Avoiding absurdity in preaching the Eucharest

[thinkandmull]

He’s told me many times that Jesus permeates the accidents. Linus has nothing to do with my arguments on this thread

 

[Blue_Horizon]

I suppose it depends on what your definition of physical is. If a person understands physical to mean something that can be perceived by the senses or scientific instruments in the natural order of things, then this person would conclude that the body and blood of Christ present in the eucharist is not physical.

Well you seem one step ahead of Linus if you agree with us on this point.

In my view…

And this is my second point…it doesn’t matter what classically educated Catholics like you and me think “physical” means."

When preaching we must start where ordinary Joe Bloggs Englishman is … because the Latin Catholic Church does not have monopoly rights on the meaning of words in the English language…which evolves.

Physical no longer means what its root Latin word may have meant. Just as the modern discipline of “Physics” is no longer what Aristotle would have understood by that discipline.

Hence, if we are to avoid absurdities in preaching the Eucharist…it would be best not to say that Jesus’s body is physically present in Communion.

Absurdities like these have been going on for far too long in English Catechesis.
Its nothing to do with theology but everything to do with inculturation.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

I suppose it depends on what your definition of physical is…

Perhaps of more salience is answering the following issue which Linus has backed off on…

Quote: BlueHorizon
But below you made the strange statement that Jesus’s bodily accidents in the Resurrection can be present but intangible . I don’t think so. He just isn’t there…surely?

Quote: Linus
Of course nothing during Christ’s forty days on earth after his Resurrection required Jesus to be bodily present but imperceptible. Jesus appeared suddenly in the Upper Room, twice, even though the doors were locked.

And this somehow conclusively proves Jesus was bodily present for a few secs in the closed room with intangible bodily accidents?

I think the more reasonable explanation is that he was never in the room until he materialised.

But it doesn’t really matter whether this explanation is more reasonable or not.
Because it is a reasonable alternative then your “it must be” hypothesis of imperceptible bodily accidents is but your personal interpretation only of what happened in those 40 days.

Personally I have never understood those forty days to mean Jesus had to be bodily present on earth all of that time. And even if he were I see no reason why he couldn’t have been tangible and visible the whole time…doing his “beam me up scotty” thing all over the place including, suddenly, the Upper room. One moment he was present, the next moment he wasn’t.

Why posit something so complicated and self contradictory as "imperceptible bodily accidents .

The other question Linus has shied off from is:

As I asked you below:

Quote: Blue Horizon
… have you an authoritative source that states Jesus’s Resurrected bodily accidents are present even when he is “imperceptible”).

How about responding - I would love to see what you have personally interpreted as “imperceptible bodily accidents”.

Maybe I am wrong and your understanding of Jesus’s glorified state is correct…but I don’t think so.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

The accidents of the body and blood of Christ are under the eucharistic species. Indeed, the entire Christ, body, soul, and divinity are under every part of the dimensive quantity of the bread and wine. The accidents of the body and blood of Christ are not perceived by the senses in the Eucharist because by a divine miracle they are present after the manner of substance. Material substance without extension is invisible and imperceptible to the senses.

Do you have Magisterial quotes for this particular understanding of how this miracle operates Richca? (ie material substance without extension…and therefore without the other accidents that necessarily inhere in the 1st accident we know as quantity.)

I have my doubts over this one - the “entire” and “whole” affirmations suggests all his accidents must be present in their fullness for those adjectives to apply truly.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

If you had the smallest piece of consecrated host possible which still had the appearance of bread, you wouldn’t have infinite parts of that piece in which would be infinite Jesus’. For if you divided that piece, it would no longer have the appearance of bread nor would the body of Christ be present.

I have always found it strange that we accept Aquinas’s theology is resting on Arist philosophy yet somehow we end up making affirmations that deny other primary Arist principles.

This is one of them.

Aristotle we know was not an atomist. He held that substances were infinitely divisible.
Therefore bread is infinitely divisible.

So I don’t think your response here to TAM works.

Sure you may be right in terms of common sense or even Canon Law disciplinary definitions so that people don’t get too scrupulous when dealing with practical Eucharistic issues.

