True, we definitely need to be careful with statistics and polls. But I would point to polls of the laity in recent decades that indicate between two-thirds and three-quarters don’t believe in the real presence (either reject it or simply were never taught it well) which were seperate polls by seperate institutions. Even if there were a ridiculous margin of error of, say 15%, then that would still be more than half of Catholics and when we see problems like that in the laity, then it isn’t that hard to believe that a large amount of Priests are also lacking in their beliefs and that that would account for why so much of the laity lacks faith in the Real Presence.
After many years of teaching theology to priests and religious, I have found that one of the problems is comprehension and language. As one of our brothers always says to me, “Words have meanings.”
It’s not that there are as many people as they claim who do not believe in the real presence as it is that many people have not been tuaght in a way that is very clear what the Blessed Sacrament is. The wording that has often been used has been confusing, ambiguous, often too similar to Protestant wording (thought not exactly the same) and at times too lofty.
I recently read a post around here where someone questioned whether Pope Benedict believed in the real presence. What happened was that Pope Benedict explains the real presence in very Franciscan terms. He is a great student of Augustine and Bonaventure. Bonaventure never uses the term Transubstantiation. However, he does believe in it and he describes it perfectly. The term was very new in Bonaventure’s time, the mid 13th century.
In addition, the Holy Father added that we do not actually eat and drink flesh and blood, because the phyiscal presence of Christ is the Glorified Christ and he proceeds to explain that its not about biology, but about essence.
Long story short, I read the article and the pope made perfect sense to me. I’m a Franciscan and was formed in Bonaventurian language. The poor person who was reading it, did not understand at all. It sounded as if he was denying transubstantiation, which he was not.
There were other times when I saw religious education books that very cleary say that Christ offers himself to his people as bread and wine. They are not denying the real presence, but the wording is very poor. It sounds as if Christ becomes bread and wine instead of the reverse, the essence of bread and wine are transformed into the essence of Christ. I have heard priests use this same terminology and I cringe. I know what they mean, but their wording is not saying what they mean. They think they’re making sense, in reality, it confuses the listener.
The confused listener walks away trying to pull this together. When he or she is polled, his explanation is worse than the one in the book or that the priest gave. Now we find ourselves further from the appropriate response and the pollster concludes that the person polled does not believe.
As my confrere says, “Words have meaning.”
Fraternally,
Br… JR, OSF
