, now they are going to start doing that gross thing again where they put the wafer directly on your tongue. THAT”S sanitary.
That has always been the creepiest thing in the world to me. I am NOT letting some dude I barely know place a cracker on my tongue.
Plus only slightly creepier are the people standing there with their tongues sticking out WAITING for the cracker. The whole scenario is just gross.
Now I’m having church flashbacks. Please, someone come have a thumb war with me and save me from the boredom!
FYI. The US RCC has lost 1/3 of its members. Half remain unaffiliated, half go Protestant, often Evangelical.
This is an astonishing result. According to the RCC’s own records, they gained 1% last year. Clearly they are trying to cover up their steep decline.
No, the Catholics have a sophisticated view of transubstantiation these days. Nowadays, they believe that, even though it looks like a cracker, feels like a cracker, tastes like a cracker, and has all the characteristics of a cracker at every physical level, it’s not a cracker in the only way that counts: in their minds. So really, they’re clutching pearls over the abuse of a metaphor.
These poor people are just asking for it. I hope for their sakes that the planking movement doesn’t decide to start a new meme of desecrating wafers. Or maybe someone should remake “Passion of the Christ” starring a consecrated wafer.
Especially considering the tendency of priests to do other, less than sanitary, activities with their hands.
@21,
But how do you drive nails through the wafer’s hands and feet, without cracking it into crumbs?
Cracker Woman, Cracker Woman, placing crackers in bibles wherever she can.
Cracker Man, Cracker Man, placing crackers in bibles wherever he can.
I see an uptick in cracker sales.
Even if, for the sake of argument, we concede that transubstantiation is real (and, no, I don’t actually believe that for a nanosecond), how exactly can an all powerful being be harmed by this? What exactly is the damage, and to whom?
This reminds me of the incident 2 years back when the Canadian Prime Minister stuck the host in his pocket at a state funeral:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SMp_KwmJMk&feature=player_embedded
White crackers in church? Perish the thought!
Oh, never mind. Different crackers.
“Although it’s unknown whether these wafers were consecrated,”
Duh… As if you could test that…
Sean Boyd
CGI?
Stunt Crackers?
Use an Oreo as a stand in?
Don’t you know anything about modern filmmaking?
Well, since Pete Rooke is not banned here at the new site, maybe he can explain to us why this is wrong with some analogies?
If I remember correctly some time ago there were some very long threads about the Catholic crackers.
“heartbroken and with tears in their eyes” because of some discarded crackers. This reminded me of something Richard Dawkins wrote about evolution lessons that make brainwashed children cry.
In October 2008 a group of about sixty American high-school teachers met at the Center for Science Education of Emory University, in Atlanta. Some of the horror stories they had to tell deserve wide attention. One teacher reported that students ‘burst into tears’ when told they would be studying evolution. Another teacher described how students repeatedly screamed ‘No!’ when he began talking about evolution in class. Another reported that pupils demanded to know why they had to learn about evolution, given that it was ‘only a theory’. Yet another teacher described how ‘churches train students to come to school with specific questions to ask to sabotage my lessons’.
— From page 434 of “The Greatest Show on Earth, The Evidence for Evolution” by Richard Dawkins
“Although it’s unknown whether these wafers were consecrated…”
That there should tell anyone with two brain cells to rub together that communion is a pile of crap. They’re admitting there’s no difference between a consecrated and an unconsecrated cracker.
Mike.
@29,
Of course! I didn’t even think of a stand-in. It’s the oldest trick in the book…God used Jesus as a stand-in at the “actual” crucifixion, after all.
If they’re crushed in the hymnals then how do they know they were host-crackers? Maybe they are just, like, extra oyster crackers that one of the altarboys didn’t feel like putting into the Holy Chowder one day.
Does it ever stop being the body and blood of christ? Does Monday become body surfing the sewer day? It doesn’t seem right that he is cannibalized, sent to the waste treatment plant and then spends eternity with the solids. After all, this guy died for our sins.
I can hear him now: Forgive them father for they know not what they do.
5. jacobfromlost says:
Why does this remind me of homeopathy? Oh… right.
