Notes from Evil Bender

As most of my readers have no doubt seen already, Bill Donohue, professional bully and a man so arrogant that he would have us believe his pathetic wingnut group dedicated to advancing a far-right agenda somehow speaks for Catholics in general, is doing his damndest to get PZ Myers fired for daring to say something Donohue didn’t like.

I’ve already taken a moment to write the President of the University of Minnesota to express my support for PZ’s right to voice his own opinion on his personal blog–a blog that is not affiliated with his university in any way. I’ve also politely suggested that institutions of higher education should value free speech far more than the demands of bullies.

But PZ and others have covered all this in detail. I’d like like to make one observation about the original story that set this off, where a parishoner recieved death threats after daring to take a communion wafer out of mass, instead of consuming it there.

In a statement that should deeply embarrass reasonable Catholics everywhere,* the local diocese responded:

“We don’t know 100% what Mr. Cooks motivation was,” said Susan Fani a spokesperson with the local Catholic diocese.  “However, if anything were to qualify as a hate crime, to us this seems like this might be it.”

I mean what I’m about to say in all seriousness. There are two opposing positions on what that wafer is: it might be just a cracker or, as Catholics believe, it could be the Body of Christ. If it’s the former, then clearly it cannot be a hate crime to take a cracker with you. If it is the latter, then I have one very simple question for Catholics: given that you claim to believe that Jesus is the all-powerful, all-knowing Lord of the Universe, do you really think he needs you to claim people are committing hate crimes against him? Surely if the host is what you say it is, then the offense is not to the Church, but to Jesus. And surely he’s capable of handling that on his own.

I’ve read the Bible, and I know that Jesus didn’t advocate death threats and attacks on those who you disagree with. I know what the instructions he was recorded as giving his disciples before he ascended, and it didn’t say anything about aggressively persecuting those who smuggle crackers.

Those of you Catholics who respond this way–the Donohues of the world–you seem to not believe what you claim you believe. The God of Creation surely does not need you to defend his Body. Surely he can do that himself. If Jesus is who you say he is, then you are surely acting against his own commandments. Jesus said the Meek will inherit the Earth. He said if anyone slaps you on one cheek, you should turn to him the other also. He said you should love your neighbor as yourself. Those commandments are not exactly mysterious, so why do you act in a way that surely violates the words of your God?

Sincerely,

EB

*And there are a lot of them. While I’ve made no effort to hide my contempt for the current Pope and my dislike of organized religion, I have dear friends who are Catholic. We don’t agree on matters of religion, but they’re reasonable people, unlike Donohue and his crowd. This isn’t about PZ’s atheism vs religion–it’s about free speech vs some Catholics’ intellectual thuggery.