…And then there’s Blasphemy! There’s an item on today’s Foxnews reporting a letter from a Catholic group to Apple’s Tim Cook, complaining of very obvious derogation of Catholic (and, indeed Christian) beliefs in Apple’s series Your Friends and Neighbors.
The episode in question portrays a male character breaking into a church and consuming the host wafers as a snack and mocking the entire concept of the Eucharist. Not sufficiently offensive, he then proceeds to offer his female companion a fake blessing, whereupon he feeds her wafers. Of course, we have had to become inured to such “entertainment”, which includes various scathing, hyphenated epithets invoking God and/or Jesus.
What I find most remarkable and exponentially offensive is the fact that such attacks are reserved tor Christians and Jews. No such offense is ever directed at the other monotheistic, Abrahamic religion. Do you suppose that might have something to do with tradition and practice of beheading those who disrespect The Prophet? Of course, Apple has a pose already prepared to demonstrate its fides:
“At Apple, we create a culture … with a North Star of dignity, respect, and opportunity for everyone. Because we’re not all the same. And that remains one of our greatest strengths.” Indeed, we’re not all the same and what controls Apple’s ‘edgy’ behavior is only the probability someone will ‘lose his head’ over it. So much for Apple’s advertised “strengths”.
As if any more demonstrations are needed, we are once again shown the utter contempt in which we are held by those who appoint themselves our “betters’ - along with their ignoble motivations.
The wafer doesn’t become the “host” until a priest elevates it and repeats Christ’s pronouncement, “This is my body”.
I have an article about ecclesiastical sanctuary in the next Pa Lawyer. In the course of researching it I came upon a case where defendant had tried to leave the church with the already consecrated wafer. “Stop him!” yelled the priest, and the entire congregation rushed the bozo, backed him up against the wall, and held him until the police came. The arresting cop charged him with “theft of the host”, but of course there is no such crime, and there was no theft since he had been given the wafer. He stated at trial that he had a court date coming up that afternoon and he wanted God with him. A true believer in transsubstantiation!
He was charged with, and convicted of disorderly conduct. I’da argued it was the priest and congregation who created the disturbance creating a likelihood of injury or harm-and also, had committed assault and false arrest. The Pa Constitution, much more loquacious on the point that the U.S. Constitution, unequivocally states that “no human authority” may in any way interfere with exercise of the rights of conscience.
I couldn’t resist working that case into my article, by mentioning that not only ecclesiastical sanctuary, but ecclesiastical desecration, is still something of a special case in our jurisprudence. I expect some irate emails, but hey, I didn’t make this up!
But, note that excess consecrated hosts are placed in the tabernacle. After the priest consecrates new hosts for a mass, before distributing, the previously consecrated hosts are retrieved from the tabernacle to be included in communion.
I don’t intend to watch the series, but if the intruder broke into the tabernacle, then it is indeed sacrilege.
If they broke in the storage cabinet in the sacristy where unconsecrated hosts are stored, then it isn’t sacrilege.
Apple is so 1999. Does anyone with a brain still take them seriously?
Related, I wonder why stock investors have not noticed that Apple has been left in the dust by its competitors, and has not had a truly innovative product in years? But then, would anyone like to make the case that today’s stock investors have a brain?
I didn’t know that about the leftover host being saved for next time. (I was raised a Methodist, and we had little cubes of bread stuffing, and a shot glass of grape juice.)
A Catholic friend got upset when I was talking about the case at dinner. She said practitioners of black magic, I reckon she meant Satanists, need the host for their rituals. But surely if He wants to, God can withdraw from the wafer if it gets stolen…?
Maybe a good time to re-read Pope Leo XIII (the previous Leo) ‘Exorcism prayer’:
O glorious Archangel St. Michael, Prince of the heavenly host, defend us in battle, and in the struggle which is ours against the principalities and Powers, against the rulers of this world of darkness, against spirits of evil in high places.
Pope Leo XIII had done a few other things that might have inspired Cardinal Prevost to assume the name Pope Leo XIV:
The Imob makes its money through the Imob store where you either pay da rent or the Imob will kick you from the store.
My understanding is that the Imob just lost a court case brought by Epic games creator of Fortnite. It took a billionaire willing to spend a shitload of money to challenge the Imob’s obvious monopolistic practices because the government is in the business of helping the tech giants solidify their monopolies.
I think the judge commented on an Imob VP that she claimed outright lied to the court and that Imob top boss Tim Cook used poor judgment.
Hopefully this puts a stake in the heart of the Imob and soon you should actually r able to buy a book through your kindle app. But who knows, I think they might have the nads to simply ignore the court and carry on.
I note several rather legalistic answers like this. Yes, sorry to say we’re hyper-legalistic as a culture and society. Nonetheless, I will re-state my essential point: this culture/society is unafraid of offending the Judaic/Christian cultural sensibilities which gave it birth; unafraid of offending adherents of the worldviews which practice tolerance. This doesn’t take any courage. Why then, is even the most restrained criticism of Islam reflexively labeled as “Islamophobia” - and punished, formally or informally?
The last time anyone in the West dared to seriously offend Islam was 15 years ago and the results included killings and worldwide headlines. Hell, today in England, where the Common Law originated, such nice legal distinctions are inoperative - you go to jail for offensive blasphemy - for burning a Koran. Of course, even while people are being jailed for various other offenses to Islam, the organs of the state deny it is happening. No surprise in England’s de facto dhimmi status.
Apple’s market share in iPhones is more than 50% in the US and growing internationally, even though the overall market isn’t. Ultimately, stockholders do not need to care about Apple’s innovation, if they just keep winning…
The history of the Dow Jones Index is littered with discarded companies that once were innovative, grew to prominence, and then decided not to innovate any more. Speculators who sold out those stocks to Greater Fools at the right time did OK – investors who focused on past successes got stuck with the bill.
Apple has a very high mark-up on its phones because of ephemeral branding, no longer because of technical superiority. And Apple uses those high profits to buy back its own stock instead of investing in new product development. Remember the days when everyone aspired to a MAC computer? Time moves on, even for Apple.