Crackers: They’re god-sized dandruff flakes.
And Jeebus has a godly case of dandruff.
Glen Davidson
Just waiting for the cracker protection patrol to show up. Always good for a few yuks.
Don’t consecrated crackers have Superman-like powers that make them impervious to being crushed between the pages of a book? No? Then what good are they?
Hmmm, that brings up a profound theological/philosophical type question: Can god make a cracker that even he can’t crumble?
That ought to provide a pretty good living to professional philosophers out there for a good, long while.
Perhaps said wafers are not gluten-free?
They should have crushed them within the pages of the Bibles
Catholics aren’t big on bibles, although they have their own personal version of them (Includes some of the apocrypha). I doubt you’d find one in the pew.
Apparently this parish is not using the new Litmus Hosts. They turn blue when consecrated.
There’s no accidental difference. The difference is substantial. Since only accidents are observable, the fact that there’s no observable difference is expected and demonstrates nothing about the truth of the claim. [/Catholic theologian]
If they want their crackers to be treated with the care they think they should receive, they shouldn’t socially pressure a giant roomful of teenage atheists into accepting them.
Funny thing; perkl in finnish is a common abbreviation of the curseword perkele, which is basically a euphemism for the devil. :D
This.
So much for non-overlapping magisteria. Religion can’t even verify the details of the stories it makes up. If it were on the stand, a competent lawyer would dismiss it with a derisive “No questions for this witness, your Honour,” for having nothing of value to contribute.
They were said to bleed when Jews fucked with them, but that was back in the days when everybody loved the Jews, until Hitler turned up to sick Darwin on them, or whatever the other self-serving bullshit the Christians make up is.
You can buy boxes of “communion wafers.” They are not that hard to come by. My local Mexican grocery sells them in neon colors for some reason I have never quite figured out. (Do kids play with them by having a pretend Mass or something?) Wow. Maybe someone should put a bunch of those in the hymnals and call it a miracle color change. Look they are even on SALE right now from Kingdom Come Communion Ware- http://www.kingdom.com/kingdom-communion-ware-s/1019.htm?Click=50926&gclid=CITn3OyUpawCFcx-5Qod5Cce1A – so if you want to serve them at your next party, go right ahead and order them in bulk. I’m sure that if you “gather in his name” and say the right words, Jeebus will transmorgrify them for you just for the asking.
Apparently, anyone can buy these things, and they aren’t all that expensive:
http://tinyurl.com/7rr5p6v
Think of the fun we could have with a few thousand of these things that defy the ability to tell consecrated from unconsecrated!
Hilarious how history makes this all irrelevant. Jesus made false predictions, period, end of story. Therefore, anything that grows from assuming the truth of those predictions is also false. Can we all go home now and stop murdering one another?
There is an interesting (but speculative) sub-story here:
People are going up to receive communion, but are not eating it. This is likely because because they they have done something “sinful” and are therefore not allowed to take communion, but do not want their spouses knowing and asking questions about what that may be. So they go up as if nothing is wrong, but hide the cracker away. So what type of sin would you most want to hide from your spouse?
Isn’t there a commandment against adultery?
So there are possibly a number of people in this church that are faithful enough to believe that eating a cracker in a state of sin will make god angry, but not faithful enough to remember that whole thing about adultery. (Hey, cheating is no biggie… eating a cracker at the wrong time on the other hand…)
Alright, who got Jesus in their hymnals? And you over there – you got a little Jesus stuck on the corner of your mouth!
So, if the cracker is sacred and you eat the cracker, does that mean your crap for that day is also sacred?
Jesus like’s a rave as much as the next guy.
I think we should get Dr. Haught here, STAT!! Maybe he can answer our deepity questions with some sophisticated theology (TM).
The jokes just write themselves….
like’s?
fuck you renegade appostrophe
Hmmm, this means the hosts found inside hymnals were once in someone’s mouth, and then later taken out and put into a hymnal. Not very sanitary.
They should put some LSD on those crackers, then the parishioners could have a more realistic religious experience. Wouldn’t that be something to see?
