Has Pew asked the right question about transubstantiation?

[FiveLinden]

One-third of U.S. Catholics believe in transubstantiation | Pew Research Center

This survey has been reported on a number of Catholic sites with conservatives using it as proof that we are on the road to hell at warp 9.8.

But does the use of the word ‘actually’ bias the results? Transubstantiation depends on the belief that everything has a form (appearance) and a substance (something like an ‘essence’ or ‘that which makes it what it is’).

It seems to me the word ‘actually’ could apply to either of these. So the results of the poll tell us nothing. A believer could answer in either way.

 

[Minks]

Lol! How often are the PEW questions…

Worded appropriately?

Asked within a particular context?

Asked in a venue permitting time for carefully considering the answer?

Asked with an eye toward skewing the outcome into a particular point of view?

 

[mdgspencer]

.
Personally, I think an appropriate question would have been when was the last time you went to mass?
Polls that cover Catholics typically consider anyone a Catholic who says they are a Catholic. This would include self-identified Catholics who haven’t been in Church in years. This would include self-identified Catholics who don’t accept many Catholic beliefs. I don’t think the poll results saying that a high proportion of Catholics don’t believe in transubstantiation are worth very much attention.

 

[FiveLinden]

I was hoping for a discussion on the question, rather than Pew, or its definition of ‘Catholic’. In my view both are reasonable and in line with good practice. See the paragraph below:

"About six-in-ten (63%) of the most observant Catholics — those who attend Mass at least once a week — accept the church’s teaching about transubstantiation. Still, even among this most observant group of Catholics, roughly one-third (37%) don’t believe that the Communion bread and wine actually become the body and blood of Christ (including 23% who don’t know the church’s teaching and 14% who know the church’s teaching but don’t believe it). "

 

[Minks]

I was hoping for a discussion on the question, rather than Pew, or its definition of ‘Catholic’. In my view both are reasonable and in line with good practice. See the paragraph below:

"About six-in-ten (63%) of the most observant Catholics — those who attend Mass at least once a week — accept the church’s teaching about transubstantiation. Still, even among this most observant group of Catholics, roughly one-third (37%) don’t believe that the Communion bread and wine actually become the body and blood of Christ (including 23% who don’t know the church’s teaching and 14% who know the church’s teaching but don’t believe it). "

“Has Pew [sic] asked the right question about Transubstantiation?”

No.

Five Linden: “In my view, both are reasonable and in line with good practice.”

I intend no offence, FiveLinden, yet, you describe yourself as “interested but unbelieving.” If you don’t believe as we do, and you think a definition of “Catholic,” especially here, in this PEW question, is irrelevant to the very core of our daily Mass, how is that, then, either reasonable or good practice?

PEW might be among the better statistics companies operating, but I give them so-so regard in any category specifically because their Catholic statistics almost never mesh with my understanding of the cross section of Catholics with whom I’m familiar. (I find this true in other polling categories with which I’m familiar, too.) Catholics don’t populate just the large cities, but across the breadth of our country—the “deplorable outliers,” so to speak.

I do not believe that their sampling is a true cross-section of practicing US Catholics.

 

[JSRG]

I’m curious, how does this stack up to such polls in the past?

I’m asking because I’m wondering how shocking this actually is compared to the past. Heck, I’m curious as to how many people, say, 300 years ago would answer the question. Obviously learned people would get it but how much understanding did the average Catholic have back then of this sort of thing?

 

[FiveLinden]

you describe yourself as “interested but unbelieving.” If you don’t believe as we do, and you think a definition of “Catholic,” especially here, in this PEW question, is irrelevant to the very core of our daily Mass, how is that, then, either reasonable or good practice?

I am not sure you need to have any sort of ‘belief’ to usefully define ‘Catholic’. In this case Pew makes clear what they mean, and gives different figures for different meanings. They define as the ‘most observant’ Catholics those who go to Mass once a week. I am aware of the popularity of the ‘No true Scotsman’ fallacy and I often see it on CAF. Can you explain why your statement here is not n example of that fallacy?

 

[Minks]

@FiveLinden

Lol! In my first response to your thread, I laughed and questioned PEW. That’s my general reaction to a PEW pronouncement to any topic, precisely because a lifetime of their reports leaves me thinking, “Ok, so what?”

You went on to state that you’d hoped for a discussion and an answer to your question, so I gave you my simple, one-word answer: “No.”

