Catholic Controversies:
The Matter of The Blessed SacramentPage 1: Hans-Georg Lundahl to Pope Michael
Prakash J Maskaren. The text of these exchanges have been modified to make better sense.
From: Hans Georg Lundahl
Date: Wed Dec 4, 2002 6:08 pm
Sub.: Re: [panindia] ?Pope Michael?
You are invited to view my page on my site Antimodernism, about a certain doctrine of David Bawden claiming to be Pope Michael, concerning the ordinary Matter of Hosts.
The following quote was found on this (page on Pope Michael's webste): INVALID MATTER: Proof that the Novus Ordo Adulterates Bread
"Today what is sold in the stores as white flour, from which it appears that modern hosts are made is not really wheat flour. True it comes from wheat, but not from the whole grain. Only the center of the wheat is retained, the rest cast off for animal food. Many authors have shown that white flour is devoid of all nutritious value. It is virtually worthless. Modern white flour has been enriched, that is chemicals added to supply a few vitamins, which the government thinks should be added. Therefore, even if white flour in its original state was valid matter, in its enriched state it would not be valid matter. It is our humble opinion that white flour is not valid matter and that masses said with hosts made from white flour are as devoid of grace as the flour is of nutrition."
Strong words on white flour - irrespective of additions, aren't they? This led to a correspondence, from which the last letter is mine, posted yesterday [I have made an addition in brackets]:
Footnote to the question of wheat in the Summa Theol., Caramelli Edition, Rome, 1948-9. Cannot send it, since it belongs to University Library of Lund. [Actually the publisher's name is Marietti, but it was made Cura et Studio Sac. PETRI CARAMELLO]
On your page, you (Pope Michael) seem to imply that white flour is bad and - even apart the question of additions - should not be used for Eucharist, but rather full wheat / s k Graham flour.
However: Candida, triticea, ac tenuis, non magna, rotunda, Expers fermenti, non salsa sit hostia Christi.
The Host can hardly be shining white, unless one uses white flour, can it?
It was originally developed for fine purposes like Holy Eucharist or Kings' tables. Can someone who upsets the usages of Holy Church be a Pope?
A little note on white flour. Even in Kansas one may have heard of sifted flour, the sifting being used precisely to get rid of the harder particles from outside the centre of the wheat grain and to retain the smaller and finer particles from the centre of the grain. The purpose is to get the flour white and fine.
Sifted flour is mentioned in Holy Writ. There is a Latin word for it, namely simila, and it is used in connection with the Food Sacrifices of the Old Testament, in Exodus or Leviticus.
Now sifted flour may not be ideal for the poor man's bodily survival - it cannot be all that bad, since I have preserved my mortal life on a staple of white flour, in bread or pancakes with only water for batter, perhaps oil and salt too for more than fourteen months - but then sifted flour was to start with a finery, used for religious purposes or tables of Kings (with symbolic or luxurious - not necessarily in the sinful sense of that word - intet) or rich people: eaten by men who had other things to eat.
In England, in 1381, Belloc informs us (History of England), a shilling could buy only half a sack of wheat but a whole sack of rye or beans or oats - wheat flour obviously not being the staple food in such northern latitudes. May one guess that the wheat flour was usually sifted flour? I think so.
In Vienna, the Bakers have since centuries been obliged by their corporation to be expert in both white and black baking. White baking means sifted wheat flour: French rolls, Danish pastry, sponge cake, etc. Black baking means baking of full grain rye bread - which would have been the staple food for the common people up to recently, to the explosion in living standard.
The white flour used in these bakeries must be essentially the same as the sifted wheat flour of past centuries: the bakeries of Vienna are so conservative and enjoy such prestige, that it would have been impossible for a Government (except that of the Third Reich, which would not have wanted to interfere with a pleasant cultural tradition) to impose a radically different flour.
On Danish pastry: they are called Kaiserssemmel (Kaiser from Caesar, Emperor, Semmel from Latin simila) in Vienna since Emperor Maximilian made the bakers bake enough of them to give all the children of Vienna on a certain festive occasion.
You don't bake Danish pastry on Graham flour, whatever your nutritionist may say about it!
Hans Georg Lundahl