The reasons for most are probably a lot more mundane than your fanciful speculation. Many modern, moderate Catholics use contraceptives, have premarital sex, and generally don’t give a fuck what the Pope has to say on anything. Undoubtedly, that probably translates into not having a cracker when they don’t feel like having a cracker.
And in all likelihood, it’s the other Catholics in the congregation one is hiding the wafer from. That’s the flip side of the wonderful church-going community the faitheists are all gushing over: the judgmental assholishness. Just because you’ve seen a group of people every Sunday for years doesn’t mean they won’t turn on you if they don’t agree with your reasons for getting a
divorceannulment.And furthermore, no eating Jesus in bed. I’m not waking up with little pieces of Jesus stuck to me.
¡Jesus es radical!
Fuck you too, Chimpy.
@40:
They are not gluten free. The RCC does have some reduced gluten crackers, but our local arch bishop stated that they must have some wheat in them because of some reference to the bread of life.
So low tolerance celiacs are unable to have the normal ‘Host’. Even the red wine usually used will affect them. So celiacs can either blend in and get violently sick for a few days after mass, or they can make a special request for white wine as the ‘Host’ and hope the priest does not cross contaminate it.
I would not be surprised if celiacs who want to fit in are hiding the crackers in hymnals.
I wonder if I could find neon colored Cheez-Its. Way tastier than communion wafers, I bet. (Although less likely to piss people off when you drive a nail through ’em.)
What do those idiot “Eat Right For Your Type” gluten-free people do?
I agree with d cwilson. Would Jesus rather be put in a nice clean hymnal, amongst all the believers and always at the services. Or does he want to be eaten, masticated, turned into poop, down a sewer…etc, etc. I thin the people “saving” him in the hymnals have the right idea.
More religious idiocy. Depressing…
@Brian
The cracker stops being Jesus before it becomes poop.
NO seriously, that is actual Catholic dogma
I seem to recall the Pew Forum survey, the one that revealed that atheists knew the most about religion, also revealed that a large proportion of Catholics were not even aware that they were supposed to believe in Transubstantiation. How fully grown adults can believe in such absurd nonsense in this day and age baffles me anyway.
*fist shake
If you have faith, then you have transubstantiationally activated cultures in your gut, allowing your body to absorb the holy spirit, while the cracker “substrate” is all that is flushed down the toilet.
TMI?
Actually I think the whole “Sin” issue is covered by the new “Get out of going to confession free card.” There is now a part of the mass where they say the words “Lord I am not worthy to recieve you but only say the word and I shall be healed.” BAM instant forgiveness of forgivable sins. (Though there may be some limitations here.)
I wonder if they have a school attached to their church? It could be kids messing around. It could be people who just really don’t like the taste of their particular wafer brand. There are any number of possible reasons.
Damn you Myers! You’ve got me craving Nillas again. If I go into a hypoglycemic coma from a Nilla binge it’s all ON YOU.
I wonder if they’ve been paying attention to where in the hymnals the hosts are being found. There could be some interesting data to be gleaned there. On the other hand, they could just be slipped into the first song after communion.
Wait, shouldn’t have the biohazard team been called in. Pieces of god flesh are hazardous to one’s health and require proper disposal, just look at what it does to one’s cognitive abilities. Frightening stuff that god flesh.
@62: Does the AB also think that jeebus flesh contained wheat? What difference does it make when the alleged transmutation is pure magic anyway? The wafers or crackers could be made from donkey dung (but don’t tell the congregation), and be equally effective.
why don’t they know if the crackers have been consecrated?If they have been consecrated they are jesus flesh plain and simple or the pope is just wasting our time! SNORT
More hideous cracker abuse. lol
It only gets more insane when you consider that the issue of transubstantiation was a major point in the protestant movement, which eventually led to the 30 year war. Yep, them crackers sure cause a lot of shit to go down. Violently.
It’s not like they’re good crackers either. They are thin, crumble easily, and have little to no taste. I mean you can’t scoop up salsa with them, or spread some PB on them for a delicious snack. They’re fail crackers is what they are. The cracker that fails at being a cracker.
