Wild Bill Donohue of Catholic League fame is beside himself with Holy Rage after a Florida college student removed a biscuit from an Orlando church and "held it hostage" in a ziploc bag for a week.
A spokesperson for the local diocese compared Webster Cook's move to a "hate crime," but Wild Bill Donohue said it was "beyond hate speech" and indeed, he could barely imagine "anything more vile."
Apparently Wild Bill Donohue is serious. What's hard to imagine is anything more patently ridiculous than not being able to imagine anything more vile than removing a biscuit from a church.
Meanwhile, irreligious rabble rouser and blogger PZ Myers has requested of readers to "score [him] some consecrated communion wafers," which he promises to "treat with profound disrespect" and photograph the results for publication.
Myers is receiving death threats (again), and Wild Bill is trying to get him fired from the University of Minnesota. Over a biscuit.
I may send a little note to UM's president Robert Bruininks.
It's the yeast I could do.
July 10, 2008
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Wild Bill Donohue of Catholic League fame
Geez what wildly unfair guilt by association. Can't you see that the Catholic League is a third party in the dispute between its president and Myers?
It's sorta like blaming Texaco for selling gasoline in Montgomery, Alabama. Or a Lithuanian shower curtain supplier for doing business in Israel. Or an itinerant organ grinder for off-hour lewd acts by his White-throated Capuchin at the Failsworth Millinery.
And let's not even get into the implicit slight to the Church itself, which is to Donohue as I am to my father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate.
It's the yeast I could do.
Sorry, but you won't get a rise out of me with that.
a Lithuanian shower curtain supplier ...
Ha. Yeah, I lost track of that whole mess ages ago. You're right, by the way, Prof. Schweber inaptly introduced antique labor law into the equation initially and that discussion has since spun far, far away from the point.
you won't get a rise out of me
Come on, it took me eleaven minutes to think that up.
Come on, it took me eleaven minutes to think that up.
And at lawyer's rates, that would be a nice little bit of dough.
Bun, you'll have to excuse me, I've gotta roll now.
It's been a slice, you crusty dog.
that discussion has since spun far, far away from the point
A paranoiac would suspect that was the intention. But I'm no cynic. I have full faith in my fellow men.
I've got to say, I'm a bit disappointed. Obviously you don't think much of the Catholic belief of the Sacrament of Communion, but I don't see a shred of respect in your commentary. PZ Myers, I can't say I'm much surprised. He's a stupid fuck. On the other hand, I guess I should be happy that at the very least, you're not acting like him.
Both of them are completely over the top, if you ask me, but especially Donohue.
I understand the consecrated wafer is a powerful symbol for Catholics but if he can't imagine anything more vile than a predictable gadfly pledging to disrespect it, then he hasn't been paying attention.
This is the same Bill Donohue, incidentally, who defended Dennis Prager's attack on Rep. Keith Ellison for swearing his oath of office on a Koran, insisting that Ellison was obligated to use a Bible instead, according to some imaginary rule.
Where was Donohue's respect for religious symbolism then? If he expects deference to his religious symbols then he owes as much to the competition.
And no, I wouldn't dream of reproducing Myers's antics, whatever he's intending to do.
By the way, I remember when I was a kid somebody broke into the local sacristy, stole a bag of wafers, and dumped it all over the parking lot.
For what it's worth, I consider that to be pretty appalling behavior, whether the wafers are consecrated or not.
For what it's worth, I consider that to be pretty appalling behavior, whether the wafers are consecrated or not.
For what it's worth, I appreciate it.
As I stated in my own blog, the whole situation started out as unfortunate. The student didn't appear to be malicious, just misguided. The response to his actions was worse. Though, if I have read things correctly ... this kid in Central Florida was a student government official. As such, he should have had a few more brains before he went and did something stupid. Then again, maybe he has shown he is well-suited for political life in America.
I don't agree with the death threats for anyone. I don't agree with the attempts to get PZ Myers removed from his job for his incredibly idiotic stance. I wouldn't say I keep up with the goings on at the Catholic League, but if Mr. Donohue is being hypocritical, I can say it doesn't look good for him or his organization.
What I do agree with, is having the link to Pharyngula removed from the University of Minnesota Morris removed. As of this morning, that has happened, and as far as I am concerned, that's well enough for me. I don't think his students, going to a link from the university website, should be subjected (without warning that it will probably contain opinions which may be found offensive) to his anti-religious, anti-Catholic screed. Since that's been addressed, I'm satisified.
What TJ said.
this kid in Central Florida was a student government official. As such, he should have had a few more brains before he went and did something stupid. Then again, maybe he has shown he is well-suited for political life in America.
Some day I will tell the story of the student at my college who was elected student government president--by a massive, massive landslide--on the one-item platform of dissolving the student government.
Myers published some of his e-mail. It's actually mostly fairly restrained. I liked this one the best (although I didn't read them all):
"You have asked your readers to provide you with communion wafers for the purpose of "show[ing] you sacrilege, gladly, and with much fanfare." I readily concede that it is extremely strange, even a little creepy, to believe that a wafer is in a real sense God, and yet that is what I do believe. I have no objection to your jokes and satirical remarks -- they're not much different from what Protestants have been saying for five hundred years, and indeed what Berengar of Tours said in the eleventh century. However, I do ask you this: that you not actually carry out your plan. I wouldn't ordinarily make such a request of a stranger, but the thing can hardly matter to you one way or the other -- as you put it, it's a cracker -- and it does matter to me. I have tried to find an analogy to explain my request and this is the best I can do: you might be entirely right that an old rag is worthless and should be thrown out, yet, if that rag were a small child's security blanket, I doubt you would do so, to spare the child's feelings. I put myself in the place of that child, and ask: Please don't. I'm not asking for respect, only for a small kindness of omission: not trampling feelings for the sake of the trampling."
Good for whomever that was.
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