'Host desecration' charges (such as against PZ Myers) have a long association with anti-Semitism

[BurtWorm]

According to Wikipedia (hat tip to Ophelia Benson of Butterflies and Wheels):


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Host_desecration

Examples

The first recorded accusation was made in 1243 at Berlitz, near Berlin. As a consequence all the Jews of Berlitz were burned on the spot, which was subsequently called Judenberg. Another famous case that took place in 1290, in Paris, was commemorated in the Church of the Rue des Billettes and in a local confraternity. In 1370 in Brussels, the charge of host desecration, long celebrated in a special fest and depicted in artistic relics in the Church of St. Gudule, led to the extermination of the Jews of the city. The case of 1337, at Deggendorf, still celebrated locally as "Deggendorf Gnad", led to a series of massacres across the region. In 1510, at Knoblauch, near Berlin, 38 Jews were executed and more expelled from Brandenburg. The alleged host desecration in 1410, at Segovia, was said to have brought about an earthquake, and as a result, the local synagogue was confiscated and leading Jews were executed; the event continues to be celebrated as a local feast of Corpus Christi. Similar accusations, resulting in extensive persecution of Jews, were brought forward in 1294, at Laa, Austria; 1298, at Röttingen, near Würzburg, and at Korneuburg, near Vienna; 1299, at Ratisbon; 1306, at St. Pölten; 1325, at Cracow; 1330, at Güstrow; 1338, at Pulkau; 1388, at Prague; 1399, at Posen; 1401, at Glogau; 1420, at Ems; 1453, at Breslau; 1478, at Passau; 1492, at Sternberg, in Mecklenburg-Schwerin; 1514, at Mittelberg, in Alsace; 1558, at Sochaczew, in Poland. The last Jew burned for stealing a host died in 1631, according to Jacques Basnage, quoting from Manasseh b. Israel. Casimir IV. of Poland (1447).<1>

A scene in Paolo Uccello's Corpus Domini predella (1465-1468), set in a Jewish pawnbroker's home. Blood in the background emanates from the host, which the moneylender has attempted to cook, and seeps under the door. The Jew's family look on in terror as soldiers beat in the door.
A scene in Paolo Uccello's Corpus Domini predella (1465-1468), set in a Jewish pawnbroker's home. Blood in the background emanates from the host, which the moneylender has attempted to cook, and seeps under the door. The Jew's family look on in terror as soldiers beat in the door.

The accusation of host desecration gradually ceased after the Reformation when first Martin Luther in 1523 and then Sigismund August of Poland in 1558 were among those who repudiated the accusation. However, sporadic instances of host desecration libel occurred even in the 18th and 19th century. In 1761 in Nancy, several Jews from Alsace were executed on a charge of host desecration. The last recorded accusation was brought up in Bislad, Romania, in 1836.<1>

On July 7th, 2008 FOX NEWS reported<8> claims of UCF student Webster Cook receiving death threats over smuggling a Eucharist out of a catholic church. Consequently the story was picked up by PZ Myers on his blog Pharyngula<9> who as a response to the accusations against Mr. Cook considered committing host desecrations himself. As a response to that posting the Catholic League have expressed the hope that "those who have oversight responsibility act quickly and decisively" and has asked their followers to email the president of the University of Minnesota Morris<10>.

[struggle4progress]

1. Myers wrote: "score me some consecrated communion wafers .. and .. I’ll show you sacrilege .. and ..

will .. treat it with profound disrespect"

(See the OP http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=214x178211)

I think that perhaps Myers' unpleasantness has addled your brain: Myers wrote some nasty crap -- because he wants attention and thinks he's being cute by offending people who have done him no harm

He got caught. So now you want to defend him by suggesting that criticism of Myers is somehow linked to antisemitism?

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. Well, there's at least one nutter who thinks this way:

Once a Lutheran altar boy, University of Minnesota biology professor Morris P.Z. Myers has fallen from grace -- at least in the eyes of some Catholics and the conservative Catholic League. One of the more prominent atheist voices in America, Myers wrote a blog post on the furor sparked by a Florida college student who smuggled a communion wafer out of mass and, once found out, received threats of harm and death. Catholics believe the bread, once blessed by a priest, has been transformed into the substance of Christ's body and blood. Myers doesn't buy it. He wrote that if readers of his blog send him a consecrated host, "I'll show you sacrilege, gladly, and with much fanfare."

