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July 18, 2008 | 9:29 am

Final word on PZ Myers and communion? Don’t count it

Let’s be honest: Mark Shea won’t really have the last word on P.Z. Myers and the secular bloggers’ desire to desecrate holy communion. How could he? If you were to total all the comments on all the blog posts about Myers’ stated mission and the Catholic League’s counterproductive reaction and Myers’ re-reaction and all the attention he’s gotten since, the number would be counted in tens of thousands. (Each of handful of rants and open threads Myers posted received more than 1,000 comments.)

But here is some of what Shea had to say anyway:

The absurd thing about Myers attempt to transmogrify his naked act of aggression, theft, vandalism and incitement into victim status is that he is basically saying that if we all are not going around the world desecrating whatever it is we don’t believe in, we are ipso facto respecting and honoring same. So my failure to desecrate a Quran or the Satanic Bible means I am somehow respecting and honoring them.

Crazy people talk that way.

Myers and Co. are enmeshed in these lies because they have chosen evil. It is evil—archetypally evil—to desecrate the Eucharist. It’s the sort of stuff archetypal bad guys in the movies do. It’s completely unnecessary gratuitous evil. Myers can do all the blasphemy he pleases on his blog (though not on the taxpayer’s dime). But the curious thing is that he cannot rest with this. C.S. Lewis describes the curious evangelical itch that rankles in the shriveled soul of the God-hater in his Great Divorce. In that novella, the damned are offered a chance at Heaven if they will only just get on a bus, go there, and stay. Instead, almost none of the damned do. They prefer to be what they are. And they love talking about Hell and themselves (which really comes down to the same thing).

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg in 7 Comments — Leave your comment

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Never heard of Mark Shea before, but it’s clear that he’s totally divorced from reality.

The assault on Webster Cook was Catholic-on-Catholic crime.  His “theft” of the Eucharist was Catholic-on-Catholic crime.  The death threats he received were Catholic-on-Catholic crime.

But the only things Shea can bear to address are Myers’ alleged atheist-on-Catholic “crime” (for which there is no evidence) and insinuations that the death threats to Myers and Cook were lies (despite Melanie Kroll getting fired for a death threat coming from her email account).

As a response to Myers’ spoken desire to desecrate the Host, Shea thinks that “fighting” via secular law to get him fired and/or jailed is a legitimate and proportional response, while at the same time suggesting that this is somehow “forgiveness.“

But not one word about what the people who assaulted Cook deserve, just more assumptions that Catholic Cook was lying about the threats.  (Cook has since dropped his “hazing” complaint, but has been impeached as a student Senator due to the complaint against him from his fellow Catholics.)

Shea compounds his errors by earlier today equating the mockery of religious practice with a hatred of God.  He can’t let go of the obviously false stereotype of the atheist as someone who hates God.  But if I (as an atheist) think that God doesn’t exist, what reason do I have to hate God?  I don’t hate the Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus, either, although I’ve got exactly as much evidence for their existence as I do for God’s.

Shea’s blog posts come off (to me) as bitter, spiteful insane ravings against a man who would leave all Catholics alone to do as they please so long as the Catholics actually lived by the teachings of their alleged Saviour.  Because only to our collective doom of ignorance do we forget that what prompted Myers’ ire was a press release from Bill Donohue that turned what might have remained a local issue into a national stink about Catholics treating each other like crap.

Why Mark Shea’s proclamations deserve your attention and bandwidth, Mr. Greenberg, is unknown to me.  I can only hope that his misdirected vitriol will keep him so marginalized that the next time I hear his name, I can again say, “who?“

Comment by Dave W. on 7/18/08 at 10:18 pm

I linked to this blog post because Rod Dreher, a fairly popular conservative blogger for Beliefnet, ran snippets of Shea’s post under the headline: “The Last Word on P.Z. Myers.“ (That link could be found under the “last word” hyperlink.) I thought that was a bit presumptuous and, even if Shea’s argument had been convincing, unlikely.

Comment by Brad A. Greenberg on 7/19/08 at 12:07 am

Huh.  I missed the connection completely.  What a dope.

Comment by Dave W. on 7/19/08 at 10:54 am

Dave, Mark Shea is a very popular Catholic writer, so your hopes that he remain “marginalized” are a little late. 

Further, I seriously doubt Shea meant that no one would say anything more about this sordid Myer’s affair after his column aired.  In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if Myers’ brain dead minions didn’t start copying his stupidity “in memory of him”.  Shea probably meant that HE was done talking about Myers’ shameless, clueless, publicity whoring. 

Myers clearly doesn’t get that going out of his way to abuse what Catholics hold sacred does not make him a hero or a victim, it makes him an aggressor.  Any person with half a brain cell knows that attacking something another person holds dear is going to evoke an anger response from that person.  Myers attacked something held sacred by a very large group of people and then acts like its abnormal for those whose beliefs were attacked to get angry with him.  Clearly, Myers’ suffers from a serious personality disorder if this cause/effect relationship is a mystery to him. 

The response Myers’ received from Catholics was utterly predictable and he brought it on himself.  There was absolutely no reason for him to act out against Catholics as he did other than his own Narcissistic drive for attention. 

I personally don’t care what Myers’ believes or says about the Eucharist.  His words hold no weight.  I do, however, want him to keep his grubby paws away from the things I hold sacred.  Is that so hard to understand?

In closing, I also disagree with the comment that the desecration of the Eucharist was a Catholic on Catholic crime.  Myers is not a Catholic, he’s an atheist, and I would be astounded if the person who stole the Eucharist was practicing Catholic.  For one thing, by the commission of such an act, he would ex-communicate himself.  And for what reason?  To help Myers’ mock his faith?  Think it through, gentlemen!

