"the interplay between questions about what respondents thought the Church teaches, and questions about what they believe personally, suggests that the problem among American Catholics is more likely a matter of poor catechesis than infidelity."
The other evidence for this read is that it is very very common practice to pretest a survey wording, asking them to think out loud as they go through it - for exactly this reason, to let the researcher make sure people are interpreting the question the way they meant it. Pew is a well respected research outfit; I'd be very surprised if they had skipped this (and if those detailed tests had shown a large chunk of respondents trying to parse whether an option implied something more like consubstantiation than transubstantiation, they would change the wording)
The idea that Jesus is "truly present in the bread and wine" is not what the Catholic Church teaches. That would be Impanation, or the Berengarian heresy. In transubstantiation, the substance of bread and wine is completely replaced by the substance of Jesus Christ. Thus, when the words of consecration are pronounced by the priest, what appears to be bread and wine ceases to be bread and wine. It is Jesus, veiled in the appearances/accidents of bread and wine.
One does not need to hold to an Aristotelian metaphysics in order to have a belief in the True Presence, though. I’d argue that you’re arguing for an entire philosophical system which Catholics are not bound to believe.
One also doesn’t need to use the English language to have a belief in the True Presence. But English is, for me, the clearest medium by which I may express truth, according to my own level of understanding. I think that Thomistic metaphysics is a tool that helps man to express certain truths of the Faith with a greater clarity, precision, and openness than the other philosophical “languages” — if I may call them that. I’m happy to employ other methods of expounding such mysteries when Thomism falls short. (E.G., Wojtyła’s personalism, especially in the Theology of the Body, provides a deeply experiential perspective of the human person that Thomism only hints at. But we need not choose one at the expense of the other. They’re all helpful tools in their own right.)
I'm not sure that it's entirely right to say that the Catholic Church doesn't teach that Jesus is "truly present in the bread and wine." The Council of Trent states that the Lord Jesus is "truly, really, and substantially contained in the august sacrament of the Holy Eucharist." So the language of Jesus being "truly" in the bread and wine actually seems to track more closely the language of Trent than the language of "actually become" which was present in the 2019 Pew survey.
I don't think JT's issue is the "truly", but the "bread and wine." Saying "Jesus is present in the bread" implies that there is bread and that Jesus is inside it; in actuality the consecrated host is only Jesus, and not bread at all.
But we also have Trent talking about the Lord being “contained in the august sacrament of the Holy Eucharist under the appearance of those sensible things [the bread and wine].” And so the language of Jesus being “truly present in the bread and wine” wouldn’t seem to be a clear description of Impanation.
A clearer description of Impanation would either be something like “Jesus is present *with* the bread and the wine” or perhaps “the Lord has become the bread [N.B. the distinction between this and transubstantiation in that with Impanation, Christ has become the bread, whereas in transubstantiation there’s no more bread: only Christ]”.
Those two seem to say very different things to me though. Here's how I read them:
A) "Jesus is truly present in the bread and wine": There exists bread and wine, and Jesus is present within them.
B) "Jesus is contained in the august sacrament of the Holy Eucharist under the appearance of those sensible things": There exists the sacrament, the sacrament appears to be bread and wine, and Jesus is contained in the sacrament.
The way I end up reading A is as impanation, and B as transubstantiation.
I'm not saying that (A) is as well-worded as it could be, but I don't think that saying that "Jesus is truly present in the bread and wine" automatically amounts to impanation (partly due to the wide semantic range of "in"). For example, in his first encyclical "Deus Caritas Est," Pope Benedict XVI in paragraph 13 talks about Jesus "giving his disciples, *in the bread and wine,* his very self, his body and blood as the new manna [suis discipulis in pane et vino se ipsum tradens, suum corpus suumque sanguinem tamquam novum manna]" (emphasis mine). I don't think that Pope Benedict was teaching impanation there.
And if even Benedict XVI could slip into such language, then I don't know if Joe Schmeux Catholic can be faulted too hard.
Hylomorphism is difficult to understand for many. While "substance" and "accidents" are used to attempt to understand transubstantiation would it not be possible to simply stated more understandable that the bread and wine are changed after the words of the Lord and the epiclesis (calling down of the Holy Spirit) and become the true Body and Blood of the Lord? After these words and the actions that accompany them is it not true and right to say that bread and wine no longer exist on the altar but have be changed and are the actual sacramental Body and Blood of the Lord?
