‘Body Of Christ’ Snatched From Church, Held Hostage By UCF Student
Jul 9, 2008 Funny Stuff, News, Stupidity
You can’t make this stuff up.
‘Body Of Christ’ Snatched From Church, Held Hostage By UCF Student
ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — A University of Central Florida student, upset religious groups hold church services on public campuses, is holding hostage the Eucharist, an object so sacred to Catholics they call it the Body of Christ.
Church officials say UCF Student Senator Webster Cook was disruptive and disrespectful when he attended Mass held on campus Sunday June 29. It was during that Mass where Cook admits he obtained the Eucharist.
The Eucharist is a small bread wafer blessed by a priest. According to Catholics, the wafer becomes the Body of Christ once blessed and is to be consumed immediately after a minister passes it out to churchgoers.
Cook claims he planned to consume it, but first wanted to show it to a fellow student senator he brought to Mass who was curious about the Catholic faith.
“When I received the Eucharist, my intention was to bring it back to my seat to show him,” Cook said. “I took about three steps from the woman distributing the Eucharist and someone grabbed the inside of my elbow and blocked the path in front of me. At that point I put it in my mouth so they’d leave me alone and I went back to my seat and I removed it from my mouth.”
A church leader was watching, confronted Cook and tried to recover the sacred bread. Cook said she crossed the line and that’s why he brought it home with him.
“She came up behind me, grabbed my wrist with her right hand, with her left hand grabbed my fingers and was trying to pry them open to get the Eucharist out of my hand,” Cook said, adding she wouldn’t immediately take her hands off him despite several requests.
Diocese of Orlando spokeswoman Carol Brinati said she was not aware of anyone touching Cook. She released a statement Thursday: “… a Catholic Campus Ministry student representative filed a complaint with the Student Union regarding the behavior of the two young men. A Student Government Representative called Catholic Campus Ministry to apologize for this disruption.”
Cook filed an official abuse complaint with UCF’s student conduct court regarding the alleged physical force. Following that complaint, Brinati said church members filed their own official complaints of disruptive conduct. Punishment for either offense could result in suspension or expulsion.
“The church feels that I’m the problem here,” Cook said. “The problem is actually that this is a publicly-funded religious institution. Through student government here, we fund them through an activity and service, so they’re receiving student money.”
Cook is upset more than $40,000 in student fees have been allocated to support religious organizations on campus for the 2008-2009 school year, according to student government records. He denied he is holding the Eucharist hostage to protest that support.
Regardless of the reason, the Diocese says its main concern is to get the Eucharist back so it can be taken care of properly and with respect. Cook has been keeping the Eucharist stored in a plastic bag since last Sunday.
“It is hurtful,” said Father Migeul Gonzalez with the Diocese. “Imagine if they kidnapped somebody and you make a plea for that individual to please return that loved one to the family.”
Gonzalez said the Diocese is willing to meet with Cook and help him understand the importance of the Eucharist in hopes of him returning it. The Diocese is dispatching a nun to UCF’s campus to oversee the next mass, protect the Eucharist and in hopes Cook will return it.
Cook said he’d consider returning the Eucharist if he gets an apology and a meeting with the Bishop’s office to discuss the Diocese’s policy on physical force.
Gonzalez said intentionally abusing the Eucharist is classified as a mortal sin in the Catholic church, the most severe possible. If it’s not returned, the community of faith will have to ask for forgiveness.
“We have to make acts of reparation,” Gonzalez said. “The whole community is going to turn to prayer. We’ll ask the Lord for pardon, forgiveness, peace, not only for the whole community affected by it, but also for [Cook], we offer prayers for him as well.”
Tags: bread, christ, Eucharist, protest, religion. catholic, school
July 9th, 2008 at 7:30pm
Congrats to him for getting everyone up in arms over a cracker.
July 9th, 2008 at 7:36pm
Agreed. And, don’t give it back. If they have to turn to their lord for forgiveness, they’ll be too busy praying to annoy anyone else for a while.
July 10th, 2008 at 6:25am
Wow, you people are nasty.
July 10th, 2008 at 6:28am
Wow, you people really are nasty, aren’t you?
July 10th, 2008 at 8:43am
How so? It’s a cracker. Regardless of these people’s delusions of it being something more, it’s a cracker. I realize the mantra’s supposed to be “you have to respect people’s religion”, but I call bullshit on that. Firstly, they don’t respect anyone else’s religions or anyone without religion. Atheist is an insult to them. Secondly, I don’t have to respect anyone else’s delusions, so why should I respect theirs? Because they claim their delusions lead to a greater good? History has shown that’s not the case.
I pity them, like I would pity any other person suffering from mental illness. They lead such sad, pathetic lives. They live terrified in their caves of the thunderstorms, worried that any little thing that goes wrong is their god’s way of punishing them for something they did. They refuse to lead good, moral lives without someone else telling them what are good morals. And, they spend what remaining time they have left trying to convince everyone that they should listen to the invisible dragon in their garage.
Frankly, nasty doesn’t apply to anything said here. The only thing nasty is the assault charge pending.
July 13th, 2008 at 4:00pm
It is very weird that these people are so worried about their biscuit, which they believe has magic properties. So the student kidnapped the biscuit? Amazing! And they also believe that the biscuit kidnapper will burn in hell forever for kidnapping the biscuit! That’s really horrible! Do they really believe it though, or is it all a big confidence trick? Is there any way to find out?
July 15th, 2008 at 9:17pm
Go Cook!!!!
As a former catholic, he is not missing a thing, the cracker is stale, and tasteless. He needs jam to eat it….
Well, if it has magic powers, or celestial whichever the case, how about the cracker vanishing from the plastic bag and tele-transport itself back to the church? I don’t see the big deal about that, or, if god want to take part of it, for someone that made the universe, how hard can it be to remove the cracker from Cook? maybe he can send the talking snake with feet which seems to have much better sales pitch that actually work on subjects.
As funny as this is to me, I am amazed that some people are actually offended, good thing the inquisition is behind us…otherwise Cook would be dead.
July 16th, 2008 at 8:08am
The inquisition is behind us? Really? Have you not heard of GitMo? :) In all seriousness, though, don’t be so quick to dismiss the “good ol’ days” of the catholic church. There’s a large number of folks out there that want to bring those days back, and are working hard to make it happen. McCain, of course, being their front man. See: dominionism.
July 17th, 2008 at 2:50am
Thanks Spoonman, I hadn’t heard of “dominionism”, but the wikipedia article is certainly worrying… These guys would find natural allies in the bin ladens of this world, it’s all chillingly similar. But is McCain really into that stuff?
July 17th, 2008 at 8:24am
I remember reading a detailed article last year or so discussing how, even if he doesn’t, a vast number of his supporters, backers and friends are.
July 17th, 2008 at 3:43pm
er… so “McCain, of course, being their front man” changes to “even if he doesn’t, a vast number of his supporters, backers and friends are”
So basically you don’t know what you’re talking about, but you know you don’t like McCain, right? Well I don’t like McCain either, but I’d still avoid claiming that he wants to start a racial war etc unless I’d actually got some reason to believe it. Seems to me we’ll never successfully challenge dangerous nonsense by just producing nonsense.
September 22nd, 2008 at 11:44am
“”They”" don’t respect anyone else’s religion? Handy, Spoonman, to write off millions of people with a “they”.
“I don’t have to respect anyone else’s delusions”. No, you’re right, you don’t. You could just snatch the soap from the obsessive-compulsive hand-washer and let them scream. But compassionate and thoughtful people respect all sorts of delusions of others.
If anyone wants to know why atheists have become the nasty party, they should read this string.
Vile.