Student steals Communion wafer and receives death threats

[FSTargetDrone]

It must be clarified that not all of Christian denominations take the definition of Transubstantiation as literal truth. I believe Lutherans see it as merely symbolic, as well as others. At least that is what my girlfriend (who was baptized Lutheran but is now atheist) says of Lutheran teaching.

Sop if you put a single drop of holy water into the Ocean, does all the water in the Oceans become blessed?

Why must you ask such questions?

Actually, that is a good question. I suspect the answer is "no with a but," however I will punt that because I don't know.

Did you know that Catholic priests are supposed to dispose of holy water in special sinks equipped with plumbing that drains directly into the ground (and does not mix with wastewater)? Such a sinks is called a "sacrarium."

Don't believe me? Huh? No?

I swear I am not making this shit up:

How to dispose of

Holy water is usually made with a touch of salt which is a preservative, but if your holy water were to go a little, um, green, the proper way to dispose of it is the same as for any sacramental: you want to return it to the earthly elements. You should dig a hole and pour it into the earth.

Seriously:

Sacrarium

by Paul Turner

The sacrarium is a special sink found in the sacristy of most Catholic churches. The first time you see one it looks like someone made it wrong. The drain opens into a pipe that bypasses the sewer and runs straight down into the earth. The basin often hides beneath a hinged cover.
The sacrarium provides for the proper disposal of sacred substances. Most notably, after Mass the vessels which held the Body and Blood of Christ are rinsed and cleansed there. In this way any remaining particles of communion are washed into the earth. The sacrarium has also been used for the disposal of other substances: old baptismal water, leftover ashes, and last year's holy oils. There was a time in history when the leftover consecrated wine was poured down the sacrarium, but today the Blood of Christ is consumed by the faithful, not discarded.

If the consecrated wine is ever spilled during the Mass, it is to be cleaned up with care. Accidents happen, and the instructions for Mass offer this procedure: The area should be washed, and the water poured down the sacrarium.

The presence of the sacrarium shows our reverent care for holy things. When materials designated for a sacred purpose have completed their service, we honor them even in their disposal. By returning our sacred substances to the earth beneath the church building, we honor them, the ground over which we worship, and the God who created them and consecrated them to nourish our faith.

[Stark]

Yeah, I believe English protestants also consider transubstantiation merely symbolic, and not witch-wiggling magical.

[Connor MacLeod]

Yeah, I believe English protestants also consider transubstantiation merely symbolic, and not witch-wiggling magical.

When I was still going to church (back as a teenageR) when we took communion we used pita bread from the grocery store and wine bought (IIRC) from the wine store adjacent.

Hell, I even think some of the other kids and I snacked on it some after the service and we never got yelled at.

Then again we actually sat in padded chairs rather than pews.


Edit: For the record, it was Lutheran, so I'm guessing it was purely symbolic. I imagine you could have used McDonald's hamburgers for the communion and it still wouldn't change things. (Or liverwurst in Mike's case.)

[Kitsune]

I was Lutheran as well, they never seemed to talk about it like it was lietrally the body and blood of Christ.

[DPDarkPrimus]

I was Lutheran as well, they never seemed to talk about it like it was lietrally the body and blood of Christ.

That's why Lutherans (who are really just renamed Protestants) don't mind people of any denomination taking communion at their church.

Unlike Catholics.

[Knife]

I love how this board automatically attacks a whole state (any state) for what could occur in any state and has no relevance at all to the state in question.

Sure it does. Major demographic variants define regions. When those regions fall into a 'state' you can make generalizations. I live in Utah, go ahead and make a Mormon joke, supposedly 70% of Utah is Mormon.

There's more than enough shit Florida does that deserves massive ridicule, but no one even tries to differentiate a story that could "only happen in Florida or Germany" to one that could happen anywhere. If it's a story about Florida and it's about ANYTHING stupid, lets knee-jerk!

This one can happen anywhere, and if this is to be believed...

Bullshit, you're the one doing a knee jerk in some sort of weird tribal/state thing. Kind of reminds me of the whole 'the south will rise again, don't tread on me' thing. The south is incredibly christian fundie land, but for Christs sake don't say so!

And OT! I'm fairly shocked by Surlethe, while I knew he was actually religious ( not necessarily a problem in my book) I didn't think he was akin to crappy argument like this that basically boils down to tribalism.

[Cecelia5578]

Minor nits:
Lutherans most certainly do believe they are consuming the Body and Blood of Christ during Mass, they just don't use the term transubstantiation and use Scholastic theology to figure it out.