But perhaps its not good philosophy.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Perhaps of more salience is answering the following issue which Linus has backed off on…

The other question Linus has shied off from is:

No Blue, I haven’t back tracked on anything I have said. It is just that I have given you all the information you need and if that isn’t good enough I don’t know what else to say.

Pax
and

Have a Nice Easter

Linus2nd

 

[CrossofChrist]

Haven’t been following the thread really, but I found this relevant to what was discussed a while back:

1. 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

Adoro te devote, latens Deitas, we shall continue to sing with the Angelic Doctor. Before this mystery of love, human reason fully experiences its limitations. One understands how, down the centuries, this truth has stimulated theology to strive to understand it ever more deeply.

These are praiseworthy efforts, which are all the more helpful and insightful to the extent that they are able to join critical thinking to the “living faith” of the Church, as grasped especially by the Magisterium’s “sure charism of truth” and the “intimate sense of spiritual realities”25 which is attained above all by the saints. There remains the boundary indicated by Paul VI: “Every theological explanation which seeks some understanding of this mystery, in order to be in accord with Catholic faith, must firmly maintain that in objective reality, independently of our mind, the bread and wine have ceased to exist after the consecration, so that the adorable body and blood of the Lord Jesus from that moment on are really before us under the sacramental species of bread and wine”.26

1. The saving efficacy of the sacrifice is fully realized when the Lord’s body and blood are received in communion. The Eucharistic Sacrifice is intrinsically directed to the inward union of the faithful with Christ through communion; we receive the very One who offered himself for us, we receive his body which he gave up for us on the Cross and his blood which he “poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Mt 26:28). We are reminded of his words: “As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me” (Jn 6:57). Jesus himself reassures us that this union, which he compares to that of the life of the Trinity, is truly realized. The Eucharist is a true banquet, in which Christ offers himself as our nourishment. When for the first time Jesus spoke of this food, his listeners were astonished and bewildered, which forced the Master to emphasize the objective truth of his words: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life within you” (Jn 6:53). This is no metaphorical food: “My flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed” (Jn 6:55).

It’s from St. John Paul II’s Encyclical Ecclesia de Eucharistia.

 

[JimG]

It seems to me that with respect to the Eucharist, there are two positions to be avoided.

1. We ought to avoid thinking of the Eucharist as merely a spiritual presence: i.e. Christ is there but only in spirit. That’s not the case. He is wholly and entirely present in the Eucharist, both body and soul, with all his bodily parts.
2. We should also avoid a way of thinking that imagines that in consuming the Eucharist we are somehow crunching up his flesh and bones. That is not the case either. There is nothing that we can do to the accidents of bread and wine that in any way separate, damage, or harm the body of Christ. He is fully present but in a unitary manner. Breaking or chewing the host does not break the body of Christ. He remains whole and entire.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

No Blue, I haven’t back tracked on anything I have said. It is just that I have given you all the information you need and if that isn’t good enough I don’t know what else to say.

Pax
and

Have a Nice Easter

Linus2nd

Linus I didn’t say you backtracked.

You simply haven’t explained your unlikely personal view of Upper Room “intangible presence” that you used as a basis of your argumentation.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Linus I didn’t say you backtracked.

You simply haven’t explained your unlikely personal view of Upper Room “intangible presence” that you used as a basis of your argumentation.

All I meant was that the fact that Jesus appeared in the Upper Room suddenly, when the doors were locked has always been interpreted by Catholic Theologians as meaning that Jesus did that through the power he possessed through his Glorified Body, the power of subtlety. And if he exercised that power during his forty days after the Resurrection he could also exercise that power in the Eucharist.

’ Subtlety ’ remember is the power of a glorified person by which their intellect has complete power over their bodies. In the incidents where Christ appeared in the Upper Room, he exercised that power in a limited way, not by making himself invisible but by passing through solid doors and/or walls. He also exercised it by consuming solid food which glorified bodies do not need and cannot digest. In the Eucharist he exercises that power to make his presence invisible and intangible, in the earthly material sense. However, he does touch us and we him. It is just that it is not a physical sensation. It has been described by others as a '" spiritual " touch. When thinking of Christ in the Eucharist, we must think not in a material way and not in a spiritual way but in the way of something in between, in the way of matter which is as near to spirit as it can be without actually being a spirit.

