Day of Prayer

Today is the day to pray. And really, someone does need some praying.

A priest from Marysville, PA, Father Trigilio, is so incensed over the desecration of a communion wafer that he believes public reparation is required. And I'm not making this up. The Christian Newswire reports, Catholic Clergy Call for Reparation in Response to Communion Desecration:

The Confraternity of Catholic Clergy (a national association of 600 priests & deacons) respond to the sacrilegious and blasphemous desecration of the Holy Eucharist by asking for public reparation. We ask all Catholics of Minnesota and of the entire nation to join in a day of prayer and fasting that such offenses never happen again.

I wrote about the original story a few weeks ago. A kid swiped a communion wafer after it was consecrated, causing a fuss at his college campus in Central Florida. See The 2nd Trumps the 5th. Even worse, an irreverent (and irreligious) blogger mocked the whole thing, causing much wailing and gnashing of teeth among Catholics.

If Father Trigilio had his way, they'd crucify PZ Meyers, the blogger at Pharyngula, The Great Desecration, who got his hands on a wafer and stabbed it through the heart (does a wafer have a heart?) with a rusty nail. In the biggest blasphemy of all, he tossed it in the garbage and posted a picture on-line.

Good Catholics everywhere responded in the best Christian tradition, with venom and vile -- and even a few good old fashioned death threats. One woman was even fired because her husband used her work email account to send his missive. See Catholics Can Be Morons, Too.

Despite their best efforts, however, they were unsuccessful in getting Myers fired from his position as a biology professor at the University of Minnesota, Head of UMN Morris Backs PZ Myers, (and they're still trying to get the student expelled), so the call for public reparation was issued, to set aside today for a prayer day.

Myers definitely needs their prayers, since he's totally unrepentant.

That shows how serious this whole matter really is, since Public Reparation is reserved for really, really serious stuff (even slavery hasn't gotten it yet). Like a day of prayer to atone for those Catholic priests who abused altar boys and other young kids. Oh wait. No, they didn't call for one for that. How about the atrocities in Darfur? No. Didn't not that either. It takes something really bad, like making fun of a Communion wafer (or a cracker, as Myers calls it) to warrant such a call to action.

Some prayers are definitely called for. For they know not what they do.