A few weeks back, several people sent me links to a story about a purportedly new rage among Quebecois, of eating unconsecrated hosts as snacks. I never blogged it because …well, my instincts told me not to bother.

Blogging Canadian priest Father Thomas Dowd takes time to thoroughly debunk the story as reported, and to give some additional thoughts on the state of the Church in Quebec:

The original name for this product is the retailles d’hosties. These were the cuttings left over from the production of round hosts from a flat sheet of bread, and they were sold by the nuns in bags to the faithful. This is a very old practice, one which goes back to the days when Quebec was more Catholic than the Pope, and it never raised any eyebrows. The article is quite wrong when it states that this food product was "seen only at holy communion".

Do go read for the lengthy analysis, not of the "hosts" but of the general environment – via Fr. Neuhaus at First Things, with whom Fr. Dowd takes issue on some points.