of mountains, molehills, and misplaced "mea culpa"

Here’s a crazy story.

Summary: Webster Cook, a student at the University of Central Florida, violated Catholic church rules by failing to consume immediately his consecrated wafer. Church members tried to use physical force to take the wafer back, and Cook responded by running away – with the wafer in hand. There were complaints that he was holding the Body of Christ as a hostage.

Some people (such as Bill Donohue of the Catholic League) want Cook expelled from the university. His actions are worse than “hate speech”, according to Donohue. (As far as I know, the witch-hunt is continuing, even though Cook later returned the wafer.)

Now, let’s all calm down and get things into perspective. There is no persecution of Catholics going on here, no inciting of hatred, and no interference with anyone else’s ability to perform properly their own parts of the ritual. All we have here is a ritual gone awry, and only as it pertained to Webster Cook. Aside from offending people’s sensibilities, Cook’s actions did no harm. There is no “theft” here: Even if he had not returned the wafer, the church would not have been deprived of anything that it would normally be expected to possess. (After all, the wafer was given to Cook with the expectation that he would eat it.) And there is no mess to clean up, and therefore no vandalism. There’s also no need to worry about any harm suffered by God. (You’d think God could take care of himself.)

Notice that my arguments do not depend on contradicting Catholic theology. In fact, I agree with P Z Myers’s position (let’s not be silly here; it’s obviously just a cracker), but I have no need to base an argument on that.

I can understand a Catholic getting annoyed if another Catholic messes up their part in a ritual. But what’s the big deal if an outsider does it? If my brain is already full of blasphemous opinions (e.g., that your religion is silly), and I’m going to hell anyway (according to you), then how can it possibly matter if I get my hands on one of your consecrated wafers and do something naughty with it (like failing to eat it)?

That’s where things ought to end. I would like to be able to conclude thus: Catholics are no more affected by these events than they choose to be. There’s always the option to ignore Webster Cook, and forget that any of this happened. After all, you already knew that there are non-Catholics in this world, always saying and thinking things that any party-line Catholic would find offensive.

But it’s not that simple. I’ve left out the most disturbing part of the story.

(And no, I’m not talking about Myers’s response to the story, including his threat to deface a consecrated wafer, live on the web, if someone will send one to him. That’s a rather rude and unnecessary stunt, but it’s far less offensive than the Catholic League’s campaign to get him fired over it. Again, there’s always the option to ignore him.)

Go back to the original story (my first link above), written before the wafer was returned. Notice the words of the priest Miguel Gonzalez (emphasis added).

Gonzalez said intentionally abusing the Eucharist is classified as a mortal sin in the Catholic church, the most severe possible. If it's not returned, the community of faith will have to ask for forgiveness.

"We have to make acts of reparation," Gonzalez said. "The whole community is going to turn to prayer. We'll ask the Lord for pardon, forgiveness, peace, not only for the whole community affected by it, but also for [Cook], we offer prayers for him as well."

Holy smokes.

I can understand Catholics being annoyed at Webster Cook. But having the whole congregation wallow in guilt because of his actions? What on earth is that about?

It turns out that ordinary Catholics are victims in this story, after all. But not in the way that Bill Donohue suggests. They’re not victims of hate crimes; they’re victims of mind manipulation by their own clergy.

But I suppose that shouldn’t come as a surprise.