More on the Desecration of the Eucharist

7/12/2008
Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights (www.catholicleague.org/)

Bill Donahue responds to the Professor, an anti-Catholic bigot, who solicited consecrated hosts in order to desecrate them.

NEW YORK, NY (Catholic League) - Yesterday, Catholic League president Bill Donohue issued a news release calling attention to the plea that Paul Zachary Myers made on his blog.

He solicited the Communion Host for the express purpose of desecrating it. Donohue now responds to the reaction he has received from the University of Minnesota Morris professor, as well as others:

�Myers went on Houston radio station KPFT last night saying that Bill Donohue has �declared a fatwa� against him. He should know better�I don�t need others to do the fighting for me. I�m quite good at it myself. But he�d better be careful what he says, because if I get any death threats, it won�t be hard to connect the dots.

�Myers, who claims expertise in studying zebrafish, has quite a following among the King Kong Theory of Creation gang. Indeed, we�ve been inundated with hate mail from all over the world, and it all stems from those whose alleged god is reason.

�As a result of the hysteria that Myers� ilk have promoted, at least one public official is taking it seriously.

"Thomas E. Foley is chairman of Virginia�s First Congressional District Republican Committee, a delegate to the Republican National Convention and one of two Republican at large nominees for Virginia�s Electoral College.

"His concern is for the safety of Catholics attending this year�s Republican National Convention in Minneapolis, Myers� backyard.

"Accordingly, Foley has asked the top GOP brass to provide additional security while in the Twin Cities so that Catholics can worship without fear of violence. Given the vitriol we have experienced for simply exercising our First Amendment right to freedom of speech, we support Foley�s request.

�We already know that Myers lost one round: the university has removed the link to his blog from his faculty page. He should be prepared to lose a few more rounds.

"By the way, Myers says he is delighted to have finally garnered my attention. Too bad I can�t say the same�I never heard of the guy until yesterday.�

- - -

The Catholic League is the nation's largest Catholic civil rights organization. Founded in 1973 by the late Father Virgil C. Blum, S.J., the Catholic League defends the right of Catholics � lay and clergy alike � to participate in American public life without defamation or discrimination. It is led by its' President, William A. Donohue, Ph.D.

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1 - 10 of 11 Comments

Marie
4 years ago
That professor needs to say openly to the Muslim what he did to the Koran and we will see how brave he is.
Rasu Gentry
4 years ago
Sad to say that it's not Bill Donahue getting death threats but the other way around. So much for followers of Christ being peaceful. One woman has already lost her job over threats sent to the professor. Who's next?
Mick
4 years ago
The answer to that, Jeff, is that they do not. Pharyngula is Myers' private blog. It's hosted independently of the university and he doesn't receive a cent of taxpayer money for its upkeep.
rafaelmarie
4 years ago
It just goes to show you, that if the human race was presented with another situation in whether or not they would crucify (desecrate) Jesus again, they would.
julian
4 years ago
Christ said that out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. The fact that this hate-monger Myers and his wretched defenders not only pour out their vile and banal hate speech, but revel in the spewing of their venomous verbiage like a sow wallowing in muck, so plainly reveals the blackness of the depths of their hearts. What a pathetic crew - they are perhaps good candidates for some form of professional help.
Joe
4 years ago
Does Donahue have something against end quotations (See the end of paragraphs 3-9)?
Ivan
4 years ago
...and, just to show that I should reread what I'm posting this close to midnight, the students's last name is not Connor but Cook. Mea culpa.
Ivan
4 years ago
Ah yes, forgot to address your comment, Mr. Johnson - no, Professor Myers does not single out Catholicism. The research isn't that hard to do =) - read over his site at http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/ and you'll see that he doesn't pass up an opportunity to lampoon non-Christian religions when their adherents do something to merit that sort of attention. As for this particular "defilement", he is protesting the threats on the life of a student who took a host home instead of eating it - I sincerely hope that your moral compass is straight enough to see that the death threats are the far more heinous offense.
Ivan
4 years ago
I don't expect this site to be impartial, but surely you can do better than merely recycling Bill Donahue's press release? At the very least mention, to contrast with his poor-victim stance of "if I get death threats, I can connect the dots", the fact that Connor and Myers have been getting death threats all along.

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/ - get both sides of the story.
Horse-Pheathers
4 years ago
As a reader of Professor Myers' personal blog, Pharyngula, I've read the original post where the threat to desecrate the Eucharist was made and, taken in context, it appears more satire than serious threat. Outraged that such a furor should arise over Webster Cook's actions in removing a Eucharist wafer from a Catholic service (I can't say "stealing", because the wafer was freely given to him), Professor Myers appears to have been attempting to drive home how ludicrous the reaction of many Catholics looks from the perspective of one who does not share Catholic beliefs by saying, in effect, "They think taking the wafer out of the church was something to get worked up over? Pah, I'll show you what real desecration looks like."

I don't believe he was initially serious in seeking the Eucharist to desecrate, but now that he has received death threats over these remarks plus been subjected to attempts to remove him from his job -- including dishonest attempts to link remarks made on his personal log with abuse of his position and resources at UM Morris -- I'm not so sure. How would you react to death threats over what you perceive to be just a "cracker"?

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