Since that seemed sort of cold, and terse, I went on to explain why I said, “No.” If you believe that my answer and explanation have something to do with a “one true Scotsman (kilted, or unkilted) fallacy” to a simple question with my “no” answer, so be it.

That’s my story, and I’m stickin’ to it!

 

[jimXroberts]

Transubstantiation is a concept for which many have died and many have been excluded from public office. It is what defines us as Catholics - even though many don’t know what it means. At the most solemn part of the Mass, Jesus Christ in body, blood, soul and divinity becomes truly present on the altar in the form of bread and wine. What happens to the bread and wine is called transubstantiation. The sacred elements do not change appearance or any other measurable physical characteristics. A chemical analysis would still show them to be bread and wine. But we believe that Jesus is truly present.

If Pew Research had asked a question asking if we accept that, they might have got a different answer.

The “No True Scotsman” fallacy applies because you can define who is a Scot from birth or ancestry, not for their liking for whisky and/or porridge. What defines us as Catholics is what we believe, and if you can’t accept what the Catholic Church teaches, you are “No True Catholic”.

 

[FiveLinden]

Please will someone respond to my post? Did the use of the word ‘actually’ affect the result? Just because I am not a believer doesn’t mean I m trying to trap you or undermine Catholic belief! It’s just a question about poll wording - wording that might have led to an unexpected result.

 

[Finn]

But does the use of the word ‘actually’ bias the results? Transubstantiation depends on the belief that everything has a form (appearance) and a substance (something like an ‘essence’ or ‘that which makes it what it is’).

It seems to me the word ‘actually’ could apply to either of these. So the results of the poll tell us nothing. A believer could answer in either way.

No. I don’t think use of the word lends any ambiguity to the meaning of the question and I don’t agree that a believer could answer either way.

 

[Annie]

I think you are right, in that we are taught that the bread and wine do not physically become the Body and Blood of our Lord.

But I think that anyone well-catechized enough to understand this subtle distinction would also answer to the intent of the question rather than to more difficult possible interpretation.

So I am not sure how the wording would affect the outcome of the poll.

 

[Minks]

@FiveLinden (Lol! I’ll bet that you groaned when you saw my name again! )

Aaaaaaaaarrrrrrrgghh! Had to hunt and hunt, with old eyes on a cell phone, clicking on another site within the site you linked, to find that question containing “actually.”

Here’s the PEW survey question:

Q. Which best describes Catholic teaching about the bread and wine used for Communion?
A. They actually become the body and blood of
Jesus
B. They are symbols of the body and blood of
Jesus

And, FiveLinden, the answer to your question, “Does the use of the word “actually” bias the results?” is…(Drumroll!)…Maybe. My apologies, FiveLinden! You might be correct.

Catechized Catholics do know that the bread and wine, at the moment of the Consecration, “actually” become The Body and The Blood of Christ. At the same time, they also know that the appearance of each remains to the the visible eye (actually? to others?) as bread and wine, and they know that the questioner is likely not seeing the answer through a Catholic lens. Since B is wrong, and A is inadequately worded, I would have skipped that question.

Terminology is critical, so, considering the possible variations in understanding, the phrase containing “actually” could have biased the answers of the respondents, but Choice A, the supposed correct answer, reeks.

In my usual, hasty “hmmpf” reaction to a PEW report, perhaps I was too quick to dismiss. Lol!
BUT, that only reinforces my understanding of
their typical (in)accuracy and (ir)relevance.

I’d like to see a report mined from attendees (as they exit) of different Catholic Churches in the largest 30 cities, and in, say, those in 60 rural areas.

If properly prepared, we’d know for each respondent, their age; size of family when growing up; size of current family; whether they attended a Catholic or secular school and for how long; whether their childhood home had both mother and father, only mother, only father, or grandparents; educational, work, and income statistics for parents and for adults in their childhood and current families, the names of colleges attended, the types of discrimination they’ve experienced; what they’d like to see established in their parishes to make their lives more meaningful; whether they lean OF or EF, etc. Religious concepts could be plumbed after that, giving a report that would be a true cross-section of Catholics across the map, more accurately pegging their knowledge and the directions in which to channel future catechism and parish ministry. Such a report, preferably from the bishops, an annual report tabulating everyone at Mass on a given Sunday, would be welcome and worthwhile, but likely not forthcoming, sad to say.

 

[Wesrock]

Transubstantiation depends on the belief that everything has a form (appearance) and a substance (something like an ‘essence’ or ‘that which makes it what it is’).