Please don’t tell me that any serious effort on the side of law enforcement is going to go into finding out who (or what?) placed a bunch of stale crackers in some song books…
Oh, I like the sound of that. I could use perkele as a cussword and since no one else around town would know what it means, I would look at least one less notch ruder than I usually do.
Sadly, the curse I really need to know is “God damn them” and I’ve got a lot of Catholics in my life to apply it to. Any person who is still a tithing member of the unholy Catholic church should be damned for their part in supporting the death-dealing hierarchy. No, I can’t really argue with my family members about it without causing a heart-breaking rift. I don’t know what else to do, but I would enjoy some satisfaction at being able to curse them under my breath in more than two languages.
My first communion was accidental. I had just started religion classes designed to prepare us, but we were supposed to be fully indoctrinated before it happened.
I spent the weekend with my cousin who had a priest uncle (other side of his family). The priest held a small family mass in a bedridden relative’s home and we were dragged along. It was brief but included the sacrament. When an old man in a black shirt and white collar handed me something and it was clear I was meant to eat it, I ate it. Perhaps I was just used to the authoritarian influence of the priesthood. Or perhaps I looked down and saw a hunk of beautiful yeasty homemade white bread freshly baked by an aging mistress of the art, still warm from the oven. Without even a touch of butter it melted and exploded in my mouth at the same time.
It’s possible that my rejection of Catholicism began later with my “official” first communion, when I found out that the Body of Christ is actually a gummy disc that must be pried off the roof of your mouth with the tongue or, with more discretion, a finger. That first bread God, a God that tasted like a Grandma’s kitchen, that was a God I could believe in. This wafer God just didn’t measure up.
You mean it doesn’t go “crack?”
I can’t imagine that crackers would make good bookmarks. But I doubt that you could get the priests to hand out consecrated post-it notes, so crackers will have to do.
But, sheesh, if the priests can say their magic hocus pocus words over the crackers to turn them into jeebus, but the crackers somehow stop being jeebus before they are digested and flushed, then the solution is obvious. The priests need to ask god to give them some magic hocus-pocus words to turn magic crackers back into ordinary ones! They could write them over the door so any cracker that left was immediately un-jeebusized. They could put a time limit on how long the crackers stay magic, so any that aren’t eaten within 20 minutes go back to being wheat thins.
If their god talks to the pope, then they should get the pope to ask god for this teeny little favor to prevent the needless suffering of jeez-its everywhere. It’s not like the pope is busy doing anything important anyway.
Nope. It’s more of a moosh-sound. Kinda like slowly squishing one of those foam beets used in packaging. They can’t really “crack” anyway. It’s just wheat flour and water. That’s what makes ’em so tasty!
Gnu atheists.
Oh, wait. Good. It’s apparently not us this time.
When accomodationists rail against the rudeness and inhumanity of the outspoken atheist, though, this is very likely the version of the People of Faith they envision. Simple folks with tears in their eyes, heartbroken because they saw a billboard or read a magazine article or heard a joke which failed to respect the gentle, tender beauty of their fragile faith.
They believe a cracker can become the body of their Lord. Can you say “Awwww…..?” That is just so sweet, like a small child who still believes trustfully in Santa Claus.
Well, okay. Like a big child who still believes in Santa. A child way past the date when things would normally start to look fishy to the ordinary child. A child who is extra-precious, then.
We need to hold back our criticism, poor things. The church went to a LOT of trouble to foster this level of credulity and hyper-sensitivity in otherwise normal adults.
Ok, on second thought — never mind.
That’s it, in a nutshell. What a shame they don’t give it to you at the beginning of mass, so you’ll have something worthwhile to do for the next hour or so.
I suspect the “communion wafers” sold in Mexican groceries are not the same as the hosts used in the RC mess. They are likely intended for use by vile Protestants who don’t understand that neon colors are un-Christlike.
My understanding, possibly flawed, is that real hosts are baked by nuns using special flours and implements, hence their tastelessness.
I’m amused, incidentally, by the equation “bread = wheat”. Sez who? Haven’t those fools ever heard of corn bread, barley bread, rye bread?
And what about bread made from emmer, einkorn, or spelt, all close relatives of wheat?
The RC church: keeping a medieval outlook and a belief in magic alive in the 21st century.