I reached him this morning to discuss the controversy that has resulted in several thousand comments at his blog -- some calling him a "Jewboy," others announcing his need for prayer, and still others calling for his death.
...
" Constantine's Sword is a book (and now a documentary) written by James Carroll, a former Catholic priest. It's a personal history of the unpleasant history of the church and anti-semitism, and shows that Catholicism has benefited from fueling an image of itself as always threatened by unbelievers -- Jews, Muslims, Satanists, atheists -- and that this reliance on hatred of the other has damaged the virtue of the faith. (Carroll is still a devout Catholic -- he just deplores the distortion of a message of love into a message of fear and hate.) The idea that Jews, for instance, want to steal consecrated wafers as an element of evil Jewish rites has been circulated fairly often, as a preliminary rationalization for oppression.

Curiously, many (but still a minority) of the email messages I have received have 'accused' me of being Jewish, addressing me as "jew boy" or "liberal pinko jew.""

http://minnesotaindependent.com/view/mnindy-interview

[struggle4progress]

5. It cannot escape your attention that the probative value, of your retort, is slight

DUers should understand perfectly well the limitations of anonymous internet postings. The jackass comments, which you cite as evidence, might come from any number of sources: dysfunctional idiots merely seeking a reaction, demented extremists of uncertain affiliation who imagine they can precipitate some great riot, supporters of Myers who think such comments contribute to their cause, and so on and so on -- one simply does not know

Rather more than that, I think the retort fails to take into account that Myers openly sets out to insult and antagonize people, by advocating desecration of communion wafers, whereas

... of course ... Jews did not steal the sacramental bread ... In .. fact, Jews were only too aware of the danger which the accusation carried
http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/paper/klier.html

This strategy, of linking Myers; offer to desecrate communion wafers with medieval traditions, is as politically motivated as Myers' original desecration offer -- but it seems historically sloppy. If one is really interested to learn from the history of host-desecration legends, it is necessary to examine that history in some detail -- and not to confuse it with dishonest parallels.

When medieval claims of desecration are examined in context, the stories may reveal motives other than mere superstition. Consider, for example, the 1298 massacres around Röttingen: these occurred in the midst of a civil war between supporters of Adolph of Nassau and of Albrecht of Austria for the crown. In this context, the knight Rindfleish ("Sir Beef," sometimes alleged to be a butcher by trade) led groups that apparently exterminated between 10,000 and 100,000 of the non-Christian population. Whatever traditional excuse was given for those massacres, the farmland left vacant by the murders certainly served as a rewarding bounty for somebody. And in fact, it is sometimes alleged that Rindfleish himself had simply found it expedient to murder his creditors
See:
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?letter=R&artid=301
http://www.hadassah.org/news/content/per_hadassah/archive/2002/JunJul_02/traveler.htm

Dishonest political intrigues, for example, may have motivated some of the accusations:

Gentile Tales: The Narrative Assault on Late Medieval Jews. - Review - book review
New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1999. Pp. xiii + 266. $30.00 cloth

Elisa Narin van Court
Criticism, Spring, 2000

... In one of her most compelling examples, Rubin demonstrates how dynastic tensions and familial relations between King Peter III of Catalonia-Aragon and his son John (the Infant) frame two host desecration accusations (Barcelona 1367, Huesca 1377). Rubin suggests that John's "attempt to assert autonomy in areas under his rule was tested in the host desecration accusations brought by him against his father's Jews" (109). Following the trajectory of events and correspondence that Rubin lays out, readers cannot help but be convinced that there were serious royal doubts concerning the Infant's actions and investigations in both the Barcelona and Huesca cases. Indeed, the King writes that the Barcelona case was "ill foundedo and demands that "all accusations in the Huesca case be dropped since they had been made out of `hatred and ill will'" (113). At the King's request, his son's investigations are examined by the royal council and the extent to which the King contests the accusations clearly demonstrates the fallibility of these narratives' powers of persuasion ...

