PZ Myers Could Get His Own National Day of Prayer

In a continuation of the communion wafer desecration saga, the Catholic news organization Zenit.org is reporting that the Confraternity of Catholic Clergy, an association of Catholic Priests and Deacons based in Chicago IL, is proposing a national day of prayer and fasting for Friday, August 1 in "reparation for the sacrilegious desecration of the Holy Eucharist," committed by Dr. Myers. The Confraternity claims Myers' treatment of the communion wafer goes way beyond the bounds of free speech and enters the territory of unconstitutionality. From the article:

"The statement of the Confraternity of Catholic Clergy said it found the actions of Myers 'reprehensible, inexcusable, and unconstitutional. His flagrant display of irreverence by profaning a consecrated Host from a Catholic Church goes beyond the limit of academic freedom and free speech. Attacking the most sacred elements of a religion is not free speech anymore than would be perjury in a court or libel in a newspaper,' added the text."

As Dr. Myers writes, the Confraternity really has no write to declare something unconstitutional. Of course they can say it all they want, but that does not change the nature of the action. Which, Myers writes, was an act of irreverence aimed at a religious tradition. Something the Constitution clearly protects.

Quoted from the Confraternity's official statement:

"The freedom of religion means that no one has the right to attack, malign or grossly offend a faith tradition they personally do not have membership or ascribe allegiance."

Yeah, not really. No one in the United States has the write to not be offended. That's what the freedom of speech means: it protects any speech that even the majority of people might find grossly offensive. By the Confraternity's logic, only Catholics can "attack, malign or grossly offend" there own doctrine. Dr. Myers is in no way stopping Catholics from practicing their faith. What the Confraternity doesn't seem to realize is that freedom of religion, as guaranteed by the Constitution, implies freedom from religion.

The statement claims that Dr. Myers, as a biology professor, has no right to do what he did:

"The Chancellor of the University refused to reprimand or censure the teacher, who ironically is a Biology Professor. One fails to see the relevance of the desecration of a Catholic sacrament to the science of Biology. Were Myers a Professor of Theology, there would have been at least a presumption of competency to express religious opinions in a classroom. Yet, for a scientist to ridicule and show utter contempt for the most sacred and precious article of a major world religion, is inappropriate, unprofessional, unconstitutional and disingenuous."

Dr. Myer's responds:

"Ummm, I don't discuss religion in the classroom. I teach biology. My 'desecration' was performed at home, on my own time. There's nothing ironic about the fact that I'm a biologist, nor did I claim my profession gave me special qualifications to see through the foolishness of faith. Go ahead, any of you can do it — you don't need to be a theologian to see that it is just a cracker."

The statement also confuses what Dr. Myers does with his personal time with his behavior in the classroom:

"A biologist has no business 'dissing' any religion, rather, they should be busy teaching the scientific discipline they were hired to teach. Tolerating such behavior by university officials is equally repugnant as it lends credibility to the act of religious hatred. We also pray that Professor Myers contritely repent and apologize."

I feel I must quote Dr. Myers directly here, so I don't misrepresent anything he says:

"As for the idea that I'm supposed to be teaching biology 24-7…what, I can't have a hobby? I can tell you that when I try to tell my wife late evening on Wednesday night that I can't take out the trash because I'm too busy teaching biology, well, that excuse won't fly very far."

The funniest bit about this whole business, to me at least, is that the Confraternity seems to be playing directly into Dr. Myers' hands; not that I think he was planning to make such ruckus with his "desecration." However, by blowing this whole thing way out of proportion, the Confraternity is just demonstrating to the world (to Dr. Myers' readers at least) the absurdity of the communion wafer's sacred status against which Dr. Myers railed in the first place. By calling for a national day of prayer because a biology professor threw a cracker in the garbage, the Confraternity is locking in the value of the communion wafer to anyone else who wishes to profane it. Establishing the holiness of an object only makes that object more attractive to those who wish to cause a stir by desecrating it. It's a bit like making some words taboo. The more the words are censored, the more people who want to cause a sensation will use them. The Confraternity is doing the Catholic Church no favors by treating Dr. Myers' actions in this way. The smart thing to do would have been to declare the action something Catholics should not do, and leave it at that.

Cracker Desecrated, As Promised

I actually have a fellow blogger writing from Blogger.com to thank for bringing this item to my attention (his blog, incidentally, can be found here).

Readers of my blog may remember a brief post of mine roughly two weeks back telling of a college student in Florida causing a huge dust up among Catholics because he carried a communion wafer out of a Catholic mass uneaten. This story was written about beautifully by PZ Myers at his blog Pharyngula.