There’s actually at least one denomination in Brazil (Santo Daime) that does that, but they use Ayahuasca, not LSD.
“Although it’s unknown whether these wafers were consecrated”
You mean there’s no way of telling?
Those crackers are neither magical, nor sacred, but they are delicious. I wish I could buy a 10lb bag of them. They seem like they would be great in tomato soup.
I’ve been wondering about that myself. Here in Europe we have tons of breads and flours, from millenia of experimentation, selective breeding of crops, and trade. I’m pretty sure even the bread that was available during the time Jeebus (supposedly) lived was better than that bland wheat cracker. Oh well, it’s the catholic church; if something is pleasurable, it’s a sin and you’ll roast in hell for it…
Zerple, if they taste like anything other than really stale paper, they are not the catholic host :p
Are you kidding? Oh, there’s nothing Protestant about Mexican Catholicism. Mexicans could add flavour and interest to Anglicanism.
Where do you think the RCC got the gold for its opulent shrines to vows of poverty?
CardinalSmurf:
Ohhhh… so that’s why the pages of the hymnal were stuck together. I assumed… well, let’s not go into that.
So, at what stage of digestion does Jeebus leave the cracker? The stomach? Small intestine? Does he enter the bloodstream? Is that what they mean when they say he “dwells in my heart”?
Can the kidneys filter Jeebus out? Is that why you have to keep eating him week after week?
Perhaps they should hire PZ to give demonstrations on how unsacred the host is.
What? That “Make Me a Channel of Your Peace” was a euphemism for something?
As a former altarboy, I can assure you it is.
Rad_pumpkin:
They’re supposed to be modeling that on a Passover seder, and matzoh may have its virtues, but interesting it isn’t.
@ 52 d cwilson
Holy shit!!
Hmm, the ones I had just kind of tasted like Oyster crackers, but were more dense.
Not sure why this blog post reminds me of this joke:
I was walking across a bridge one day, and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump. I ran over and said: “Stop. Don’t do it.”
“Why shouldn’t I?” he asked.
“Well, there’s so much to live for!”
“Like what?”
“Are you religious?”
He said, “Yes.”
I said, “Me too. Are you Christian or Buddhist?”
“Christian.”
“Me too. Are you Catholic or Protestant?”
“Protestant.”
“Me too. Are you Episcopalian or Baptist?”
“Baptist.”
“Wow. Me too. Are you Baptist Church of God or Baptist Church of the Lord?”
“Baptist Church of God.”
“Me too. Are you original Baptist Church of God, or are you Reformed Baptist Church of God?”
“Reformed Baptist Church of God.”
“Me too. Are you Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1879, or Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1915?”
He said: “Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1915.”
I said: “Die, heretic scum,” and pushed him off.
The priest is a clueless idiot — the reason the crackers are ending up in the books is parents forcing their kids to go to mass when the kids think it’s a stupid waste of time and additionally forcing them to take communion when they don’t want to. It’s an excellent form of passive resistence, since without actually doing anything they can break the hearts of sentimental old ladies and make the priest unhappy.
Just wet it a bit, right where the nails go. They should slide through.
My favorite part:
Uhh, where do they think the rest of them end up?
But apart from that, they have an actual “special sink” installed with most holy consecrated plumbing for just this purpose?
And after communion, the congregation use a special church toilet not connected to the sewer system.
PZ, you’re a damned racist!
How dare you say our Lord and Savior was a cracker?
Everyone knows he was a Hebrew Ay-rab type.
It is kinda disgusting. I found far worse between the pages of my high school books. The most common was chewing tobacco…
But who’d do such a thing? It just seems weird. If you don’t want the cracker, you’re not obligated to go up. I know, I’ve attended, and I’m atheist, always have been. They’re perfectly okay with you remaining in your seat.
“Although it’s unknown whether these wafers were consecrated…”
That there should tell anyone with two brain cells to rub together that communion is a pile of crap. They’re admitting there’s no difference between a consecrated and an unconsecrated cracker.
Alas, no. We also can’t tell if the church bought the crackers or someone else bought the crackers. Or if they were handled with clean hands or clean gloves. Or handled by a man, woman, or child. But these things all did happen, and did change where the cracker ended up or came from.