Linus2nd

 

[Richca]

Well you seem one step ahead of Linus if you agree with us on this point.

And this is my second point…it doesn’t matter what classically educated Catholics like you and me think “physical” means."

When preaching we must start where ordinary Joe Bloggs Englishman is … because the Latin Catholic Church does not have monopoly rights on the meaning of words in the English language…which evolves.

Physical no longer means what its root Latin word may have meant. Just as the modern discipline of “Physics” is no longer what Aristotle would have understood by that discipline.

Hence, if we are to avoid absurdities in preaching the Eucharist…it would be best not to say that Jesus’s body is physically present in Communion.

Absurdities like these have been going on for far too long in English Catechesis.
Its nothing to do with theology but everything to do with inculturation.

Hello bluehorizon,

Your idea of what the physical is where ever you get it from is not mine and I’m an ordinary Joe Bloggs. In my view, the absurdity is not to say that Jesus’ body and blood is physically present in the eucharist, but to say they are not physically present. Is not the human body and blood of Christ a physical, material reality? By all accounts in my mind, I would say yes.
The Church teaches that the entire Christ, body, soul and divinity is substantially and corporeally present in his physical reality in the eucharist (cf. Mysterium Fidei, Encyclical of Pope Paul VI on the Holy Eucharist, 1965). Pope Paul VI is not the only one who mentions the physical presence of Christ in the Eucharist, which in my view is demanded by our very faith in the eucharist, for the physical body and blood of Christ is really present or it is not in the doctrine of transubstantiation, but also Fr. James T. O’Connor in his book “The Hidden Manna, A Theology of the Eucharist,” 1988, which I recommend to all. I could also mention the late Fr. John Hardon and Fr. Walter Farrell O.P. in “A Companion to the Summa,” to name a few.

 

[Richca]

I have always found it strange that we accept Aquinas’s theology is resting on Arist philosophy yet somehow we end up making affirmations that deny other primary Arist principles.

This is one of them.

Aristotle we know was not an atomist. He held that substances were infinitely divisible.
Therefore bread is infinitely divisible.

So I don’t think your response here to TAM works.

Sure you may be right in terms of common sense or even Canon Law disciplinary definitions so that people don’t get too scrupulous when dealing with practical Eucharistic issues.

But perhaps its not good philosophy.

I’m pretty sure that Aristotle expressly says that substances are not infinitly divisible and Aquinas says the same. This is actually just common sense. For example, you can’t divide a piece of bread infinitely without at some point having a change of substance. At some point in the division, this piece of bread is no longer going to be bread but some other substance or substances.

I believe Aristotle says that bodies or informed matter are infinitely divisible or something of that nature. I would have to look it up again but its not substances.

Aquinas does make use of Aristotlelian philosophy in his theology. However, Aquinas also corrected Aristotlelian philosophy where necessary as well as expanding metaphysical thinking to new heights such as the distinction between the act of being and substance or essence as the ultimate structure of created being.

 

[Richca]

Quote: Originally Posted by Richca
The accidents of the body and blood of Christ are under the eucharistic species. Indeed, the entire Christ, body, soul, and divinity are under every part of the dimensive quantity of the bread and wine. The accidents of the body and blood of Christ are not perceived by the senses in the Eucharist because by a divine miracle they are present after the manner of substance. Material substance without extension is invisible and imperceptible to the senses.

Do you have Magisterial quotes for this particular understanding of how this miracle operates Richca? (ie material substance without extension…and therefore without the other accidents that necessarily inhere in the 1st accident we know as quantity.)

This particular understanding is the explanation offered by Thomas Aquinas which I believe is the soundest theological explanation we have and which is in conformity with sound philosophy, the teaching of the Church and Tradition. I have not read anywhere that the Catholic Church has decreed that we must believe with divine faith the philosophical - theological explanation offered by Aquinas. The doctrine of transubstantiation as decreed by the Council of Trent and the CCC we must hold with divine and catholic faith. The Council of Trent and the CCC do not go much into the details of the doctrine except to say that there is a change of the whole substances of the bread and wine into the substances of the body and blood of Christ. In a word, the bread and wine after the consecration are no longer bread and wine but the body and blood of Christ under the appearances of bread and wine.