For those who understand hylomorphism these categories are all well and good. But to the average members of the faithful the importance is recognising that a change has taken place and the Sacred Species we are invited to received are in no way simply bread and wine but the flesh and blood of the Son of God.
The hylomorphic language we use is not intended to be broadly understandable, but theologically precise. Surely, simpler language can be used to make the ideas more accessible for the average Catholic. No disagreement there. But the challenge is that simpler language often leads to either imprecision (which can be erroneously interpreted) or outright error. For example, even your last sentence, which states that the Sacred Species are "in no way simply bread and wine," could plausibly be interpreted in a heterodox manner, as an endorsement of consubstantiation. In the greater context of your comment, it is clear that you have a full and accurate view of transubstantiation, to the extent that we understand this Divine Mystery. But not everyone will look beyond the snippet or interpret charitably.
I would like a survey question which is modeled on Flannery O'Connor's "well, if it's a symbol, to hell with it" and unless the phrase is trademarked I think the Eucharistic Revival missed a swag opportunity.
> So what does it mean to believe that Jesus is tpresent [sic] in the Eucharist and still choose not to attend Mass at least every Sunday?
It means that we have not taught people to spend time daily in prayer to the point that they have a hunger for Mass and a hunger for the Eucharist. I don't know how to do that, however. I know that one thing can cause the other but as for myself, I was seduced and I let myself be seduced; I did not know what I was getting into (obligatory "what *do* they teach them in these schools?") and so I don't know how to sell someone on the one thing honestly, other than to just tell them to do it (or perhaps: I double dog dare you: fifteen minutes of silence with God.)
First there is a loud wind, or fire, or whatever the bit with Elijah has (before it gets quiet), and that is the turmoil of my own thoughts which are generally agitated and critical (here I do not like what I hear either). After a while, and 15 minutes is optimistic sometimes, this settles down. I don't necessarily like what I hear next, either, though, which you are right to point out (I am very dissatisfied with myself and so it is painful to be loved as I am. Sometimes.)
If you have a friend with whom you can spend 15 min. every day without ever hearing something you don't like, you don't actually have a friend. And if you don't get over the fear of hearing something you don't like, you never will.
I've had a chunk of trouble trying to explain Catholic teaching on the Eucharist to protestant friends (who ask), but who would also say something like "of course Jesus is truly present, he's truly present everywhere"; and for colloquial purposes the short hand I've had the most luck with is : "What we believe about the Eucharist is definitely idolatry if we're wrong"
What would be truly enlightening would be to run the same question on a set of churchgoing Catholics, Orthodox, Lutherans and Episcopalian/Anglicans. You'd expect the first two to come out similarly, but if the latter two answered in the same proportions then you know the respondents are not all meaning the same thing when they give the same answer.
I think it was Dcn. Greg Kandra describing part of what he was taught in homiletics... that the homily should illuminate the Scripture with application to Christian living, but *should point toward the altar*, i.e. the Eucharistic sacrifice in which we are about to take part. I'm paraphrasing what I recall, but it always stuck with me. And since the *vast* majority of Catholics get their catechesis from the homily, we need an overhaul of preaching that helps us make the connection between God's Word, the Body & Blood of Jesus, and the fruit we should expect the Spirit to produce in our lives. *That* would help with Eucharistic coherence and devotion.
Jesus spoke in parables and had to explain what they meant. Apostles followed Jesus and still argued about who he was. Mary Magdalene thought he was a gardener. Jesus met disciples on the road to Emmaus and they didn’t recognize him at first. But now the requirement is to fully understand a heavenly mystery and know the definition of every theological term? Jesus made room for people to come to understanding, and I think it is unfortunate we don’t afford that generosity now.
The Catholics in Australia 2022 survey found the same correlation between rate of Mass attendance and belief in a range of core Catholic teachings, including the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4646161
bingo. As Brendan put it:
"the interplay between questions about what respondents thought the Church teaches, and questions about what they believe personally, suggests that the problem among American Catholics is more likely a matter of poor catechesis than infidelity."
