I don’t have a whole lot to say about science blogger PZ Myers’ public
desecration of an allegedly consecrated host. I think it is fair to take
him at his word that he does not seriously entertain the idea that a piece
of bread could by divine fiat become the Body of Christ (which brings to mind
Christ’s response
the first time people started sticking nails in it ). In any case, that much is between him and God, and
I generally wouldn’t expect a non-Catholic to have a Catholic perspective
on the issue.
What I do hope most people would recognize is the basic immaturity of the
act, even from a strictly secular point of view: in such terms, it’s akin
to a grade-schooler taking from another child the special sandwich the
child’s mother had prepared for him and grinding it into the dust because it
was “stupid”. Of an adult academic, such an act would suggest an
exceptionally poor standard of public behavior. That Myers’ act was
carefully premeditated, and that the intended recipients of the Eucharist
place an even higher value on it, that only makes that issue worse.
I realize that Myers had taken it upon himself to act in retaliation
for threats made by a few of my co-religionists in an unrelated Florida
incident. But if certain people are acting like vindictive children, an
adult response does not mean similarly immature behavior, and an adult
response most certainly does not mean taking it out on an entire religious
group.
Update: Based on the replies I am getting, it seems that there are four
issues which I need to clear up.
First, Myers (at least if his own claims are to be believed) didn’t simply
obtain a wafer of the same sort of bread which is used in Catholic rites
(which, absent any confusion, nobody would really care about), he
specifically sought out
a wafer that had actually been
in the posession of the Church and had been consecrated by a Catholic priest.
Second, there isn’t a legitimate way to remove a consecrated host from
the Church’s custody. The Church does not relinquish custody of a host
distributed at Mass until it has actually been eaten. To this end, Catholic
churches train their staff — ushers, priests, deacons, and extraordinary
ministers — to observe and ensure that the consecrated hosts distributed
are consumed on the spot as intended (even if, as this incident shows, they
are not always adequately vigilant).
Third, even if the removal of the host in this case might have constituted
petty theft (or grand theft, if the “buy it now” price on that one eBay
auction is indicative of the monetary value of consecrated hosts), I’m
deliberately avoiding legal considerations. From a simple, human, secular
standpoint, the basic issue is that it’s inappropriate for a mature adult
to take an article of extreme sentimental value to its intended recipients
and destroy it in public as a deliberate act of spite.
Fourth, the original threats Myers was retaliating against were directed
at a kid in Florida, not him personally. Professor Myers read about this
in the media like the rest of us, and decided to take it upon himself to
strike a blow for … something. (As far as I can tell, his two main
accomplishments so far have been to provoke some of the same morons to start
sending him threats, and to offend an awful lot of uninvolved Catholics.)