Is the Eucharist, Holy Communion, a form of Cannibalism?

(The below survey of web articles leans heavily toward a ‘Yes’ vote and I have to agree with them. By coining the term Transubstantiation, the Church is trying to convince you that it IS turning the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. They are trying to convince you that it is the ACTUAL body and blood of Jesus Christ. (ref. article by R. Allan Worrell, below). Ask most avid Catholics and that rote answer would be what you’d get. Combining that with Norma Holt’s research makes a convincing case, to me, a least. Plus, visualization and belief create our reality, which the Church appears intent on influencing. IF Christ actually said that, specifically, it is lost in history, particularly when scholars note the writing turmoil of the first 300 years after Christ’s persecution before the first Council at Nicaea. ~ Rev. Don Chapin, Ph.D.)

Holy Communion and Ancient Cannibalism Rituals

By Norma Holt | Submitted On November 09, 2019
Diamond Author | 3,289 Articles Joined: September 15, 2008

https://ezinearticles.com/?Holy-Communion-and-Ancient-Cannibalism-Rituals&id=10205962

How many times do Christians partake of Holy Communion without realizing it’s connected to the past practice of eating human flesh? It is not obvious because so much of the past is hidden and overridden by modern interpretations. After my reincarnation experience, my drive for answers took me back to examine the rituals that were developed in relation to creating gods to which men could be likened.

The Ides of March in Roman times was for the same purpose. Taken on the 15th, men were kept in great luxury and were executed on the 22nd, the time of the Equinox. The dates are important as they bear witness to the arrival of the Mother God, to whom they mated.

On that day they were crucified and their flesh and blood was consumed in the belief that as they attained their divinity they could impart it to others through their body. Similar beliefs are found throughout most indigenous cultures and the act of crucifixion was retained by the Church, after it was established by Constantine in 325 AD.

The Emperor banned all other forms of the sacrifice when he put forward his creation of Jesus Christ. The people would only accept this if the ritual was retained in some form. He moved the date of ‘Easter’, the time of the ‘Eye-Star’, the mating of the sun with man, to the phase of the moon instead of the sun.

With this in mind, how many Christians wonder why they are partaking in a pseudo feast of the dead man’s body and blood? Because of the clever cover-up and brainwashing that turns people’s attention away from the facts, probably not many.

Norma Holt was drawn to the research that went back to Babylon to unearth the roots of religion and identity of 666. She proves conclusively that heaven and hell are tricks designed to manipulate people into believing in this Islamic religion.

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Norma_Holt/270038
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/10205962

Eating Holy Communion is Cannibalism!

R. Allan Worrell, Jun 9, 2019·.
https://bigal314.medium.com/eating-holy-communion-is-cannibalism-e1f778879d44

Really? Is eating holy communion cannibalism? Think about it.

If you actually believe the bread and wine are converted into the body of a person, dead or alive, and then you eat it, are you not practicing cannibalism? And if you don’t think the practice of cannibalism is barbaric, then should we eat our dead? Stay with me on this…

The Roman Catholic Church actually has a name for the conversion of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus Christ. They call it, “Transubstantiation.” No, I’m not kidding! Google it if you don’t believe me. The church came up with that fancy name in the twelfth century, almost nine hundred years ago, but really, does a fancy name make you feel any better about it? Why did they do that?

By giving it a big fancy name, the Church is trying to convince you that it is a real thing…that it is NOT just a symbolic conversion of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. They are trying to convince you that it is the ACTUAL body and blood of Jesus Christ.

Now, some churches try pull a fast one, and they do a “double speak” about transubstantiation. They will say that the appearance or substance of the unleavened bread and wine has not changed, and they would be right on that account. But what they then say is that, after it is blessed, that it contains the “presence” of Jesus Christ. This is tantamount to saying it contains the “soul” of Jesus. It supposedly has, what I would call, “the essence” or “spirit” of Jesus.

But why do they try go to so much trouble to convince you of all this? Because the church knows you are not an idiot. You can see that the bread did not change into flesh or the muscle of Jesus! You can taste that the bread or cracker is still a piece of bread or a cracker. So, they will tell you that the physical part of the bread or cracker has not changed. (And they would be right.) But then they say that it really is Jesus! Why? Because this is what Jesus supposedly did in the Last Supper, the night before he died.

