Yesterday I became vaguely aware of stuff like this streaming from from that font of atheist chop logic, tedious anti-religious snark and instant umbridge, Ophilia Benson:
It turns out that God’s a comedian. Holy water is full of shit.
Of course it was an occasion for religion bashing, especially Catholic bashing. One wit on Eschaton (a certain source to test for religion bashing) made a remark about priests washing off their buggering dicks in baptismal fonts. Which counts as a bright thing to say among the "Brights".
Being concerned with more pressing problems, I vaguely considered the possibilities of contamination in samples taken from stoupes, the small holy water fonts at the door of the sanctuary in Catholic churches. I can easily imagine a small bowl of water that had scores if not hundreds of fingers dipped in it would be less than pristine and hygienic. You could probably find problems with frequently handled objects in any heavily used public venues. And it turns out that is one of the things they were talking about.
The study, published in the Journal of Water and Health, also found that all church and hospital chapel fonts contained bacteria -- the busier the church, the higher the bacterial count.
"This may represent a problem that has hitherto been underestimated, especially in hospitals, since there a lot of people with weakened immune systems there," Kirschner said.
Which is hardly a surprise, especially with what we've learned about hospital hygiene in recent years. I will have to say that the descriptions of the ABC report, that water from the door font was used to anoint the lips was something I've never seen or hear of. It was used to make the sign of the cross and it was never something required. I'd thought it was something that went out of fashion forty years back or so. A quick check with the three church going members of my family, two of whom are Eucharistic ministers, they said they didn't do it. None of us ever heard of anyone putting it on the lips. Considering the outraged reactions I've gotten from the religion bashers while bringing up issues of e coli and other fecal borne pathogens during kinky sex, this is comparatively low in risk. One of those who Catholic-bashed about it on one of the blogs I checked had previously announced her enthusiasm for anal sex in the past.
Apparently the problem was known before now as means to improve things were already underway even the report Benson relied on noted that:
There have been advances made for the more hygienic use of holy water, including the invention of a holy water dispenser a few years ago by an Italian priest, while studies have also indicated that adding salt (at recommended levels of 20 percent) can help disinfect the water.
Which is a big improvement but I'd think it would probably be a better idea to discontinue the tradition which was never considered to be a sacramental necessity. Or, at least, telling people of the risk. From what I've read, this doesn't indicate that the holy water used in baptism is known to be at risk, though I'd think it was important to test that too. I doubt that priests take that water from door side stoupes but from a supply which could be maintained under hygienic conditions.
To add to the confusion, holy water, that is water blessed during the Easter Vigil Mass, is mixed up in the reporters imagination with water from so-called "holy springs" which, I'll bet, wouldn't fare much worse in testing with just plain old springs found in similar locations. The semi-famous Maud Muller spring, located several miles from where I'm typing this carries health warnings and, safely protestant, if not entirely secular, it's got nothing to do with holiness. As I recall, it was located not far from fields that used to be under active cultivation though I have no idea if cow manure was applied to those in the past. I haven't gone past there in ages. For all I know it's surrounded by housing projects by now. I wouldn't drink unboiled water from any source except a tested well. And those should be periodically tested.
Despite its purported cleansing properties, holy water could actually be more harmful than healing, according to a new Austrian study on "holy" springs.
ReplyDeleteResearchers at the Institute of Hygiene and Applied Immunology at the Medical University of Vienna tested water from 21 springs in Austria and 18 fonts in Vienna and found samples contained up to 62 million bacteria per milliliter of water, none of it safe to drink.
A) the stupidity of "holy water" and "cleansing." There is a metaphysical sense to that word, and a literal one; and the two are not one. Holy water is water appropriate for baptism (at least). It isn't "Magic water" that makes Mr. Clean sanctify your household chores.
Nor have I ever heard of anyone using the door font as a drinking fountain.
B) Which brings up the question of the springs, from which people might drink. Not, in this age of purified water and runoff both chemical and organic (i.e., waste, and not just from four legged animals), that drinking from a spring is a good idea anyway. But the holiness of the spring has nothing to do with (nor has it ever) with whether the spring water is potable.
So the proper frame for this story is that water can be easily contaminated, and if you don't know where it's from (even bottled water can, in some circumstances, be re-bottled and unclean, so know your supplier), don't drink it.
I, for one, would never drink water I'd seen dozens of people dip their hands in as they passed. And it's never occurred to me that holy water should be consumed.
I blame ABC for this. What nonsense.
Goodness, they're going to have a fit when they find out we drink from a common chalice.
ReplyDeleteBut, my best holy water story. True story. A secretary I know told me that, when she was a teenager she got her (Protestant) boyfriend to come to mass with her. Once seated, she noticed that he was chewing gum and told him he ought not to be (different era). On his returning, she asked "Did you get rid of it?" "Yeah," he said, "but why are the ashtrays full of water?"
Goodness, they're going to have a fit when they find out we drink from a common chalice.
ReplyDeleteAnd in all that time at the Episcopal altar, I never got sick.
Funny, that.