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2220/is_2_42/ai_68364668/pg_1?tag=artBody;col1

Similarly, the Urbino altar (a retelling of the 1290 Paris tale) may serve political purposes:

The contours of tolerance: Jews and the Corpus Domini Altarpiece in Urbino

... Uccello's predella is particularly unusual because it represents the story of Jewish host desecration in a country in which such accusations historically are not documented ...

... the Corpus Domini Altarpiece represents Duke Federigo's policy on Jews. The altarpiece worked to mollify the Christian community's fear of external threats, specifically, the threatened invasion of Ottoman Turks, by turning attention to its internal adversary, the local Jews. The altarpiece's message served the duke's political interests by portraying the city purged of those elements overtly hostile to the Christian faith, thus reassuring the populace of their security, while simultaneously reinforcing Christian unity through the vilification of Jews ...

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0422/is_4_85/ai_111738112/pg_1?tag=artBody;col1

[Az]

3. It seemed more a reaction to the extremism of the Church's reaction

The original incident is pretty mind numbingly obscene harckoning back to the days of host desecration charges. Death threats and all manner of threats were lobbed at the student in question. Myers reaction was to the situation and it is understandable. Charges of kidnapping and worse were being tossed about. And he just retaliated with threats against what he sees as a cracker. I think it is a bit unreasonable to try to equate his actions as being on par with the Church's and others. Person =/= Cracker.

[beam me up scottie]

4. That's it exactly, PZ's actions were a reaction to the insanity of the first "hostage" incident.

And the catholic league and other fundamentalist whack jobs are just proving his point.

"kidnapping" a freakin cracker...:banghead:

[TZ]

6. But Meyers is just an unpleasant atheist

and therefore his life is accorded less stature than a holy cracker..I think the death threats proove that point nicely.

[beam me up scottie]

9. Off with his head!

[struggle4progress]

8. "Ship of fools, sail away from me!"

Frankly, the whole story is mind-numbing. The kid can't tell a coherent story about what he intended: sometimes, he's protesting the use of university student fees; other times, he's merely showing the wafer to his friend. The local Catholic group and he threaten complaints against each other, for disrupting a service or for assault. Then Donohue and his rightwing noise-makers step up to the plate and take a swing at turning the whole sorry thing into a national issue. Myers can't resist a dungheap when he finds one, so he dumps his load there too. Medieval anti-semitism enters only because somebody can't resist stirring a steaming shitpot

I would slave to learn the way to sink your ship of fools

Ship of fools on a cruel sea
Ship of fools, sail away from me!

[Meshuga]

11. Medieval anti-semitism enters the scene to remind us that

if we had no laws (or proper law enforcement) to stop the angry mob, Myers and the Kid would be as dead as fried chicken.

[beam me up scottie]

12. Really? Did you forget that catholics were willing to kill their own over a Chocolate Jesus?

Up until a kid held a cracker "hostage", old Billy Boy thought My Sweet Lord was "one of the worst assaults on Christian sensibilities ever."

Cosimo Cavallaro is catholic and he wasn't the only one to receive death threats over the sculpture.

Please keep defending the thugs, though, the longer Donahue and his witch hunting ilk are in the spotlight the better.

[varkam]

7. He got caught...

calling out ridiculous bullshit for what it was: ridiculous bullshit. I do not mean to say that the idea of transubstantiation is ridiculous bullshit (though it is), but rather that the reaction of people to the "hostage taking" incident was ridiculous bullshit. Myers' merely pointed that out and, in doing so, inspired the wrath of Billy boy. Donahue, in turn, took to teh internets and demanded action in his own prevaricating way by somehow suggesting that there be a reprisal by Myer's employer for expressing himself on a personal website.

That we live in a time whenever Donahue's righteous indignation is invoked and we're all supposed to fall in line reminds me of a great quote:

It is hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by lightning

[and-justice-for-all]

10. HEY!!

You gonna eat that cracker?:9

[Goblinmonger]

13. What exactly did he "get caught" doing?

Not showing due reverence for a ridiculous ritual that he does not believe in? Bad Myers. Bad atheist. Bad. Bad. Bad.

Just so I can remember this for future discussions, you are coming down on the side of the Catholic League in this PZ Myers vs Catholic League thing?