The point is whether or not YOU are buying what the church is selling! So I will ask you again. Do you think, that when your priest or minister recreates the act of the Last Supper, and says some prayers over the bread and wine, that it actually is converted into what they then call, “The Body of Christ?” And if you do, and you eat it, are you not committing the act of cannibalism?

If you say, well, I really don’t believe it is cannibalism, it’s just symbolic. Then aren’t you practicing symbolic cannibalism? Is that so bad? Yes. It is. It’s bad. Read on.

Let’s look at another example to illustrate the point, and why this practice is such a bad idea. Suppose someone came up with a religious ritual which involved the killing of a real baby goat, on some sort of altar, and then offered it up to their God. This is not an extreme example! The Bible is full of such sacrifices. Would you do it? Would you take your young children to see it as a gory ritual every Sunday?

Now suppose the priest or minister didn’t use a real baby goat, but watered it down a bit. Suppose he used a stuffed animal that looked like a baby goat, and he cut off the goat’s head as part of the ritual as he prayed over the stuffed animal. Wouldn’t you think this was bizarre behavior?

Wouldn’t you take your son or daughter to see a psychiatrist if they did the same thing as part of their daily play activity? I believe most rational people, living in the twenty-first century, would not only consider the behavior bizarre but would consider it actually insane in this technically advanced day and age.

Priests and ministers who believe they are converting bread and wine into the body and blood of a dead man, and then ask you to eat it, are insane in this act. Should they be put in jail? No. They are only misguided. In fact, they think they are doing good. They think they are performing a real service for our society. Many of them make a good living doing it on a regular basis, which gives their work credibility.

Are they harming anybody? Yes, they are. And the harm they do is more terrible than you probably know or realize. Why is it so bad? It is because the harm is so subtle. They have convinced many people,
religious believers, that our world is not real …that this world is only temporary. Christianity, Judaism, and Islam have convinced their followers that the ultimate reality is heaven, where they say you should go to be with God after you die. And for them, eternity in heaven is what is important; not the real world in which we live.

But isn’t this exactly what the Islamic bombers believe when they blow themselves up to kill us because we don’t believe in their version of God and heaven? This is the danger of maintaining mystical beliefs created by superstitious religions such as Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.

If you think these beliefs are OK and not dangerous, then I would point out that the United States has been at war with Muslims who are willing to die for their religious beliefs ever since the Muslims killed thousands of people on 9/11. The United States is at war with groups such as ISIS, Al-Qaeda and the Taliban precisely because they are willing to kill you and me for our beliefs.

The things which we believe are real matter. They matter a lot.

Substituting one wrong reality, like the Islamic one, with similar wrong reality, like the Christian one, or visa-versa, is still wrong!

Let’s get real, shall we? What do we really know for sure? This world is real. You are real. And the good news is, that you are alive in this reality, in the here and now. I’m sorry to be the one to have to tell you, but ghosts are not real, and when you die, you’re dead. So make the most of your life, by loving your family and friends while you can.

But let’s stop kowtowing and offering lip service to religion by saying we believe in mystical, pretend ideas like Heaven, Hell, Gods, Angels, Devils, and Souls. And, for Heaven’s sake! (Sarcasm intended.) Please stop eating “Holy Communion” and thinking it is a good thing. It’s not.

Is Catholic Communion Cannibalism? My Thoughts

April 30, 2019 by Randal Rauser
https://randalrauser.com/2019/04/is-catholic-communion-cannibalism-my-thoughts/

So here are my thoughts.

What does the Catholic Church teach?

Next, we can cite some relevant passages from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

1357 We carry out this command of the Lord by celebrating the memorial of his sacrifice. In so doing, we offer to the Father what he has himself given us: the gifts of his creation, bread and wine which, by the power of the Holy Spirit and by the words of Christ, have become the body and blood of Christ. Christ is thus really and mysteriously made present.

1367 The sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one single sacrifice: “The victim is one and the same: the same now offers through the ministry of priests, who then offered himself on the cross; only the manner of offering is different.” “In this divine sacrifice which is celebrated in the Mass, the same Christ who offered himself once in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross is contained and is offered in an unbloody manner.”

1374 The mode of Christ’s presence under the Eucharistic species is unique. It raises the Eucharist above all the sacraments as “the perfection of the spiritual life and the end to which all the sacraments tend.”