In regard to your particular question though concerning magisterial documents about material substance without extension, and depending on how authoritative we understand the Catechism of the Council of Trent is (the catechism was issued by order of Pope Pius V), the source of the doctrine of transubstantiation in this catechism beyond that which the faith of the Church simply holds, is, I believe, unmistakably taken from Aquinas’ theology on the eucharist. The catechism states “Now we do not say that Christ is in the Sacrament inasmuch as He is great or small, terms which belong to quantity, but inasmuch as He is a substance. The substance of the bread is changed into the substance of Christ, not into magnitude or quantity.” Extension is another word for magnitude or quantity or as St. Thomas likes to say, dimensive quantity.

Now, Aquinas does not say that the whole dimensive quantity of Christ’s body is not in the sacrament of the eucharist. On the contrary, the whole dimensive quantity of Christ’s body is in this sacrament, not by the power of the sacrament but from real concomitance. For the existence of the dimensive quantity of Christ’s body cannot be seperated from the existence of its substance. The whole dimensive quantity of Christ’s body exists in the sacrament though, not after its proper and natural manner, but after the manner of substance and likewise the rest of the accidents of Christ’s body which follow upon dimensive quantity. We should keep in mind that the Church teaches that Christ is present whole and entire, body, soul, and divinity under each species and whole and entire under every part of the species.

I have my doubts over this one - the “entire” and “whole” affirmations suggests all his accidents must be present in their fullness for those adjectives to apply truly.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

All I meant was that the fact that Jesus appeared in the Upper Room suddenly, when the doors were locked has always been interpreted by Catholic Theologians as meaning that Jesus did that through the power he possessed through his Glorified Body, the power of subtlety.

That’s an awful of “always interpreted” and its opinion rather than doctrine as far as I am aware. (Pretty much like how the earth MUST be the centre of the cosmos.)

I find it strange that you use the concept of “subtlety” as if we’ve known about it before the Resurrection. Of course it is the Resurrection experiences themselves that have been reflected upon over the centuries leading to these abstract hypotheses/concepts. It is therefore a concept based on a singular example only, Jesus in those allegedly 40 days.
(John’s understanding of the Resurrection time is not as simplistic as Luke).

Yet you try to give your statement greater credibility because you can say “Jesus suddenly appeared in the Upper Room by the power of subtlety.” Actually its just a tautology really isn’t it? All you are really saying is “Jesus appeared suddenly by his power to appear suddenly.” But we really know no more about that power than that…it means Jesus appeared suddenly!

Does subtility mean Jesus walked through the wall (ie he was tangible and bodily present on the other side then he went intangible, walked through the wall, was still intangible yet present in the room… then suddenly he was present and tangible?

Or was he not actually ever present bodily inside or out of the room - but just suddenly became both tangible and present inside the room at the same time. Why couldn’t it work like that. I don’t know if that explanation is compatible with your interpretation of subtility or not. It doesn’t matter.

What happened in the Upper Room is defined by what happened in the Upper Room not by a concept based on this happening as speculated upon 1000 years later.

The fact is - apart from the brief descriptions in the Gospels…we don’t really have any idea of the mechanics of how it happened…only that it happened. The NT description in Luke seems to say nothing of Jesus “passing through the walls” (how could they know the mechanics?) that is surely speculation by later commentators and may itself be interpreted in a number of ways.

My small point is that an explanation that doesn’t need to posit the unlikely concept of “intangible presence” is a far simpler and therefore likely one.

The presence in the Eucharist is not like the Upper Room. Even if your view was what actually happened (we will never know for sure) … the Eucharist is still different. At least in the Eucharist there is a tangible presence of the bread within whose bodily borders we know, by faith, that Jesus is bodily present.

The same cannot be said of the Upper Room when Jesus was for a while, according to your view, “intangibly present” before he allowed himself to be tangible. How would anyone know?

