In July, Paul Zachary Myers, a biology professor at the Morris campus of the University of Minnesota (UMN), made good on his pledge to desecrate the Eucharist. The atheist professor suffered no penalty despite a strong protest led by the Catholic League.
Myers was responding to an event that had recently taken place at the University of Central Florida (UCF) when a student walked out of Mass with the Host, holding it hostage for several days. Myers was angry at the Catholic League for criticizing the student; the religion-hating professor voiced his objections on his own personal Internet site, i.e., his blog. There was a link from the faculty page on the university’s website to his blog.
Here is an excerpt of his July 8 post, “It’s a Frackin’ Cracker!”:
“Can anyone out there score me some consecrated communion wafers?” Myers continued by saying, “If any of you would be willing to do what it takes to get me some, or even one, and mail it to me, I’ll show you sacrilege, gladly, and with much fanfare. I won’t be tempted to hold it hostage (no, not even if I have a choice between returning the Eucharist and watching Bill Donohue kick the pope in the b****, which would apparently be a more humane act than desecrating a g**d***ed cracker), but will instead treat it with profound disrespect and heinous cracker abuse, all photographed and presented here on the web.”
Anyone who tapped into UMN’s website was able to access Myers’ hate speech from the university’s website, despite the fact that the school has restrictions on matters like these. The president of UMN, Robert Bruininks, quickly wrote to Donohue informing him that UMN had severed the link between the university’s website and Myers’ blog. But that was the extent of his response.
There were several other things that UMN, and Minnesota’s elected officials, could have done, but didn’t. For our part, we contacted UMN’s Board of Regents, the liaison group that works with this group, UMN’s alumni, Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty and both houses of the Minnesota legislature. See “Chronology of a Desecration” for more information.
“It is hard to think of anything more vile than to intentionally desecrate the Body of Christ,” we said to the press. On July 24, Myers made good on his pledge to desecrate the Eucharist, driving a rusty nail through a consecrated Host; he posted a picture of it on his blog. The atheist professor, who was raised Lutheran, suffered no penalty for his behavior.
