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Doin’ It All for the Cookie

By Todd Aalgaard


As the Star‘s Susan Delacourt featured this morning, Stephen Harper may have just exposed himself to a Biblical deluge of Catholic fury. Or not—it depends how serious of an issue the tasty, trans-substantiated body of your Lord and Saviour is.
It’s up in the air why it wasn’t that big of a deal to our embattled prime minister. Maybe he self-consciously shied away from noshing on the “host”—the term Catholics use for the consecrated communion wafers dished out at the ceremony of the Eucharist—in full view of the media at former Governor General Romeo LeBlanc’s funeral last Friday. Whatever his reasons, Harper appeared either unaware or unconcerned that Catholic ritual requires the participants of Holy Communion to consume the host upon receiving it—a detail of the rite that the New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal describes as “crucial.”

8July09_Harper_eucharist.jpg
Prime Minister Stephen Harper receives “the host” at Romeo LeBlanc’s memorial service last Friday.


Poor Harper. He’d done such a great job of looking all solemn and dignified until about thirty-five seconds into this YouTube video, when, instead of consuming the host, he evidently slipped it into his pocket. The gaff was pounced upon by parishioners of the Diocese of Saint John, especially its vicar general and chancellor, Monsignor Brian Henneberry.
“It’s worse than a faux pas,” the Telegraph-Journal quotes Henneberry as saying. “It’s a scandal from the Catholic point of view.”
A scandal severe enough, apparently, that Henneberry is calling for a statement of apology or explanation from the prime minister’s office: “I would hope the Prime Minister’s Office would have enough respect for the Catholic Church and for faith in general to make clear whatever happened.”
Perhaps as a Protestant, he didn’t understand the myriad particulars and sensitivities of Catholic ceremony; perhaps he stalwartly refused to compromise his own beliefs. Or perhaps, as one YouTube commenter offers, “he was saving it for later.”

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Comments

  • http://undefined MariaPD

    As a protestant he shouldn’t have done communion. Ah well.

  • http://undefined torontothegreat

    But as Prime Minister he should have. A huge part of the PM’s job is to represent himself sincerely to other cultural or religious groups aside from his own.

  • http://undefined David Toronto

    Smartest guy in the room keeps painting himself
    into the corner. He’s so cringingly clumsy, it’s
    comical.
    As much as I dislike him and what he stands for,
    I have to give him credit for brightening my
    days with his gaucheries and maladroitness.
    Somedays, it’s truly funny a la Yes Prime Minister.
    I’ll miss the incompetence once he’s turfed out
    and we get back to having a real country again.

  • http://undefined whatTheHeck

    Perhaps Catholics should lighten up a bit and allow non-Catholics to take communion.
    Perhaps the Prime Minister knew there would be a more different scandal if, as a non-Catholic, he’d (horrors!) actually accepted the wafer that was, ahem, inappropriately offered to him in the first place.

  • http://undefined torontothegreat

    While were at it, we should allow the goyum to have bar mitzvahs too :P

  • http://undefined Ben

    Anglican’s do communion too, but you’re right that most protestants don’t.
    This reminds me a bit about the communion wafer affairs that lit up the blogosphere last year.

  • http://paul.kishimoto.name Paul Kishimoto

    tasty, trans-substantiated body

    Cheeky!

    he was saving it for later

    Dutifully following the example of The Man Himself, amirite?

  • http://tyronewarner.com tw

    It almost looks like Harper wanted to simply shake the Priest’s hand? Regardless, taking communion, Catholic or otherwise, is a sacred thing, and judging someone on what is potentially a private spiritual matter is taking things too far for my liking. If he’s a sincere protestant (or heck, even just an atheist), maybe he was simply respecting the Catholic tradition by not partaking. I don’t understand why the church involved here is making such a big deal… according to their own doctrine, I think the priest was probably in the wrong by just giving it out…
    Look up the rules for Catholic communion here

  • http://undefined MariaPD

    Right. Is he an Anglican? Just wondering.

  • http://undefined rek

    I’m an atheist and I did communion once. Oops.