From Luther's Small Catechism:
"What is the Sacrament of the Altar?
It is the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ under the bread and wine, instituted by
Christ Himself for us Christians to eat and to drink"
http://www.lcms.org/graphics/assets/me ... chism.pdf
Also, the more conservative Lutheran denominations practice closed communion.

Among English Protestants, most Anglicans (esp High Church and Anglo-Catholics) also believe in the real presence. I'm pretty sure its spelled out that way in the latest Book of Common Prayer for the Episcopal Church in the US.

[Lusankya]

So secretly, Christ looked like this:

[Kanastrous]

Does Jesus' body come in low-carbohydrate form, for people who are on the Atkins diet?

I suspect they're one-size-fits-all. Remember that girl who is deathly allergic to wheat, and can't take communion? All the way up to the Vatican they refused to consecrate a non-wheat wafer for her. Tradition, they said.

If a truck carrying communion crackers rolls over on the highway, would the news report that the highway was flooded with Jesus? If animals came and ate the crackers, could they be executed for heresy?

According to a friend who worked for the New York Archdiocese...no.

He relates that while on the graveyard shift, one of his cobbers in an Archdiocese warehouse drove a forklift into a crate, rupturing it and scattering wafers everywhere. No one knew what to do (apparently no Catholics on the shift, or at least, not any who had been paying attention). So they got a priest out of bed at 3 a.m. who told them that if the wafers were unconsecrated they were trash and could be handled accordingly.

[FSTargetDrone]

So now all of you who think that this much ado about nothing (which it is) can see that it's a Deadly Serious Matter. The subject of this little tale actually kidnapped Christ.

If you read up on the whole Transubstantiation dreck, you will find al sorts of philosophical hoo-ha, such as exactly which part of Christ's body is being consumed when one takes Communion.

And for the record, I once took a consecrated wafer home with me from Church when I was in grade school. I think I did so because I thought we were supposed to only take Communion in a Church setting. So I thought I was being clever.

At the time I didn't realize I had a honest-to-goodness Circular Christ Cracker in my room. Pretty impressive that we had such power over a deity that it could be pocketed, eh?

[sketerpot]

Sometimes the Catholic Church seems fairly moderate, like when they actually admitted that evolution happened and that they probably owed Gallileo an apology. And then something like this comes along and reminds everyone that, yes, they've still got one foot firmly planted in the thirteenth century. This guy is getting death threats because he "kidnapped" a cracker. PZ Meyers has reached a new record for death threats in one day for disrespecting the Jesus crackers.

I know that the worst behavior here is coming from a few extremists, but where are the moderate Catholics speaking out against the militant extremists?

[Invictus ChiKen]

Just so we are clear if it is up to me those making the Death Threats should

1) Be punished to the fulliest extent of the law

2) Be put into mandatory anger management and counciling (sp?)

3) Be bared from communion until after they complete the an essay on the parts of the bible about patiently baring wrongs and showing compassion to those that hurt you. (Turn the other cheek and such).

[Mange]

Minor nits:
Lutherans most certainly do believe they are consuming the Body and Blood of Christ during Mass, they just don't use the term transubstantiation and use Scholastic theology to figure it out.

No, Lutherans rejects transubstantiation (and thus don't believe that the bread and wine changes their nature as Catholics do). However, you're right in that the bread and wine still is the body and blood according to Lutherans.

[sketerpot]

No, Lutherans rejects transubstantiation (and thus don't believe that the bread and wine changes their nature as Catholics do). However, you're right in that the bread and wine still is the body and blood according to Lutherans.

Are you splitting microscopically fine hairs, or is that statement just flat-out contradictory?

[Surlethe]

So the Catholics who are sending death threats and trying to get people fired over cracker heresy ... are they the same people who cheered on Danish newspapers for printing Mohammed cartoons? Or for deliberately re-printing them, even though they knew it would offend Muslims?*

This behaviour is totally unacceptable, and the fact that so many Catholics make excuses for it is even more incredible. Hopefully there will be a campaign to desecrate as many of these fucking crackers as possible, just as many newspapers deliberately printed Mohammed cartoons after the cartoon scandal broke. They did it to thumb their noses at Islamic fundamentalism; how can we expect any less from people who keep calling themselves defenders of "freedom"?




*Surlethe, this is directly applicable to your argument about deliberately inciting religious anger

Conclusion: you're an asshole?