The other evidence for this read is that it is very very common practice to pretest a survey wording, asking them to think out loud as they go through it - for exactly this reason, to let the researcher make sure people are interpreting the question the way they meant it. Pew is a well respected research outfit; I'd be very surprised if they had skipped this (and if those detailed tests had shown a large chunk of respondents trying to parse whether an option implied something more like consubstantiation than transubstantiation, they would change the wording)
The idea that Jesus is "truly present in the bread and wine" is not what the Catholic Church teaches. That would be Impanation, or the Berengarian heresy. In transubstantiation, the substance of bread and wine is completely replaced by the substance of Jesus Christ. Thus, when the words of consecration are pronounced by the priest, what appears to be bread and wine ceases to be bread and wine. It is Jesus, veiled in the appearances/accidents of bread and wine.
It sounds pedantic, but it's extremely important.
Agree. Came here to say the same in a less sophisticated way.
One does not need to hold to an Aristotelian metaphysics in order to have a belief in the True Presence, though. I’d argue that you’re arguing for an entire philosophical system which Catholics are not bound to believe.
One also doesn’t need to use the English language to have a belief in the True Presence. But English is, for me, the clearest medium by which I may express truth, according to my own level of understanding. I think that Thomistic metaphysics is a tool that helps man to express certain truths of the Faith with a greater clarity, precision, and openness than the other philosophical “languages” — if I may call them that. I’m happy to employ other methods of expounding such mysteries when Thomism falls short. (E.G., Wojtyła’s personalism, especially in the Theology of the Body, provides a deeply experiential perspective of the human person that Thomism only hints at. But we need not choose one at the expense of the other. They’re all helpful tools in their own right.)
I'm not sure that it's entirely right to say that the Catholic Church doesn't teach that Jesus is "truly present in the bread and wine." The Council of Trent states that the Lord Jesus is "truly, really, and substantially contained in the august sacrament of the Holy Eucharist." So the language of Jesus being "truly" in the bread and wine actually seems to track more closely the language of Trent than the language of "actually become" which was present in the 2019 Pew survey.
I don't think JT's issue is the "truly", but the "bread and wine." Saying "Jesus is present in the bread" implies that there is bread and that Jesus is inside it; in actuality the consecrated host is only Jesus, and not bread at all.
But we also have Trent talking about the Lord being “contained in the august sacrament of the Holy Eucharist under the appearance of those sensible things [the bread and wine].” And so the language of Jesus being “truly present in the bread and wine” wouldn’t seem to be a clear description of Impanation.
A clearer description of Impanation would either be something like “Jesus is present *with* the bread and the wine” or perhaps “the Lord has become the bread [N.B. the distinction between this and transubstantiation in that with Impanation, Christ has become the bread, whereas in transubstantiation there’s no more bread: only Christ]”.
Those two seem to say very different things to me though. Here's how I read them:
A) "Jesus is truly present in the bread and wine": There exists bread and wine, and Jesus is present within them.
B) "Jesus is contained in the august sacrament of the Holy Eucharist under the appearance of those sensible things": There exists the sacrament, the sacrament appears to be bread and wine, and Jesus is contained in the sacrament.
The way I end up reading A is as impanation, and B as transubstantiation.
I'm not saying that (A) is as well-worded as it could be, but I don't think that saying that "Jesus is truly present in the bread and wine" automatically amounts to impanation (partly due to the wide semantic range of "in"). For example, in his first encyclical "Deus Caritas Est," Pope Benedict XVI in paragraph 13 talks about Jesus "giving his disciples, *in the bread and wine,* his very self, his body and blood as the new manna [suis discipulis in pane et vino se ipsum tradens, suum corpus suumque sanguinem tamquam novum manna]" (emphasis mine). I don't think that Pope Benedict was teaching impanation there.
And if even Benedict XVI could slip into such language, then I don't know if Joe Schmeux Catholic can be faulted too hard.
Hylomorphism is difficult to understand for many. While "substance" and "accidents" are used to attempt to understand transubstantiation would it not be possible to simply stated more understandable that the bread and wine are changed after the words of the Lord and the epiclesis (calling down of the Holy Spirit) and become the true Body and Blood of the Lord? After these words and the actions that accompany them is it not true and right to say that bread and wine no longer exist on the altar but have be changed and are the actual sacramental Body and Blood of the Lord?
For those who understand hylomorphism these categories are all well and good. But to the average members of the faithful the importance is recognising that a change has taken place and the Sacred Species we are invited to received are in no way simply bread and wine but the flesh and blood of the Son of God.