It doesn’t depend on a substance/accident distinction across all things such as proposed by Aristotlean metaphysics.

It is only specific to the change in the Eucharist, that it changes from bread and wine to the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ under the appearances of bread and wine. How that metaphysically happens doesn’t matter, it’s a unique miracle. And as the Eastern Catholics generally hold it doesn’t need further inquiry beyond the article of faith.

 

[Minks]

@BartholomewB Hmmmmm. I clearly disobeyed my rule to check, and recheck. I noticed the lower case in the site URL and was in too much of a hurry to doublecheck, erroneously thinking that the name was PEW, not Pew. Thank you for pointing that out to me.

@FiveLinden Mea culpa! Mea culpa! I apologize for wrongly inserting [sic] after Pew. I was wrong, and you suffered in silence at my error. That was very gracious of you. Please accept my apology.

 

[Dovekin]

Which is the Catholic teaching about bread and wine in Communion?
They become actual body and blood of Christ
they are symbols of the body and blood of Christ

This is the question.

actual certainly raises questions. I am not sure “actual* is correct, but I would have to look at a Thomistic description of actual to be sure. real would have been better.

OTOH the second choice is certainly true. Adding just would have made it untrue.

Do people’s responses depend on the wording? Probably not. This is meant to get a knee-jerk response, not a thoughtful reflection.

Personally, I think 100% gave the correct answer, because two correct answers were offered. The headline should be “100% of Poll writers need theology course”

 

[Minks]

@Dovekin Am I missing something? Please explain how bread and wine can be only symbols of The Body of Christ and The Blood of Christ to a Catholic who has received First Holy Communion.

 

[Nihilo]

I agree with everybody who recognizes a flaw in the question, and so the results are naturally errant.

It would have been much better to not pit the two options against each other as if they are mutually exclusive because they are not, and instead pick one, and pose the question as a Yes or No.

For example, pick the first option:
“They become actual body and blood of Christ, Yes or No?”

Or the other (with insertion of the word ‘just’ or ‘only’ to eliminate ambiguity):
“They are just /only symbols of the body and blood of Christ, Yes of No?”

And to the OP, tyvm for pointing this out. I had seen the headline only, and thought: But now I can see there was ambiguity in the question itself.

 

[chessnerd321]

I am aware of the popularity of the ‘No true Scotsman’ fallacy and I often see it on CAF. Can you explain why your statement here is not n example of that fallacy?

Just wanted to say. The Catholic Church gets to define what a Catholic is. In one sense a Catholic is anyone who is baptised Catholic. But often the subtext leads us to believe we are talking about practicing Catholics. The church says you flatly aren’t practicing if you aren’t:

1. Going to mass every Sunday and other holy days of obligation in your conference of bishops.
2. Receiving confession and Eucharist once a year. (Confession is only an obligation if you’re aware of mortal sin.)

It seems fair to say the church gets to define who a Catholic is an isn’t. Just like America gets to decide who a citizen is. I can’t speak for the poster you replied to, but it’s possible a lot of the “no true Scotsman” fallacy you see here is really just us Catholics accurately recounting who the church rightfully claims as Catholic and who she doesn’t.

 

[Dovekin]

they are symbols of the body and blood of Christ

Please explain how bread and wine can be only symbols of The Body of Christ and The Blood of Christ to a Catholic who has received First Holy Communion.

I copied the question from the Pew report. Note the absence of the word only.

Only or just is frequently read into this sentence by people who learned a polemic version of the theology. I will answer your question without the word only, since that is how Pew phrased the question.

CCC 1084 “Seated at the right hand of the Father” and pouring out the Holy Spirit on his Body which is the Church, Christ now acts through the sacraments he instituted to communicate his grace. the sacraments are perceptible signs (words and actions) accessible to our human nature. By the action of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit they make present efficaciously the grace that they signify.

There are differences between signs and symbols, but they are not relevant here. Signs point to something other than themselves, while symbols represent something other than themselves. Either term can be used in the Catholic Protestant polemics on the Eucharist. Even if they were not equivalent, the Pew study cannot expect people to know the difference.

IOW, sacraments are symbols that make present efficaciously the grace that they symbolize. If the sacraments do not symbolize anything, then there is no grace to make present. In particular, the bread and wine symbolize the Body and Blood of Christ, and efficaciously they make the Body and Blood of Christ present.