Eucharist and violence?

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So I was talking with a friend of mine the other day about my upcoming conversion to Catholicism. We started talking about some of the theological differences between Protestantism and Catholic faith, and came up against an interesting topic in regards to the Eucharist.

My friend believes in a Real Presence, but has issues taking it as far as Transubstantiation. Their reasoning is that in their mind the act of eating emotes a sense of violence. Chewing and gnawing and such. To them, the idea of transubstantiation turns their stomach. They feel like if they believed in transubstantiation they would be committing a violent act upon Christ instead of communing with him.

I’m curious about what people here think. Can someone be a Catholic without believing in transubstantiation, although believing in a Real Presence?
 
As far as I know, you don’t have to be a Thomist to be a Catholic.

The only thing we must believe about the Eucharist is that it is the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ. We must believe that we quite literally and truly consume His Body and His Blood as they are sacramentally present under the appearance of bread and wine.
 
I’d like to say too that your friend’s objection is a bit impious. Who is he to tell God that His method of communion with us to too “violent”?

Christ chose quite deliberately to be consumed in this way. He knew that His Body and Blood would be subjected to the gnashing of our teeth, the bacteria and enzymes in our mouths, and the acids in our stomachs.

It’s an extraordinary act of humility.
 
Tell your friend that in consuming the Eucharist we do no violence to Christ.
In the Eucharist, Christ is present in his totality, *and as a totality. *

If you break the host into 2 or 4 or 16 pieces, you do not thereby break Christ into pieces:
He remains whole and entire under the appearances of each piece of bread.

Likewise if you consume the host, you do not violate Christ, as He always remains whole and entire and inviolate.
 
jammer44 said:
Can someone be a Catholic without believing in transubstantiation, although believing in a Real Presence?
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A Catholic must believe in transubstantiation. It is an absolutely essential part of our faith.

From John 6:52-56:

The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us (his) flesh to eat?” Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats 19 my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.”

From the footnote on the word “eats” (NAB):

19 [54-58] Eats: the verb used in these verses is not the classical Greek verb used of human eating, but that of animal eating: “munch,” “gnaw.” This may be part of John’s emphasis on the reality of the flesh and blood of Jesus (cf John 6:55), but the same verb eventually became the ordinary verb in Greek meaning “eat.”

How could Jesus have made it any clearer?
 
Does a child commit violence when it suckles at its mother’s breast? No, and yet the mother is feeding the child with her own body. Just as Christ feeds us with his entire body, blood, soul and divinity, without causing the least injury or insult to him.
 
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