The hylomorphic language we use is not intended to be broadly understandable, but theologically precise. Surely, simpler language can be used to make the ideas more accessible for the average Catholic. No disagreement there. But the challenge is that simpler language often leads to either imprecision (which can be erroneously interpreted) or outright error. For example, even your last sentence, which states that the Sacred Species are "in no way simply bread and wine," could plausibly be interpreted in a heterodox manner, as an endorsement of consubstantiation. In the greater context of your comment, it is clear that you have a full and accurate view of transubstantiation, to the extent that we understand this Divine Mystery. But not everyone will look beyond the snippet or interpret charitably.
I would like a survey question which is modeled on Flannery O'Connor's "well, if it's a symbol, to hell with it" and unless the phrase is trademarked I think the Eucharistic Revival missed a swag opportunity.
> So what does it mean to believe that Jesus is tpresent [sic] in the Eucharist and still choose not to attend Mass at least every Sunday?
It means that we have not taught people to spend time daily in prayer to the point that they have a hunger for Mass and a hunger for the Eucharist. I don't know how to do that, however. I know that one thing can cause the other but as for myself, I was seduced and I let myself be seduced; I did not know what I was getting into (obligatory "what *do* they teach them in these schools?") and so I don't know how to sell someone on the one thing honestly, other than to just tell them to do it (or perhaps: I double dog dare you: fifteen minutes of silence with God.)
"I double dog dare you: fifteen minutes of silence with God"
-But...what if I don't like what I hear?
First there is a loud wind, or fire, or whatever the bit with Elijah has (before it gets quiet), and that is the turmoil of my own thoughts which are generally agitated and critical (here I do not like what I hear either). After a while, and 15 minutes is optimistic sometimes, this settles down. I don't necessarily like what I hear next, either, though, which you are right to point out (I am very dissatisfied with myself and so it is painful to be loved as I am. Sometimes.)
If you have a friend with whom you can spend 15 min. every day without ever hearing something you don't like, you don't actually have a friend. And if you don't get over the fear of hearing something you don't like, you never will.
I triple dog dare you. :)
All right, children, play nice.
Thanks for your work! I appreciate hearing about the study that had better, if not perfect, wording.
I've had a chunk of trouble trying to explain Catholic teaching on the Eucharist to protestant friends (who ask), but who would also say something like "of course Jesus is truly present, he's truly present everywhere"; and for colloquial purposes the short hand I've had the most luck with is : "What we believe about the Eucharist is definitely idolatry if we're wrong"
Parsing the word "symbols" from the original Pew question is also fun if you know how the Church uses that word.
What would be truly enlightening would be to run the same question on a set of churchgoing Catholics, Orthodox, Lutherans and Episcopalian/Anglicans. You'd expect the first two to come out similarly, but if the latter two answered in the same proportions then you know the respondents are not all meaning the same thing when they give the same answer.
I think it was Dcn. Greg Kandra describing part of what he was taught in homiletics... that the homily should illuminate the Scripture with application to Christian living, but *should point toward the altar*, i.e. the Eucharistic sacrifice in which we are about to take part. I'm paraphrasing what I recall, but it always stuck with me. And since the *vast* majority of Catholics get their catechesis from the homily, we need an overhaul of preaching that helps us make the connection between God's Word, the Body & Blood of Jesus, and the fruit we should expect the Spirit to produce in our lives. *That* would help with Eucharistic coherence and devotion.
Jesus spoke in parables and had to explain what they meant. Apostles followed Jesus and still argued about who he was. Mary Magdalene thought he was a gardener. Jesus met disciples on the road to Emmaus and they didn’t recognize him at first. But now the requirement is to fully understand a heavenly mystery and know the definition of every theological term? Jesus made room for people to come to understanding, and I think it is unfortunate we don’t afford that generosity now.
The Catholics in Australia 2022 survey found the same correlation between rate of Mass attendance and belief in a range of core Catholic teachings, including the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4646161
Believe it because Jesus said so. Sheesh…
Great article. It helps enormously to properly define and understand a problem if you want to correct it.
Natural language makes a hopeless mess of things. Every word, every phrase is a minefield.
The priest stock image is my previous pastor. :)
ex nay on the "tpresent" typo in the article.