A 'substantial quibble' with the Pew Research Institute

Share |

Dear Pew Research Institute,

While I generally enjoy reading your research, as Catholic, I think you are creating a highly inaccurate picture of all Catholics by making statements like those made by Aleksandra Sandstrom on your website. 

Sandstrom notes, "The church teaches that when the bread and wine are consecrated by an ordained priest, they become the actual body and blood of the risen Christ; a theological explanation for this process, known as transubstantiation, has been supported by official church teaching since the 16th century." [emphasis mine]

I don't think the Catholic Church has ever described the Eucharist as the actual body and blood. A search of the vatican website:

0 results have been found for "actual body"

The word 'actual' in common use means "existing in fact or reality" i.e. the things we see. The standard language of the Catholic Church for the Eucharist is normally the "Real Presence" or perhaps "true, real, substantial" presence but not actual since the Body and Blood are real but still seen and tasted by the senses under the form or appearances of bread and wine.

This may explain the responses of your 2019 survey which asked a sampling of Catholics the very confusing statement: “during Catholic Mass, the bread and wine actually become the body and blood of Jesus.” (my emphasis)


As the glossary to the Catechism notes (my emphasis):

BODY OF CHRIST: (1) The human body which the Son of God assumed through his conception in the womb of Mary and which is now glorified in heaven (467, 476, 645). (2) This same Body and Blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ are sacramentally present in the Eucharist under the appearances of bread and wine (1374). (3) The Church is called the (mystical) Body of Christ because of the intimate communion which Jesus shares with his disciples; the metaphor of a body, whose head is Christ and whose members are the faithful, provides an image which keeps in focus both the unity and the diversity of the Church (787, 790, 1396).

And

CONSECRATION: The dedication of a thing or person to divine service by a prayer or blessing. The consecration at Mass is that part of the Eucharistic Prayer during which the Lord’s words of institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper are recited by the priestly minister, making Christ’s Body and Blood—his sacrifice offered on the cross once for all—sacramentally present under the species of bread and wine (1352, 1353).

The Catechism itself notes,:

In the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist “the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained.”202 “This presence is called ‘real’—by which is not intended to exclude the other types of presence as if they could not be ‘real’ too, but because it is presence in the fullest sense: that is to say, it is a substantial presence by which Christ, God and man, makes himself wholly and entirely present.”203 (CCC 1374)

It is 'actually' (if you will pardon my pun) very annoying to see Pew Associate Research Director, Gregory A. Smith repeatedly implying that Catholics don't know their faith when his presentation of what the Church believes is not accurate. Many Catholics may indeed not know enough about their faith, but I believe this survey was a flawed instrument to measure this.

In the Catholic understanding, there is no dichotomy between "real" and "symbol" as supposed. Saying "43% of Catholics believe that the bread and wine are symbolic" is not the same as saying they believe it is merely a symbol and therefore not real. Unless I am misunderstanding what you asked. At the very least, it is a very confusing question from a Catholic point of view.

Regarding signs and symbols (1333–1340) in the celebration of the liturgy, the Catechism notes that "a sacramental celebration is woven from signs and symbols" (1145). The Catechism further notes,

Since Pentecost, it is through the sacramental signs of his Church that the Holy Spirit carries on the work of sanctification. The sacraments of the Church do not abolish but purify and integrate all the richness of the signs and symbols of the cosmos and of social life. [emphasis mine] (CCC 1152) 

The sacraments can be both a symbol or symbolic and real without contradiction. Ultimately for Catholics the Eucharist is a mysterium fidei, a mystery which surpasses our understanding and can only be received in faith.

Examples of standard language:

St. John Paul II, 

Homily, Holy Thursday, 12 April 2001

This is the wonder which we priests touch every day with our hands during Holy Mass! The Church continues to repeat Jesus’ words and knows that she must do so until the end of the world. By virtue of those words a marvellous change takes place: the Eucharistic species remain, but the bread and wine become, in the felicitous expression of the Council of Trent, “truly, really and substantially” the Body and Blood of the Lord.

Homily Thursday, 30 May 2002

"...adore the Bread and the Wine become the true Body and true Blood of the Redeemer. "Signs not things are all we see", the Sequence stresses, but "here beneath these signs lie hidden priceless things".

Homily Thursday, 3 June 2010

" in contemplating and adoring the Most Holy Sacrament, recognizes in it the real and permanent presence of Jesus ...In the Last Supper, instead, Jesus transforms the bread and wine into his own Body and Blood so that the disciples may be nourished by him and live in close and real communion with him.

St. John Paul II, (his encyclical on the Eucharist)

ENCYCLICAL LETTER ECCLESIA DE EUCHARISTIA

15. The sacramental re-presentation of Christ's sacrifice, crowned by the resurrection, in the Mass involves a most special presence which – in the words of Paul VI – “is called 'real' not as a way of excluding all other types of presence as if they were 'not real', but because it is a presence in the fullest sense: a substantial presence whereby Christ, the God-Man, is wholly and entirely present”.²² This sets forth once more the perennially valid teaching of the Council of Trent: “the consecration of the bread and wine effects the change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord, and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood. And the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called this change transubstantiation”.²³ Truly the Eucharist is a mysterium fidei, a mystery which surpasses our understanding and can only be received in faith, as is often brought out in the catechesis of the Church Fathers regarding this divine sacrament: “Do not see – Saint Cyril of Jerusalem exhorts – in the bread and wine merely natural elements, because the Lord has expressly said that they are his body and his blood: faith assures you of this, though your senses suggest otherwise”.²⁴ 

_____

²²Encyclical Letter Mysterium Fidei (3 September 1965): AAS 57 (1965), 764.

²³Session XIII, Decretum de ss. Eucharistia, Chapter 4: DS 1642.

²⁴Mystagogical Catecheses, IV, 6: SCh 126, 138.