He also exercised it by consuming solid food which glorified bodies do not need and cannot digest.

Why not? If the teeth can masticate, the throat can swallow, why not the gut digest?

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Hello bluehorizon,

Your idea of what the physical is where ever you get it from is not mine and I’m an ordinary Joe Bloggs.

I don’t think so if you are on a philosophy forum debating Aristotelian concepts and concomitance in the Eucharist .

Everybody who has done at least 3 years of secondary school knows that physics is all about observable matter and energy only. Its been that way since Descartes who overthrew the Aristotelian concept of matter and replaced it with the first accident of substance (extension) which is quantifiable and therefore measurable.

Mirriam Webster:
1a : of or relating to natural science
b (1) : of or relating to physics (2) : characterized or produced by the forces and operations of physics
2a : having material existence : perceptible especially through the senses and subject to the laws of nature <everything physical is measurable by weight, motion, and resistance — Thomas De Quincey>

Oxford:
1.1 Involving bodily contact or activity: ‘less physical sports such as bowls’ ‘a physical relationship’
2. Relating to things perceived through the senses as opposed to the mind; tangible or concrete: ‘the physical world’
3. Relating to physics or the operation of natural forces generally: ‘physical laws’

The Church teaches that the entire Christ, body, soul and divinity is substantially and corporeally present in his physical reality in the eucharist (cf. Mysterium Fidei, Encyclical of Pope Paul VI on the Holy Eucharist, 1965).

The Latin word for “physical” used by the Pope in that Latin document is, in my opinion, not equivalent to what that word means in colloquial English language of the late 20th century.

Its absurd to preach such things without first training listeners in Aristotelian concepts.
That seems an unlikely Catechetical approach in the short term.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

This particular understanding is the explanation offered by Thomas Aquinas which I believe is the soundest theological explanation we have and which is in conformity with sound philosophy, the teaching of the Church and Tradition. I have not read anywhere that the Catholic Church has decreed that we must believe with divine faith the philosophical - theological explanation offered by Aquinas. The doctrine of transubstantiation as decreed by the Council of Trent and the CCC we must hold with divine and catholic faith. The Council of Trent and the CCC do not go much into the details of the doctrine except to say that there is a change of the whole substances of the bread and wine into the substances of the body and blood of Christ. In a word, the bread and wine after the consecration are no longer bread and wine but the body and blood of Christ under the appearances of bread and wine.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

I’m pretty sure that Aristotle expressly says that substances are not infinitly divisible and Aquinas says the same. This is actually just common sense. For example, you can’t divide a piece of bread infinitely without at some point having a change of substance.

Why? You are working from modern science concepts I suspect.

Obviously this cannot be done with living creatures…but bread doesn’t fall into that category.

If you want to refute me you really need to quote sources than just vague memory re Aristotle/Aquinas methinks .

 

[Linusthe2nd]

That’s an awful of “always interpreted” and its opinion rather than doctrine as far as I am aware. (Pretty much like how the earth MUST be the centre of the cosmos.)

I find it strange that you use the concept of “subtlety” as if we’ve known about it before the Resurrection. Of course it is the Resurrection experiences themselves that have been reflected upon over the centuries leading to these abstract hypotheses/concepts. It is therefore a concept based on a singular example only, Jesus in those allegedly 40 days.
(John’s understanding of the Resurrection time is not as simplistic as Luke).

Yet you try to give your statement greater credibility because you can say “Jesus suddenly appeared in the Upper Room by the power of subtlety.” Actually its just a tautology really isn’t it? All you are really saying is “Jesus appeared suddenly by his power to appear suddenly.” But we really know no more about that power than that…it means Jesus appeared suddenly!

Does subtility mean Jesus walked through the wall (ie he was tangible and bodily present on the other side then he went intangible, walked through the wall, was still intangible yet present in the room… then suddenly he was present and tangible?

Or was he not actually ever present bodily inside or out of the room - but just suddenly became both tangible and present inside the room at the same time. Why couldn’t it work like that. I don’t know if that explanation is compatible with your interpretation of subtility or not. It doesn’t matter.

