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"Desecration of Eucharist" Charged In Incidents At Two Universities

By Howard M. Friedman

In the history of the Catholic Church, "desecration of the host" is a form of sacrilege and charges of descration were a pretext for massacres of Jews in the Middle Ages. (Background). Over the last month, charges of desecrating the Eucharist-- in circumstances rather different from the historical precedents-- have come to the fore in two related incidents at universities in two states. As reported by WFTV, this all began at a June 29 Mass on the campus of the University of Central Florida. Student Senator Webster Cook, instead of immediately consuming the Eucharist handed to him as required by Catholic doctrine, took it back to his seat to show to a non-Catholic friend who was curious. Cook says someone tried to physically stop him from doing this. A week later, Cook returned the wafer in a plastic bag after receiving outraged e-mails from Catholics objecting to his desecration of the Eucharist. (WFTV). Then, according to the Orlando Sentinel, on July 17, Student Senate began impeachment proceedings against Cook, based not on his taking the Eucharist, but on his falsely representing himself as a student government officer at the service.

Meanwhile, in early July according to the Washington Times, a University of Minnesota Morris biology professor, Paul Z. Myers, used his blog to support Cook, asking in this post for his readers to send him (Myers) a consecrated Communion wafer for display. Last Thursday in this post, Myers displayed the Communion wafer pierced with a rusty nail tacked to pages torn from the Quran and some pages from Richard Dawkins The God Delusion. This led Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights president Bill Donohue to file a complaint against Myers with the University of Minnesota, asserting that his posting amounted to a bias incident under University rules. (Catholic League July 24 release.) However University Chancellor Jacqueline Johnson said in a letter in response that academic freedom permits faculty "to speak or write as a public citizen without institutional discipline or restraint?." (Catholic League release, July 25).

In yet another development, Prof. Myers appeared on a Houston radio station on July 11 to complain in his own strong language about attacks against him by Catholic League's Donohue. In response to this, a delegate to the upcoming Republican National Convention has asked for the GOP to provide additional security so Catholics can worship without fear of violence. (Catholic Online, July 12). The request came despite the fact that Morris, MN is over 170 miles from Minneapolis- St. Paul. [Thanks to Scott Mange for the original lead on this.]

Full post as published by Religion Clause on July 26, 2008 (boomark / email).