  • http://undefined David Toronto

    Harper is a member of the Christian and Missionary
    Alliance Church.
    They have a communion. I wonder if Harper didn’t
    want to accept the RC eucharist because he might
    not consider it “valid” since it isn’t from a
    CM&A ceremony.
    I know several Catholics who will not accept
    the eucharist in an Anglican Church since the
    Anglican Church is not the “one true faith”
    hence the eucharistic elements are not valid.

  • http://undefined _momo_

    Ha. I’m sure nobody would have minded if he did eat it. Pocketing it is certainly worse than eating it. I’m sure the Catholics on his staff are schooling him now.
    But if he really wanted to go on up there, he could have received a blessing in lieu of communion. You fold your hands over your chest so the priest knows not to give you communion.

  • Mark Ostler

    According to one of Harper’s aides he totally ate it.
    (via The Star: http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/662767)
    A Toronto archdiocese spokesperson is quoted at the bottom, making some of the same statements that some of y’all commenters have: that only Roman Catholics should accept Catholic communion and that he should have crossed his arms in front of his chest.

  • http://undefined escape

    It’s possible that he didn’t know that you can participate in communion without actually receiving the host. Being raised Catholic I know that we’re supposed to do the whole crossed arms things if we haven’t been to confession in a while, but I doubt many non-Catholic know that you have the option. At a wedding I went to recently the priest mentioned it before communion started so the non-Catholics didn’t just have to sit. I thought that was a good idea.

  • http://undefined mister j

    I figured he just knew better – if he ate it, he’d suddenly burst into flames, or at least have a similar effect as dousing a vampire with holy water. :)

  • http://undefined Astin

    Guy needs to learn some magic tricks. He should have taken it, faked eating it, distracted, palmed it, and pocketed it.
    Or just not been in line in the first place. Or eaten.

  • http://undefined friend68

    What you have here is an argument against TV cameras at funerals.
    I’d guess that he wanted to take part in communion as a sign of respect and as PM, and also wanted to find some way to honour his own beliefs. But this is just one of those stories that really has no worth but to give those who already hate him something to write about.
    Otherwise, it is just surprising how many people came out of the woodwork to defend the rites and traditions of the Roman Catholic church.

  • http://rantspectacle.blogspot.com/ mccool

    I was just eating lunch on Spadina and overheard the kitchen staff talking about this.
    “He’s embarrassed our whole country.”
    Really? REALLY? I can think of far worse things that could’ve happened and much worse things others have done at Catholic funerals merely out of confusion. I know that he is religious, should have known better, could have faked it, whatever… but, I barely see this as newsworthy – let alone scandalous. He is human after all. (Despite what I have read in Stop Harper propaganda.)
    Maybe he was distracted thinking about the recession? Global warming? Garbage strike? Lunch?

  • http://undefined madeincanada

    I want Cookie!

  • http://undefined Vincent Clement

    I’m a Catholic and this did not offend me. Must be a slow news day.

  • http://piorkowski.ca/ qviri

    I’m a (lapsed-as-all-hell) Catholic and this does not offend me. It is, however, fairly hilarious.

  • http://undefined McKingford

    If I wasn’t an atheist, I’d totally think you were going to hell…

  • http://undefined McKingford

    I stand second to no one in my hatred for Stephen Harper, so may well be the first time I defend him. But it is quite clear to me that he was motioning to shake the priest’s hand, and received the eucharist instead – rather awkwardly.
    If we didn’t have these inane debates about whose sky fairy is teh awesomest, we wouldn’t have to worry about which sky fairy is edible and which is not…

  • http://undefined Svend

    It’s not just a Catholic ritual, many Protestants take part in communion.
    In the Lutheran church I remember we’d get the wafer placed on our tongue but nobody checked if we swallowed the Lord.

  • http://www.guesswork.ca Patrick Metzger

    Since a key part of a politician’s job is feigning interest in the goddish fantasies of his or her constituents, you’d think he would had a handler nearby to whisper “Steve! DON’T GET IN LINE!”. Now poor Jesus is probably stuck in a machine at the Parliamentary dry cleaner.

  • http://undefined badbhoy

    I’m not offended as a Catholic. I’m embarassed as a Canadian that our PM doesn’t have the social intelligence to ask his aides what to expect at the funeral and act accordingly. It would be like going on a trade mission to China and talking about how much you like sushi.