On the one hand, I think this situation is different from the Mohammed pictures because this involves directly going into a Catholic place intending to piss of Catholics, instead of mocking them from afar. On the other hand, I am not sure that if this (apparent) distinction were removed in the Mohammed scandal, my reaction there would have been different (thanks, Titty), so I'll cede the point. There's also the fact that Catholics are being giant assholes about it, which kind of removes any inhibiting sympathy.

[Keevan_Colton]

There was a thread a while back about a company in Quebec that makes these wafers for the church getting threatened with all sorts of stuff by the catholic church because they were selling them as snacks.

As for the truck full of jesus thing, the catholic dogma is that it isnt actually the body of christ until the priest says the magic words, until then it's a really crappy cracker.

I had to suffer through a catholic upbringing so I know exactly how stupid most of it is. I still think he should have stolen it to take to a lab and have tested to annoy them further.

[FSTargetDrone]

As for the truck full of jesus thing, the catholic dogma is that it isnt actually the body of christ until the priest says the magic words, until then it's a really crappy cracker.

I had to suffer through a catholic upbringing so I know exactly how stupid most of it is. I still think he should have stolen it to take to a lab and have tested to annoy them further.

No, it's still a really crappy cracker. It just happens to be instantly Made Of Jesus.

And as far as taking it to a lab, well, that's clearly not going to work! It's going to look just like a wafer at the microscopic level, except, you know, Jesus!

Also, before you try it, you should know that in blind taste tests, 4 out of 5 believers can't tell which is the Eucharist and which is the unconsecrated wafer.

[Mange]

No, Lutherans rejects transubstantiation (and thus don't believe that the bread and wine changes their nature as Catholics do). However, you're right in that the bread and wine still is the body and blood according to Lutherans.

Are you splitting microscopically fine hairs, or is that statement just flat-out contradictory?

No, my point (or clarification rather) was that Lutherans not only aren't using the term transubstantiation, they flatly rejects it and do not believe that the wine and bread changes into the actual blood and body of Jesus Christ, but that those elements still are present in them. It was confusing in school and it was even more confusing during the confirmation instructions.

[Morilore]

No, my point (or clarification rather) was that Lutherans not only aren't using the term transubstantiation, they flatly rejects it and do not believe that the wine and bread changes into the actual blood and body of Jesus Christ, but that those elements still are present in them. It was confusing in school and it was even more confusing during the confirmation instructions.

In other words, Catholics believe it physically is his flesh, even though it has all the properties of bread and wine, and Protestants believe it is bread and wine with a magic buff. Right?

[Mange]

Yes, that is quite right.

[Cecelia5578]

No, Lutherans rejects transubstantiation (and thus don't believe that the bread and wine changes their nature as Catholics do). However, you're right in that the bread and wine still is the body and blood according to Lutherans.

Are you splitting microscopically fine hairs, or is that statement just flat-out contradictory?

No, Lutherans believe they are consuming the Body and Blood of Christ, its just that they don't really use Catholic theology to reach that conclusion, and, rather, the term you more often see is consubstantiation, rather than transubstantiation.

[Mange]

Consubstantiation isn't part of Lutheran theology (the sacramental union on the other hand is) and Lutherans don't believe that the bread changes nature and physically becomes the body of Jesus Christ nor that the blood changes its nature and physically becomes the blood of Jesus Christ.

[General Zod]

Consubstantiation isn't part of Lutheran theology (the sacramental union on the other hand is) and Lutherans don't believe that the bread changes nature and physically becomes the body of Jesus Christ nor that the blood changes its nature and physically becomes the blood of Jesus Christ.

So that just makes them symbolic cannibals?

[Gandalf]

Consubstantiation isn't part of Lutheran theology (the sacramental union on the other hand is) and Lutherans don't believe that the bread changes nature and physically becomes the body of Jesus Christ nor that the blood changes its nature and physically becomes the blood of Jesus Christ.

So that just makes them symbolic cannibals?

According to a missionary to whom I once spoke about this very thing, it's not cannibalism because it's living flesh. So I guess it's symbolic assault.

[Mange]

Consubstantiation isn't part of Lutheran theology (the sacramental union on the other hand is) and Lutherans don't believe that the bread changes nature and physically becomes the body of Jesus Christ nor that the blood changes its nature and physically becomes the blood of Jesus Christ.

So that just makes them symbolic cannibals?

Not really, Lutherans maintain that the body and blood of Christ exists together with the bread and wine, as opposed to Catholics who believes that the bread and wine transforms entirely into the actual physical body of Christ.

IIRC, another difference is that Lutherans believes that the presence of Christ disappears once the liturgy is finished and bread which is left over can be used again.