Comment by Judith M. on 7/29/08 at 3:48 pm

Judith, regardless what traditional Catholics would like to think, the practice of Communion is not homogeneous.  Some “in the mouth,“ some “in the hand,“ some are allowed to take the Host back to the pews and pray over it before consuming it.  There is a wide variety of what’s allowed and what’s not allowed.  (Heck, I was surprised to learn that the person distributing the Eucharist at the UCF student union that day was a woman.)  To claim that Webster Cook isn’t a practicing Catholic because he wasn’t following the strictest of rites is to ignore the realities of Catholicism.  Everything that occured at the Mass Webster Cook went to was Catholic-on-Catholic offenses.

And Myers’ act was a reaction to the death threats and other harassment heaped upon Webster Cook.  It certainly wasn’t narcissism or attention.  And it wasn’t the anger that was surprising, what’s a true mystery is that self-professed Catholics (whose God teaches loves and forgiveness) would threaten to cleave Myers’ skull in two.

You really don’t seem to have a good grasp on any of the events in question or the motivation for them, Judith, and with your “don’t care” attitude, I think it’s unlikely you ever will.  But that’s exactly why no ideas should be held sacred.

Comment by Dave W. on 7/29/08 at 7:01 pm

Dave, you clearly know very little about Catholic practices and beliefs regarding the Eucharist.  No one is ever allowed to “take the Host back to the pews and pray over it before consuming it.“  That you would think this is allowed is surprising, as is your own “surprise” to hear that the distribution of communion at this Mass involved an extraordinary minister of holy communion, who in this case happened to be a woman.  (The use of such extraordinary ministers, all of whom are lay people and many of whom happen to be women, has been a common practice for more than thirty years.  Where have you been?)

By taking the consecrated host not to consume it, but in order to carry it away for the alleged purpose of showing it to someone else, and then running off with it and keeping it “hostage”, Webster Cook was going far beyond some unusual, but acceptable, action for a practicing Catholic.  He was instead committing a gross and egregious sacrilege, and one that, according to the code of Canon Law (see Canon 1367) is so serious that it results in an automatic excommunication that can only be lifted by the Pope. 

Suppose at a synogogue service someone who was supposed to read from the Torah approached, but instead of beginning to read picked up the scroll and began to walk out with it—would no one try to stop him?  For Catholics, the eucharist is holier and more precious than a Torah—so should not a rational person expect that those who have charge of its care and use, as the extraordinary minister did, would take steps to prevent its profanation?  When communion is distributed, it is given to the recipient for consumption right then and there, and not for future possession.  To use a crude analogy, but one that might make plain why Cook was not justified at all in what he did, suppose you went to a friend’s house where you were offered food and drink.  Would this offer of refreshments mean that you were entitled to take food from the pantry and bottles from the liquor cabinet, and walk out of the house with them?  If you were at a restaurant that had a buffet set out for patrons, would you think the manager out of line if he stopped someone for picking up the serving trays and going to walk out of the restaurant with them?  Why, then, do you think that the Eucharist is deserving of less concern?  The only offense here was committed by Cook, and not by the woman who tried to stop the sacrilege.

As for Myers, it is completely apparent that his actions were entirely a narcissistic attempt to gain attention for himself.  Even if one thought that the outrage Cook’s blasphemy engendered in some Catholics was wrong, it is difficult to see how any rational adult could think the appropriate response was to attempt to give offense to every Catholic everywhere.  To return to the Torah example given above, if the members of that congregation had manhandled the person who was trying to carry the Torah away, would that justify a purported atheist in another state from burning a Torah publicly just to show his contempt for the Torah, and for all who consider it important?

The one who does not seem to have a good grasp on any of the events in question, Dave, is not Judith, but yourself.

Comment by Muldoon on 7/31/08 at 9:46 am

Muldoon, you are confusing a set of rules with what happens in practice.  Our driving laws state that no one may exceed the posted speed limit, but people do on a regular basis.  The rules may state that nobody may take a Host back to the pews, but what practicing Catholics have publicly said is that such rules are bent or broken on a regular basis, without anyone batting an eye.

Your analogies are indeed crude.  So much so that they fail.  Torahs are worth many thousands of dollars - real value, not just the value attributed to them by the believers.  Similarly, the food that is offered at a friends’ house or at a buffet is expected to be carried off, not the items that aren’t offered for free or at minimal charge.

But in all of these cases, laying a finger on the thief is assault.  In practice, most actual thieves will not press such charges, because they’re facing much more serious ones, and getting nit-picky will not impress a judge and jury.  Cook did nothing _illegal_ by breaking the sectarian rules of the Mass, but the people who grabbed him committed misdemeanor assault in return.

And anyone who claims that PZ Myers did what he did just to get attention is blindingly ignorant of what the man stands for.  There is a principle at stake here, and the Confraternity of Catholic Clergy has now made it abundantly clear that that principle is indeed under a dire threat.  To say that ridiculing someone’s religious beliefs is unconstitutional is off-the-rails insane in its protectionist paranoia, and demonstrates that representatives of the conservative Catholic preisthood in this country cannot make any argument at all regarding why their beliefs should be respected, they can only lie about the law.  Anyone with an inkling of concern about _all_ First Amendment freedoms should be disturbed by what the CCC has said, with the understanding that many people, unknowingly going against their own interests, will be nodding their heads in agreement.

Comment by Dave W. on 7/31/08 at 3:13 pm

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