"Host desecration" ... 4th Laterine

[Lounge Daddy]

[b]*"4th lateran council" [/b] ...not "laterine" lol, my spelling is
any-hoo...

A non-Catholic friend is reading a book that makes mention of a large number of people put to death for “Host desecration” based on some directive by the 4th lateran council
From what he told me, it is not mentioned as a directive given by a Church official, but is depicted as some isolated mob incident.

My question is – was there a directive by the 4th lateran that “Host desecration” be punished by death?

[Mateo el Feo]

Here's an English translation of the text of the Fourth Lateran Council ([url="http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/lateran4.html"]link[/url]) .

The closest thing I could find regarding the desecration of the Eucharist was the following:
[quote name='Lateran IV' date=' Canon 20']SUMMARY: In all churches the Eucharist and the chrism must be kept under lock and .key. Those who neglect to do this, are to be suspended.

Text: We decree that in all churches the chrism and the Eucharist be kept in properly protected places provided with locks and keys, that they may not be reached by rash and indiscreet persons and used for impious and blasphemous purposes. But if he to whom such guardianship pertains should leave them unprotected, let him be suspended from office for a period of three months. And if through his negligence an execrable deed should result, let him be punished more severely. [/quote]
In this text, it's only talking about punishment of those who guard the tabernacle/Eucharist (like a night watchman, maybe?). Also, note that the normal punishment is administrative, not corporal.

On a side note regarding the death penalty, the council text (Canon 18) says, "No cleric may pronounce a sentence of death, or execute such a sentence, or be present at its execution."

[Lounge Daddy]

[quote]
Under the rubric Muslim anguish and Western hypocrisy (Nov 23, 2004), I observed that Christianity once killed apostates as a matter of routine, an action defended in retrospect by Catholic theologians such as Michael Novak as appropriate to the times. Western commentators condemn the guards of the US prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for desecrating the Koran, while regarding Pakistani or Afghan Koran rioters as primitives. Condescending Westerners should look more closely at their own history.

Host-desecration riots by Christians in 1298 led to an estimated 100,000 deaths in Germany and Austria, starting with the execution by fire of the entire Jewish community of Rottingen. Enraged Christians killed 3,000 Jews in Prague after a priest carrying a consecrated Host wafer was sprayed by sand. Other killings took place in Rome in 1021, Strasbourg in 1308, Posen in 1399, Silesia in 1451, and so forth. Medieval Jews, to be sure, were less likely to have tortured a consecrated Host than Marine guards were to have flushed a Koran down the toilet, and historians agree that the charge was a fabrication. [2] Christian sensitivities, nonetheless, were just as bloodthirsty as in today's Pakistan. [/quote]
[url="http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/GF07Aa01.html"]--- article HERE[/url]

ok, my friend just IM'ed me a link to this article
it def full of anti-Catholic slams from a Chinese news site...
but how much is truth?

this seems to be the same event my friend read about
now i really am curious

[Mateo el Feo]

Hold on...so is the article saying that the entire Western Civilization shouldn't complain about the world-wide barbarism of Muslim radicals because of a tragic riot eight hundred years ago?

I guess next, we'll be told that we deserved September 11th.

Just more pro-Muslim propoganda for dummies...I mean dhimmis.

[jswranch]

What the church lays down as policy and what the laity do are not necessarily the same thing.

Let us look at policy on abortion and the clinic bombers. Are we to believe the church sanctioned the assasination of nurses and doctors?

[Andreas E.]

The other day, America's Funniest Videos showed a video of a wedding. The priest dropped the wafer into the bride's cleavage. He reached right for it, but she did not want him there (understandably.) So she tried to retrieve it herself. She could not get to it, so she held her hand over her chest, but the priest was insistent and reached "down there" again. The clip stopped at that point. Was the priest right in what he did? On the other hand, was the bride right in what she did (preventing from being touched in inappropriate places?) Would this be considered desecration of the host? Even if it was retrieved successfully, would the priest still be ok to offer it to her? It just seemed an odd situation to me. And since I am still unfamiliar with the rites of the mass, I thought I'd ask you guys...

[jiyoung]

She really shouldn't have had such a low-cut dress IN CHURCH during MASS (!!) in the first place...I don't know about how canonically acceptable or whatever it is, but that's the first issue, I think.

[Lounge Daddy]

[quote name='jswranch' post='991541' date='May 27 2006, 05:13 PM']
What the church lays down as policy and what the laity do are not necessarily the same thing.

Let us look at policy on abortion and the clinic bombers. Are we to believe the church sanctioned the assasination of nurses and doctors?
[/quote]

ok - ya
we're figuring that if this happened, it was an isolated mob incident