A quarterback intentionally fumbling the ball is importantly different than accidentally fumbling the ball – but the ball is no different after each occurrence.
.
Exactly. But Catholic dogma would say that the ball *is* different after each occurrence, so I don’t get your point.
Vicki:
Yeah, but you can do fun and delicious and interesting things with matzo– Mr Darkheart’s cousin makes caramel/chocolate dipped matzo every Passover. /Homer drool
Communion wafers? Not so much.
Kevin @ #26 – Thank you for the link. The headline on the video to the right was marvelous and made me laugh out loud:
“Raw Video: Harper Hides the Body of Christ” by Catholicregister
Shades of Agatha Christie!
It takes someone with a really huge ego and belief in himself as the God-appointed ruler of humanity to critique the way a funeral mass was performed by someone else, and then insult one of the powerful men present by demanding to know what he did with something the priest shouldn’t have given him in the first place. Nothing like accusations of blasphemy to get you in tight with the government. In fact, it’s almost incredible anybody could be that stupid.
What were they going to do if Harper said, “I took it because I didn’t want to be rude and then threw it away/sent it to PZ Myers/ fed it to the dog”? They can’t even excommunicate him; he’s not Catholic.
I always think of a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon where Calvin shows Hobbes how to make toast. “See, you put bread in and toast comes out,” says Calvin. Hobbes asks, “what happened to the bread?”
To a devout Catholic, consecration is just that. To a Lutheran, it’s still bread, but also Jesus (consubstantiation, which a Catholic theologian once told me was “logically inconsistent”–like the Trinity is logical?). To other Protestants it’s just a symbol (the RCC calls it re-presentation, and the Protestants take out the hyphen).
As for the special sink, it drains directly into the ground.
Perhaps Jesus was coming back, but miscalculated and ended up in the books? (Like the invading force in the Hitchhiker’s Guide that was eaten by a dog.)
PZ, taken completely out of context, you sound like a huge racist when you say “It’s a cracker.” Because as you know cracker is a slam on us poor repressed white folk – even worse you dehumanize all whiteys by using “It’s” rather than he or she. You know creationists like to quote mine you, so don’t make it easy for them, you jive ass honky!
This brings back memories of when I was an alter boy at a catholic church when I was young. I noticed that there seemed to be all kinds of rituals (magic spells?) associated with the handling (or mishandling) of the consecrated wafer.
1. Bell-ringing: The cool thing about serving mass on Sunday was that you got to ring a highly-polished bell next to where you were kneeling on the lower steps of the altar when the priest elevated the the large *MASTER WAFER*. Our church happened to have the deluxe model- four tuned bells on one handle! When the host went up, I’d shake that sucker like it owed me money. No one was gonna sleep on my watch, by golly! I always got compliments on my bell-ringing ability.
2. Oops!: It was the alter-boy’s job also to assist the priest in distributing holy communion at the altar rail. A nice gold-plated platen was held just beneath each recipient’s chin should god fall from the priest’s holy pinch. One time the reverend accidentally dropped a host while moving to the next opened mouth. I gently informed him he had dropped one, where he stopped, turned back to the crime scene and treated it as such by producing a clean white linen from his right sleeve and encircling it while mumbled some Latin and then continued on. He came back after mass and retrieved it. I can’t remember if he then choked it down or buried it or simply placed it in the “out box”. I think he must have dropped it originally ’cause the wafers seemed to tend to stick together. Who knew god sticks to himself?
3. Holy Hygiene: I also noticed that sitting next to the tabernacle, there was a small crystal jar (with matching lid) where the priest would occasionally rinse his digits after stashing the remainder of the hosts back in the tabernacle. I always wondered why he didn’t place the jar in there as well since it very possibly had little sinking bits o’ jesus in there and shouldn’t they warrant equal protection?
