Eucharist wafer desecration

Overview

• also known as: host desecration

Eucharist wafer desecration is the mis-handling of the Eucharist wafer, an edible wafer used in the Catholic ceremony of communion.

The Catholic Church considers almost any action other than eating the wafer before returning to one's seat to be "desecration", and the removal of the wafer from church before eating it as tantamount to "kidnapping" or "abduction". This school views transubstantiation, i.e. the part of the ceremony in which the wafer is said to be transformed into the "body of Christ", as being true – i.e. the wafer is actually the "Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity", of Jesus Christ.

Another school of thought sees transubstantiation as entirely symbolic and metaphorical, and failure to stick to the communion "script" as being a transgression roughly equivalent to impoliteness.

Related Pages

• The 2008 sacred wafer scandal began when a member of a Catholic church attempted to return to his seat to show the Eucharist to a companion before eating it.

History

The dogma of literal transubstantiation was set into writing at the Fourth Council of the Lateran in 1215, although the belief can be traced back to the 1st Century AD in the Didache and other writings by early Christians. According to this dogma, the "substances" of the offerings (the wafer - aka "bread" - and wine) are transformed, while the "appearance" of bread and wine remain.

"Substance" in this usage refers to the philosophical ideas of Aristotle and Plato, in that the substance of an object is different from the accidents. For example, a chair (the substance) is still a chair whether it is blue or pink, big or small (the accidents). In the dogma of Transubstantiation, the substance is changed (the wafer becomes God), but the accidents remain (the physical properties of the wafer, including subatomic particles).

Accusations against Jews

• 1243 at Berlitz, near Berlin: first recorded accusation. All the Jews of Berlitz were burned on the spot, subsequently called Judenberg.
• 1290 in Paris; event was commemorated in the Church of the Rue des Billettes and in a local confraternity
• 1294 at Laa, Austria
• 1298 at Röttingen (near Würzburg) and at Korneuburg (near Vienna)
• 1299 at Ratisbon
• 1306 at St. Pölten
• 1325 at Cracow
• 1330 at Güstrow
• 1337 at Deggendorf: led to a series of massacres across the region; still celebrated locally as "Deggendorf Gnad"
• 1338 at Pulkau
• 1370 in Brussels: Jews of the city were exterminated
• 1388 at Prague
• 1399 at Posen
• 1401 at Glogau
• 1410 at Segovia: alleged host desecration was said to have brought about an earthquake; the local synagogue was confiscated, leading Jews were executed, and the event continues to be celebrated as a local feast of Corpus Christi.
• 1420 at Ems
• 1453 at Breslau
• 1478 at Passau
• 1492 at Sternberg, in Mecklenburg-Schwerin
• 1510 at Knoblauch: 38 Jews were executed and more expelled from Brandenburg
• 1514 at Mittelberg, in Alsace
• 1558 at Sochaczew (Poland)

The last Jew burned for stealing a host died in 1631, according to Jacques Basnage, quoting from Manasseh b. Israel, Casimir IV of Poland (1447).

"The accusation of host desecration gradually ceased after the Reformation when first Martin Luther in 1523 and then Sigismund August of Poland in 1558 were among those who repudiated the accusation. However, sporadic instances of host desecration libel occurred even in the 18th and 19th century. In 1761 in Nancy, several Jews from Alsace were executed on a charge of host desecration. The last recorded accusation was brought up in Bislad, Romania, in 1836." [W]

Presumably this refers to official accusations of desecration only. In the case of the 2008 sacred wafer scandal, death threats were sent both to Webster Cook (the student who was apprehended while trying to show the Eucharist to a companion before eating it) and PZ Myers, who threatened to obtain additional hosts and desecrate them and later did so. After actually performing the desecration, the Catholic League and other supporters of the Catholic Church intensified their public outrage against Myers and efforts to have Myers fired on grounds of violating his College's Code with his Religious Intolerance.

There was no official word from the Catholic Church, however (even after PZ offered to return the wafer if they would repudiate the words and actions of the Catholic League).

The Response of the Catholic League

“A formal complaint against Myers has already been made. What he did—in both word and deed—constitutes a bias incident, as defined by the University of Minnesota. The policy says that ‘Expressions of disrespectful bias, hate, harassment or hostility against an individual, group or their property because of the individual or group’s actual or perceived race, color, creed, religion…can be forms of discrimination. Expressions vary, and can be in the form of language, words, signs, symbols, threats, or actions that could potentially cause alarm, anger, fear, or resentment in others…even when presented as a joke.’

“The University must now take action and apply the appropriate sanction. We are contacting the president, Board of Regents and the Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action Office at the school, as well as Minnesota’s governor and both houses of the state legislature; the Catholic community in Minnesota is also being contacted. Moreover, we are also contacting Muslim groups nationwide.

“It is important for Catholics to know that the University of Minnesota will not tolerate the deliberate destruction of the Eucharist by one of its faculty. Just as African Americans would not tolerate the burning of a cross, and Jews would not tolerate the display of swastikas, Catholics will not tolerate the desecration of the Eucharist.”

Links

[1]

Reference

• Wikipedia

Filed Links

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