What happened in the Upper Room is defined by what happened in the Upper Room not by a concept based on this happening as speculated upon 1000 years later.

The fact is - apart from the brief descriptions in the Gospels…we don’t really have any idea of the mechanics of how it happened…only that it happened. The NT description in Luke seems to say nothing of Jesus “passing through the walls” (how could they know the mechanics?) that is surely speculation by later commentators and may itself be interpreted in a number of ways.

My small point is that an explanation that doesn’t need to posit the unlikely concept of “intangible presence” is a far simpler and therefore likely one.

The presence in the Eucharist is not like the Upper Room. Even if your view was what actually happened (we will never know for sure) … the Eucharist is still different. At least in the Eucharist there is a tangible presence of the bread within whose bodily borders we know, by faith, that Jesus is bodily present.

The same cannot be said of the Upper Room when Jesus was for a while, according to your view, “intangibly present” before he allowed himself to be tangible. How would anyone know?

Why not? If the teeth can masticate, the throat can swallow, why not the gut digest?

Actually, I never said that during his presence during the forty days after the Resurrection Christ was ever present but " intangible. " I merely stated that he did some things which showed he possessed the power of the soul over the body which Aquinas defines as subtlety. He rose from the dead, he appeared inexplicably in a room for which the doors were locked, and he ascended into heaven in the presence of many. In each instance he showed that his soul was exercising a definite power over his body. So could he not exercise the same power over his body, but to in in a more perfect way, in the Eucharist?

However no one is required to accept the term ’ subtlety. ’ What one must believe is that Christ’s presence in the Eucharist is the same as his bodily presence now as he sits at the right hand of the Father in heaven.

What one must not do is to insist that Christ’s bodily presence in the Eucharist satisfy the categories of science. The mode of Christ’s presence, whether in the Eucharist or in heaven is a part of the Divine mystery and is supernatural. It is beyond the categories of science.

Linus2nd

 

[Aloysium]

:twocents:

After Jesus arose from the dead He was seen by various persons, 500 at one point I believe, over the forty days before His ascension. Not wishing to sound sacriligeous, but clearly, it wasn’t in the form of some zombie. Heaven being the truest, most real state, eternal, His resurrected presence in this world would require some form of emptying or diminution in order to make Himself known through the senses. This being the case, He would behave in this world as a stone acts in a fog. His is “concrete” reality: we are phantasms.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

:twocents:

After Jesus arose from the dead He was seen by various persons, 500 at one point I believe, over the forty days before His ascension. Not wishing to sound sacriligeous, but clearly, it wasn’t in the form of some zombie. Heaven being the truest, most real state, eternal, His resurrected presence in this world would require some form of emptying or diminution in order to make Himself known through the senses. This being the case, He would behave in this world as a stone acts in a fog. His is “concrete” reality: we are phantasms.

I think you are incorrect here. When Christ rose from the dead he rose as a real, live, man. Remember that Mary mistook him for the gardner. This could hardly be " as a stone acts in a fog. " Then again his apostles took him for a real man on the road to Eammaus. Again, the Apostles took him for a real man in the Upper Room. And it was a real man that ascended into heaven. The telling point is that they did not recognize him as Christ in the first two instances. Why? The effect of Glory, he arose in a Glorified Body. As St. Paul tells us he rose in an imperishable Body.

Keep in mind also that the same Body born of the Virgin Mary, who now sits in Glory at the right hand of the Father in heaven, is now present in the Consecrated bread and wine - Whole and entire, with all parts proper to a man, glorified or not, limbs, teeth, hair, etc.

It would be profitable to all to actually read the Catechism of the Council of Trent (i.e. later called The Roman Catechism ), especailly the part dealing with the Eucharist and the Real Presence. saintsbooks.net/books/The%20Roman%20Catechism.pdf

There have been comments by some as to the Magisterial or doctrinal force of this great Catechism and that of others. I think we must say that next to a directly Defined statement by a Pope, alone or in unison with the Bishops, there is no higher authority than this Catechism or our most recent one or of any nationally accepted Catechism which has been approved by the Vatican. All one has to do is read the introduction to the Catechism and reflect on its contents as one reads.

Linus2nd