This may seem an overly technical AND religious question for a Kos diary, but shall do anyway "kos" I feel like it, on this Ash Wednesday the beginning of Lent:
What do people think of the idea that any Christian could consecrate a Host or Eucharist? Cf. "the priesthood of all believers", mentioned (democratically?) in the New Testament.
This could "dynamite" Catholicism, because their notion is that only the specially ordained (all-male) priesthood can do this, "making God come down from Heaven" (James Joyce, as I recall) into a small round piece of bread.
Actually, it could "dynamite" Protestantism, too, because their usual notion is that it's idolatrous to think that the Real Presence (of God) would or could end up encased in a hand-held wheat product. Many Protestants don't seem to value "Lord's Supper" or "Holy Communion" at all; ...but when you believe in "faith, not works", why do you have to do anything, Communion or otherwise? (ooooh) You can just sit around and listen to Jerry Falwell all day and shout "Praise the Lord!!!"...
Well, that could sound anti-Protestant, so I'll say that no doubt some Catholic priests have used their "magic power" to make God come down, to impress young people, and then do bad things to them (ooooh). Not trying to sound anti-Catholic here, but when one Catholic term for priests is the Latin "alter Christus" (meaning "another Christ"), no doubt some folks will be unduly impressed by this and submit to the possibly-exploitative will of an "alter Christus"...
The hook here is DEMOCRATIC EMPOWERMENT, which lets me mention this whole issue on a Democrat site like Kos. Like it or not, there are 2 billion Christians, and their beliefs have to be dealt with. --Does it sound fair that any believer can do the "consecration" job, or is this too democratic (or too elitist, for Protestants or others who refuse to believe anyone could "put God into a wafer")?
Laugh all you want: the deadly Thirty Years' War in 1600's Europe, and other conflicts, were fought in large part around issues like the Communion/"Real Presence" issue. And don't tell me (mm hm, with my ash cross on forehead tonight), much less Osama, that religion is not a fighting issue today.
Or the Pope, who for all his faults is making a fighting effort to stay afloat---although I think my ideas on "the priesthood of all believers" might give him the final fatal fit of his life.
Happy Lent to all, and hope to hear. . .
Lady, three white leopards sat under a juniper-tree
In the cool of the day, having fed to sateity
On my legs my heart my liver and that which had been contained
In the hollow round of my skull. And God said
Shall these bones live? shall these
Bones live?
from "Ash-Wednesday" (1930), by T.S. Eliot
