Your news flash, however, is a post hoc ergo propter hoc argument. What changed the shift in belief was not the change from the EF to the OF, but the change in catechetical material which resulted when the Baltimore Catechism, which was most widely used, was tossed out because it was “too doctrinal”. Kids were no longer taught about the True Presence; teaching was dumbed down and watered down into a “we must love one another” claptrap.
Prior to that, it was not the EF that taught kids about the True presence; it was the classes taught. Grade school kids didn’t learn Latin (except for rote recital that altar boys were taught), and kids mostly did not have missals. The EF was not the teaching tool; the catechism was. Toss that out and there goes any understanding of the doctrines of the faith.