In the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist “the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained.” “This presence is called ‘real’ – by which is not intended to exclude the other types of presence as if they could not be ‘real’ too, but because it is presence in the fullest sense: that is to say, it is a substantial presence by which Christ, God and man, makes himself wholly and entirely present.”

1375 It is by the conversion of the bread and wine into Christ’s body and blood that Christ becomes present in this sacrament.

We see two things in these passages. First, the presence of Christ in the Eucharist is “unique” (1374). He is not present in this bodily form elsewhere in creation than in the sacrament. Second, he nonetheless really is present substantially as the bread and wine are converted into his very body and blood. Karl Rahner and Herbert Vorgrimler state the doctrine of transubstantiation as follows: Neo-Latin meaning “essential change”: at the consecration in the Mass the changing of the substance of bread and wine, by the  power of God, into the substance of Christ’s Body and Blood, which thereby become present while the empirical realities as phenomena (Species) of bread and wine remain.” (“Transubstantiation,”
Theological Dictionary, 466)

So that’s the doctrine of the Church.

Technical vs. Substantial Vegetarians and Non-Cannibals

If the wafer is transformed into the flesh of Christ, it would seem to follow necessarily that to consume the consecrated wafer is to consume the human flesh of Jesus Christ. Since a human person’s consumption of human flesh meets the definition of cannibalism, it follows trivially that the human person who consumes the human flesh of the consecrated wafer is, thereby, a cannibal.

It seems to me that the best way forward for the Catholic is to bite the bullet on this one. Yes, it is cannibalism. However, we must make an important distinction. While it is true that this act technically meets the definition of cannibalism, it is not cannibalistic in the substantial sense, and that’s the sense that matters.

So what’s the difference I am drawing between technical and substantial? That difference is rooted in the standard social function of the term “cannibal”. Consider, by analogy, the term “vegetarian.” To be a vegetarian is to abstain from the consumption of all animal matter (i.e. meat) in one’s diet.

While that is the standard definition of vegetarian, I would argue that it can also be viewed as the technical application of the term. By contrast, the substantial application of the term vegetarian is somewhat more narrow and pertains to abstaining from the consumption of all animal matter in one’s diet that once constituted part of an animal. There are at least two reasons for this dietary restriction: consuming that animal matter is complicit in the infliction of unjust suffering upon animals and it also exacts a disproportionate environmental cost. These concerns are the real motivation for censuring the consumption of animal matter.

And so, what if a person could consume meat wholly apart from any animal suffering or disproportionate environmental cost? I am thinking specifically of animal matter which has been cultivated in a laboratory such that this meat never formed part of the body of a sentient, living organism. Instead, it was cultivated from cells in a petri dish. (I’m assuming the cellular base was originally collected in a wholly ethical way consistent with vegetarian concern to avoid animal suffering.) While the consumption of this meat would technically violate the vegetarian identity, I would submit that it would be consistent with the substantial motivations behind (most) vegetarianism: i.e. the avoidance of animal suffering and disproportionate environmental cost of meat production.

From that perspective, the person who eats only lab meat may technically be violating the definition of vegetarianism, but they nonetheless meet the substantial definition and its underlying moral concerns. And thus, while this person may not be a technical vegetarian, they retain substantially a vegetarian.

The same point can be made with respect to cannibalism and the Eucharist. Non-cannibalism eschews the cannibalistic act because that act involves inflicting suffering upon human persons and devaluing human personhood and the body by way of consumption of that body. But those strictures assume that the matter which is consumed once formed part of a living human person’s body.

This is not true of the Eucharist. Thus, while these elements may technically become one with the body and blood of Christ, they were never part of the body of the living human person Jesus. In that sense, the consecration of Eucharistic elements in the Mass is analogous to the growing of new meat in a laboratory. And the consumption of the Eucharist avoids the social censure of cannibalism in the same way that the consumption of lab-grown meat avoids the social censure of carnivory.

To conclude, just as the person who restricts themselves to lab-grown meat may meet the substantial definition of being a vegetarian, so the person who restricts themselves to Eucharistic elements may meet the substantial definition of being a non-cannibal. And so, the cannibal charge may be good for a cheap shot in a meme, but as a significant objection to Catholicism, it lacks a substantial bite.

The Eucharist & Cannibalism

Michael Foley, Saturday, August 6 2011
CATHOLIC COMMENTARY. OPINIONS EXPRESSED BY WRITERS ARE SOLELY THEIR OWN.