4. Oh, the Guilt!: One time while serving mass, just after we distributed communion, I was putting the shiny platen back in its little fuzzy jacket when I noticed there was something stuck to its surface. Not stopping to think about it, I automatically scraped it off with my fingernail and proceeded to put it back on the cart. Only seconds later did it hit me that I may have just scraped god onto the floor somewhere. Shit. What the hell was I going to do now? I could tell the priest but then I’d get yelled at for sure (this guy was nasty in the confessional). Of course it might not have been a holy crumb after all, could it? I agonized for weeks after that but somehow seemed to rationalize it away. God couldn’t be that sensitive, could he?
Those attached to the catholic branch of Faith Inc are really missing out. At the anglican branch, they also serve a bit of nice red wine with the crackers. I do wish they’d improve the offer with some nice avacado dip or something similar. I don’t think the anglicans believe the wine and crackers are really the flesh of their decomposed jesus but treat it as “symbolic”. Which, I suppose is note quite as sick as the RCC insistance that their followers treat the dead bits of jesus as the real McCoy. Canibalism, that’s really not normal is it?
Come on, Minnesota. We are starting to see this kind of thing way too much. Let’s get back to what we do best: creating new kinds of hot dish and complaining about our terrible sports teams.
Here you can. They’re sold in most grocery stores in 8 1/2″ x 11 sheets, whole or with holes in them (“retailles d’hostie”).
We occasionally eat them as light snacks. I’ve never eaten them with tomato soup though. My personal favorite is to eat them with chat masala.
Probably not, as talking about it draws attention to the inherent silliness of the whole thing… sort of how you don’t hear many Mormons start their five minute spiel talking about the Nephites.
I can’t speak for your Catholic theologian, but I was raised in a Lutheran church and we were always taught that it was just a symbol. Never heard the term “consubstantiation” before.
So God smiled upon humans brutally torturing and crucifying his only son, yet frowns upon them pressing him between the pages of a book??
No wonder Christians fear God. He’s nuts!!
Not surprising. Which synod?
If they found Pepperidge Farm Milanos in the hymnals–now THAT would be a sacrilege!
By finding another article on this matter i found a link in the comments section about the proper disposal of the magical crackers. please note the penalty of knowingly improperly disposing or degrading this cracker (it’s near the bottom):
http://www.catholicdoors.com/faq/qu171.htm
excommunication for throwing a cracker in the garbage. molest a hundred choir boys and you still draw a pension, but deliberately throw a cracker in the trash and there will be consequences.
#111- I grew up RC as well, though I wasn’t an altar boy. I do remember touring the church one day and being shown a special sink for washing communion stuff. Apparently it drained out and underground or something that was more acceptable than the sewers.
#114- You must have better wafers than we did; ours were these mass-produced things that had more resemblance to styrofoam than food. The one highlight of being dragged to mass while on vacation was that small churches often had bread homemade by a parishoner.
You guys have made my night with the jokes.
As for the Catholics… COME ON! It’s a flavourless bit of I-don’t-even-know-what! There’s nothing special about it! It doesn’t even qualify as a cracker! GET OVER IT!
I was raised Lutheran, Missouri Synod, and during my confirmation classes we were taught the difference between transubstatiation and consubstantiation. It was a kind of big deal, as it was a significant difference between the RCC and Lutheran Church. My pastor, (a really good teacher, and one of the reasons that I abandoned theism,) explained that the RCC’s position was ludicrous, as we have the ability to examine consecrated hosts, and they are just crackers. We were taught that the sacred thing was that Jesus instituted the sacrement, and therefore it was holy.
The RCC now officially believes in transubstantiation, but they have simply changed the meaning of transubstantiation to be identical to consubstantiation, so they can still claim a difference.
Hmm I dunno if it’s just American catholics, but I was raised catholic and couldn’t imagine anybody with tears in their eyes over some dusty old wafers. At worst, the really old people might frown over it.
ps if anybody’s wondering and they haven’t had one, they taste like standard icecream cone. No icecream though. Shame.
Well, there were complaints by the Vatican hierarchy during the spectacle in Madrid that many Catholics wouldn’t eat crackers they received from Ratzinger, but rather put them in their wallets as talismans….
It is sacred to them. I believe that pointing out actual wrongdoing by religious people and groups should be done; but supercilious sneers just make you look egotistical.
