Cicero said that “men, having exhausted all the mad extravagancies they
are capable of, have yet never entertained the idea of eating the God whom
they adore.” The extravagance which was beyond the contemplation of the
Pagan mind, is an every day affair with a large part of the Christian
world. The Roman Catholic eats his God every week, and Catholics have been
guilty of this religious cannibalism for centuries.
In the celebration of the eucharist, which is a service commemorative of
the death of Jesus, bread and wine are used in Protestant churches as
emblems of the body and blood of the crucified one. But in Roman Catholic
churches the real presence of Jesus is seen in the “host,” which, in
itself, is a little wafer of baked flour and water, but when consecrated
by the priest and offered as a sacrifice, during mass, becomes the actual
body of God. According to Roman Catholic doctrine, dough is changed to
Deity by the mumbling of a few Latin words over it by a priest. When the
priest swallows the consecrated wafer he really swallows this God he
adores.
There is an absurdity which the doctrine of transubstantiation is
accountable for, which cannot be paralleled among all the religions of
heathenism. Not only does this doctrine make it possible for one God to be
eaten by one priest, but for thousands of gods to be thus devoured. The
Roman Catholic religion teaches that God is manufactured out of flour and
water by a pastry cook. Every time a wafer is turned into a “host,” a God
is made.
Were there a tribe in Asia or Africa guilty of such ridiculous practices
as are witnessed in the Roman Catholic church, missionaries would be sent
out to them. It seems to us, that if people know no better than to believe
that when the priest swallows a little lump of bread he is actually
swallowing the body of a person who lived eighteen hundred years ago, whom
they look upon as God, they are not intelligent enough to be ranked in the
army of progress and civilization.
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No one is to blame for what no one knows.
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It is singular that people want to live another life when it is so hard to
live this.
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A church that sets up a religious faith as more essential than purity,
than kindness, charity or goodness, is a dangerous institution.