Perhaps the most disconcerting Catholic doctrine is the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. Many people today have the same reaction as those disciples who heard Jesus preach it for the first time in Capernaum and were scandalized, “This saying is hard, and who can hear it?” (Jn. 6:61). John says that after, many of His disciples stopped following Him altogether.

What is obviously so “hard” about this saying is that it suggests cannibalism. If Catholics believe the Eucharist really is the body and blood of Christ, then they believe they are eating human flesh and drinking human blood. The Romans accused Christians of cannibalism and that the charge has been made against Catholics in various ways ever since.

But while Holy Communion does involve eating human flesh and blood, it is not true that it is cannibalistic. How so?

The Eucharist is life. Cannibals eat what is dead. The Aztecs, the most notorious cannibalistic society in history, ate the beating hearts of victims, but they were still eating something doomed to die, and in the act of eating, it did die. By contrast, Christ is alive. He rose on the third day, and is present in the Eucharist as fully alive (indeed, He is Life itself). Our reception of the Eucharist doesn’t destroy or change that in any way.

The Eucharist is the whole body and blood of Jesus Christ. Cannibals only take a part of their victims. But even the smallest particle of the Eucharist contains the entire body and blood of Christ. The familiar characteristics of space and matter don’t apply: consuming a larger Host does not mean you get more of Christ’s body and blood, nor does consuming a small Host mean you get less. Even receiving from the Precious Cup is unnecessary: by “concomitance,” when a communicant receives the Host, he also
receives the Precious Blood.

The Eucharist is the glorified body of Jesus Christ. Concomitance is possible because Christ’s living and eternal body is forever reunited with His blood; hence, receiving the former entails receiving the latter. Christ’s risen body is not a resuscitated corpse like that of Lazarus, but an utterly transformed “spiritual body” (I Cor. 15:44) far different from the spatio-temporal “body of our lowness.” (Phil. 3:21) Therefore, when a Catholic receives the Eucharist, he is receiving not just flesh but glorified flesh, a resurrected and transfigured “super body” that foreshadows the new reality of a new Heaven and a new earth. Cannibalistic practices don’t do that.

The Eucharist contains the soul of Jesus Christ. Some cannibalistic societies eat the flesh or drink the blood of fallen warriors in the hopes of taking on their “life force” or their courage, or of destroying their spirit altogether. Yet precisely because the risen Jesus is alive, His immortal soul is united to
His body and blood, and inseparable from them in the Eucharist.

The Eucharist contains the divinity of Jesus Christ. Because Jesus Christ is true God and true man, His divinity and His humanity are also inseparable. Consequently, in partaking of the human “aspects” of Christ (His body, blood, and soul), we also partake of His divine nature. This stands in sharp contrast to cannibals such as the Binderwurs of central India, whose flesh-eating religious rituals tried to bring them closer to the gods, but made them sink lower than most beasts. Putting all these elements together, we arrive at the Catholic formula: “The Eucharist is the body and blood, soul and divinity of
our Lord Jesus Christ.”

The Eucharist is not diminished. If Christ is entirely present in even the tiniest part of the Host, then it follows that the living body and blood of Christ are not diminished by the act of receiving Holy Communion (more communicants does not mean “less Christ” left, and so on).

The Eucharist consumes us. When you eat food, it becomes a part of you. With the Eucharist, however, the opposite happens. We become a part of it, that is, in Holy Communion, we are made a part of the mystical body of Christ. In our Lord’s words, those who eat His flesh and drink His blood abide in Him (Jn. 6.40).

The Eucharist is nonviolent. Catholics understand the Mass as the non-bloody re-presentation of the sacrifice of the Cross. Christ, whose innocent blood was unjustly shed 2,000 years ago, is made available for His disciples under the appearance of bread and wine, but in a peaceful, nonviolent way. Cannibalism is inherently violent and usually predicated on the assumption that the victim is guilty of a crime against a society (usually they are prisoners of war).

 All of this suggests that what happens at the Lord’s table is fundamentally different than what happens in the dark rites of a depraved tribe. Indeed, from a metaphysical perspective, we can consider all cannibalistic customs (as opposed to those induced by derangement or starvation) as a perverse and even demonic mimicry of our Holy Communion with the risen Lord.