Posted by Atticus on August 23, 2004, at 19:51:37
In reply to devil's advocate argument!, posted by JenStar on August 23, 2004, at 16:26:33
OK, as someone who was raised in an intensely Roman Catholic Irish family, I'd like to add another wrinkle to this discussion. Although all Protestant denominations acknowledge that taking the communion wafer and drinking the communal wine is symbolic, Roman Catholicism does not see things this way due to the concept of "transubstantiation." In a nutshell, Roman Catholicism argues that at the moment you accept the host and wine, they literally, not figuratively, transform into the actual flesh and actual blood of Christ -- a kind of mystical cannibalism. (Always tasted like a piece of paper and a slug of wine to me.) As this is official church dogma, why would it really matter if the flesh and blood were transubstantiated from wheat or from something else. The point is, the church doesn't believe it's still wheat when you accept it into your mouth; it's supposedly human meat at that point. So even by the church's own logic, the argument in favor of wheat makes no sense. The concept of transubstantiation is considered "dogma," meaning it's based on the word of God and can't be changed by human beings. However, the use of wheat-based wafers is considered "doctrine," created by human beings, and therefore potentially subject to change. This doesn't happen much in an organization that only cleared Galileo less than a decade ago of heresy, but the switch from Latin masses to masses held in English (or whatever the native tongue of the worshippers happens to be) under Pope John in the 1950s does illustrate that changes in doctrine are not unheard of. Just my two cents. Atticus
poster:Atticus
thread:380784
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20040820/msgs/381507.html