After Dr. Myers railed against the absurdity of it all and asked his readers to send him some communion wafers so he could do some desecrating of his own, the angry e-mails from irate Christians began to pour in. Dr. Myers dedicated an entire post to all the holier-than-thou vitriol seeping out of his inbox.

Well, Dr. Myers made good on his promise to disrespect his own personal piece of Jesus. He writes first of the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 in which the doctrine that only Catholic priests could handle the Eucharist was set down. he then goes on to quote from representative hate mail he has received from angry Catholics, a few of which threaten violence against him and his family. Dr. Myers shows no fear in the face of these zealots while pointing out some incredible hypocrisies in a few of the quoted e-mails. He ends his post with a beautifully written paragraph decrying the desire to hold anything sacred and a picture of a communion wafer with a nail driven through in his garbage can, alongside pages from both the Qur'an and The God Delusion. The paragraph I feel I must quote here; if only for the purpose of expressing my jealousy of not having written something like that myself.

"Nothing must be held sacred. Question everything. God is not great, Jesus is not your lord, you are not disciples of any charismatic prophet. You are all human beings who must make your way through your life by thinking and learning, and you have the job of advancing humanity's knowledge by winnowing out the errors of past generations and finding deeper understanding of reality. You will not find wisdom in rituals and sacraments and dogma, which build only self-satisfied ignorance, but you can find truth by looking at your world with fresh eyes and a questioning mind."

Making Fun of the Pope Not Illegal in Australia

Since I have some time on my hands before my flight this morning, I figured I'd write about this story I just found from The National Post.

A federal court in Sydney ruled yesterday that laws enacted to prevent protesters from "annoying" Catholic protesters were unconstitutional. The laws were put in place to prevent protesters demonstrating against Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Sydney to celebrate World Youth Day, which is the Catholic church's largest youth festival aimed at attracting more young people to Catholicism.

"Under the laws, protesters could be arrested or fined A$5,500 (US$5,340) for wearing anti-Catholic T-shirts or for handing out condoms in protest at church doctrine on sex and marriage. Civil liberties leaders said the laws stifled freedom of speech and were open to abuse by police who were mounting an Olympic-style security operation for the papal visit."

"'We now have a lot more confidence to take to the streets to condemn Pope Benedict's policies against condom use, against contraception, against homosexuality,' Rachel Evans from the 'No Pope' group which challenged the laws."

"Evans said 'No Pope' protesters welcomed young Catholics in Sydney, but would hand them coathangers to protest against backyard abortions, condoms to promote safe sex, and stickers with gay themes to promote the rights of homosexuals."

It's a little disheartening to find out that Australia would make such protests illegal in the first place, especially when the statistics about Catholicism in Australia given by the article are considered:

"In Australia, home to the world's biggest gay and lesbian mardi gras and where abortion and stem cell research is legal, the Catholic church's teachings often fall on deaf ears. Some 5 million Australians describe themselves as Catholic, but less than one million attend Sunday mass and the number may have dropped to about 100,000 in the past 5 years."

Why even try to make something illegal about which so many people are obviously going to be angry? But, all's well that ends well I suppose. The above statistics are obviously the reason for the pope's visit to Sydney in the first place.

In a laughable attempt to make Catholicism "cool," the pope sent text messages to thousands of Catholic pilgrims in Sydney on Tuesday, urging them to renew their faith. The text message read:

"Young friend, God and his people expect much from u because u have within you the Fathers supreme gift: the Spirit of Jesus - BXVI."

Really, Pope Benny? I don't think abbreviating "you" to "u" in classic text message short hand is going to do Catholicism as a whole any good. If anything, it makes the pope look like the elderly uncle trying desperately to convince his nieces and nephews of his street cred. I mean come on, he didn't even do it on ever instance of "you." The least he could have done was be consistent. Fortunately, the Holy Father avoided further embarrassment by referring to Jesus as "JC," although I guarantee you that idea was thrown around the Vatican. It probably seemed too "gangsta" for the Catholic church. The last thing they want would be for Jesus to be associated with bitches and hoes; other than Mary Magdalene that is.

Catholics Threaten a Student With Death Because of A Cracker

I know I just wrote a post about how I won't be able to post in the next few days, but this story is just too good to pass up. I don't really have the time to present one of my usual summaries, but trust me, anything I write would not do PZ Myers writing style justice.

The story in question can be found here. Read it and wonder how far humans have truly come since the Dark Ages.

Also, you might want to check out Dr. Myers' post here to find out how many death threats he has personally received for daring to express his opinion about the above mentioned story. Apparently, it's a personal record for him.