In the August 10-16 edition of the Orlando Weekly, there is a column by Liz Langley (“Possession is Nine-Tenths of the Fun”) that derides the Eucharist and insults Catholics. Admitting that she purchased a box of Communion Wafers from a Christian bookstore, Langley explained her purchase as follows:
“These are the little wafers that Catholics believe are the body of Christ. These, I thought, might come in handy if you were possessed and couldn‘t get to a priest right away. Say you got possessed at the zoo. What then? If you have the box Jesus on your hands, you might be able to get out of this pickle on your own.
Langley then made disparaging remarks about transubstantiation and offered the following advice to her readers: “Mortify your Catholic friends by setting them [the Communion Wafers] out with the hors d’oeuvres at a party.” She adds that it would be of greater benefit to the Church if it substituted “Twinkies” or “Bagel Bites” for unleavened bread.
Catholic League president William Donohue issued the following remark about this incident:
“The Langley piece is one of the most anti-Catholic articles to have appeared in some time. Jeff Truesdell, the editor of the Orlando Weekly, has refused to run an apology for publishing Langley’s article. When asked whether he would accept an article from the Ku Klux Klan, Truesdell said he would not, explaining that he ‘doesn’t agree with their views.’ He has no problem, he said, with Langley’s views, stating that he didn’t think she meant to offend Catholics.
“Accordingly, I will now mobilize a public relations offensive against the newspaper, using every tactic this side of the law to discredit the paper. As for Langley herself, the best way to discredit her column is to republish it. Having already received permission to reprint the article, I will make certain it appears in the next edition of Catalyst, the monthly journal of the Catholic League. We will also publish the address, phone and fax numbers of the newspaper, complete with advice to cur readers.”
The Catholic League is the nation’s largest Catholic civil rights organization. It defends the right of Catholics—lay and clergy alike—to participate in American life without defamation or discrimination.