I believe that pointing out actual wrongdoing by religious people and groups should be done; but supercilious sneers just make you look egotistical. – Carbon Based Life form
In the first place, [citation needed]: we’ve had numerous testimonials here to the positive effect of ridicule in freeing believers to begin questioning thier religion. Second, about these “supercilious sneers”. Your use of the adjective is either merely emotive, with no substantive content, or it implies the existence of non-supercilious sneers. Do those make you look egotistical as well? Third, who the fuck cares if a bunch of idiots who worship biscuits (and if reports are accurate, pretty poor biscuits at that) think they look egotistical?
The Catholics have nothing on the old Universal World Church of Los Angeles, one of the great crackpot churches from the glory days of cable TV evangelism in the early 1980s. In their version of transubstantiation they would place a loaf of unsliced white bread into an ornate ark, perform the ritual, then pull out a big honking roast. Fantastic.
Maybe if they tasted better, people wouldn’t get rid of them. They should use Chicken in a Biskit crackers instead! And write a “C” on them in Sharpie when they’re consecrated.
I think the comment about the wafers not being gluten-free has possibly gotten to the heart of the matter. Calling a communion wafer a cracker is far too kind. They are refined white flour paste baked to a solid, and positively shiny with gluten. The mass-goers probably thought they were doing the most reverent thing possible by putting the wafer in a semi-sacred hymnal. Maybe they even thought they had received the “spirit” of the host by holding it and praying over it.
Another possibility is that if you are in the choir, you’re not going to be able to sing for at least 5 minutes after you put the host in your mouth. It’s a slab of glue that sticks to the roof of your mouth and takes its time dissolving- you are taught not to chew it. So, pop it into the hymnal, and maybe forget to retrieve it later.
“Although it’s unknown whether these wafers were consecrated…”
Using inductive reasoning, we solve this one: it’s almost certain that they were consecrated.
Also, they have almost certainly been in someone’s mouth – this prediction is testable, at least – and this person was a sufficiently earnest Catholic to have qualms about just chucking them away. The most parsimonious explanation for their presence is a regular church-goer who’s severely allergic to wheat, but still determined to take Communion.
Sadly, they’re too shy to ask for special treatment, and unaware that the priest has some vacuum-packed, wheat-free communion hosts to hand. The Pope has ordered that every church has a supply, and that they taste every bit as bland as the regular version, to ensure the proper Communion experience.
Just kidding about the second bit. The Catholic church actually forbids the use of totally gluten-free communion wafers:
http://foodallergies.about.com/od/wheatallergies/f/communionwheat.htm
I thought that there was no science to transubstantiation, but I now have one firm data point: it categorically requires the presence of wheat gluten.
Carbon Based Life Form says:
That’s the problem.
Oh, and here I was thinking it was silly.
“Catholics believe the communion wafer becomes the actual body of Jesus once it’s consecrated during mass.”
“Although it’s unknown whether these wafers were consecrated”
Wait, what?
Does that mean that Jesus is actually made of bread?
I’ve totally misunderstood the bread=flesh until now.
I am not surprised that they could not tell the difference between the consecrated and unconsecrated crackers. I have been experimenting on both for a long time and have as yet found no differences between them on any level:
http://www.atheist.ie/2011/02/bringing-the-scientific-method-to-magic-crackers/
Something like the Pillsbury Doughboy?
I have tasted some freshy-baked bread that may well have caused me to utter “Jesus Christ that’s good!” But that was because it was delicious bread, not because it tasted like meat.
…
Hey, what if you take communion and you get a host that’s made from, like, his liver? I hate organ meats and I bet a lot of other people do too.
Also, suddenly “oyster crackers” sounds repulsive.
I went to an Opus Dei school up until year 9. One of the things I remember is being told that you should receive communion on the tongue, rather than in your hands.
Why?
Well, silly, because if you take it in your hands you’ll get little pieces of baby Jebus on your hands. And then you’ll put your hand in your pocket. And then you’ll put your pants in the washing machine. And you will have put baby Jebus through the washing machine!
I’m not kidding.
No mention of why it was OK to send baby Jebus straight into a stomach full of acid and digestive juices.