I am.
At least according to a quiz put out by the Pew Forum on Religious and Public Life.
The quiz has 32 questions, of which atheists in America who took the quiz got an average of 20.9 questions right. American Jews got 20.5 right, American Mormons 20.3 right, American Protestants 16 right, and American Catholics 14.7 right.
I got all of them, but that’s nothing special since this is the field I work in professionally. I’m expected to know my own field. Give me a comparable quiz on another topic and watch the number plummet. I can say with great confidence that if you gave me a 32-question quiz on sports—something very large numbers of people would do very well on—I would be lucky to get even a handful of questions right.
However that may be, what are we to make of the numbers regarding the different groups? Pretty dismal for Catholics, right?
Not necessarily, and it depends on what you mean.
This is not a case of “Catholics don’t know their own faith but other groups do know theirs.” The quiz is not religion-specific. It’s pan-religious. So the majority of questions on the quiz do not relate to the faith of the person taking the quiz, but to other people’s faiths. And therein lies a significant reason for why the numbers line up as they do.
What do the three high-scoring groups have in common? They are all religious minorities in America. That’s significant because a religious minority has special reason not only to understand its own religion (so as to reinforce its intra-group religious identity) but also to understand the religions of those around it (because of the need to understand how to interact with the majority religion that surrounds it). A person in a religious minority has special reason to understand both the basics of his own faith and the basics of the majority faith. A person in the majority faith has special reason only to understand the latter.
A Jew in Israel or an atheist in China would have less reason to know the basics of Christianity than a Jew or an atheist in America.
When you look at the two mainstream American religious groups—Protestants and Catholics—they score both less than the minorities and quite close to each other (only 1.3 questions separating them, which may well be within the poll’s margin of error).
Then there’s selection bias in who chose to take the poll. Perhaps atheists are more motivated to take a (rather long) 32-question quiz than Catholics. Who knows? This is a perennial problem of surveys.
The questions in the poll are also likely to distort results in other ways, too. I counted at least three questions that were Mormon-specific but only two that were Catholic-specific. Who is that going to advantage?
There were also three questions on what public school teachers are and aren’t allowed to do in America regarding religion. That is a subject that atheists will be far more focused on (and thus likely to get right) than ordinary Christians. (It’s also worth noting that Catholics have their own parallel school system and many do not even use the public schools, giving them less reason to be familiar with the details of what is allowed.)
These last questions also aren’t actually about religion but about American politics regarding religion. Something similar applies to another set of three questions regarding what the majority religion is in particular countries (India, Indonesia, Pakistan). Those aren’t questions about religion but about the demographics of other countries. (Hey, everybody! Quick! What’s the majority religion in Gambia? It sure tells you a lot about religion if you happen to know that the answer is Islam, doesn’t it? You’re much more informed about religion if you know that.)
So . . . it’s not the most informative quiz in terms of religious knowledge. Nor is the news for Catholics as bad as the raw numbers suggest. The quiz simply isn’t a test of how much Catholics know about their own faith.
That’s not to say that Catholic religious education hasn’t been a disaster in the last generation. It has been.
That’s not exclusively the fault of the clerical class. Parents in many families did not do their part to see to their children receiving a proper religious education. But when many elements of the clerical class have been actively and deliberately subverting the teaching of Catholic doctrine, it’s going to contribute to the poor state of religious knowledge among Catholics today.
One bit of sort-of-encouraging news from the Pew survey was that 55% of Catholics were able to correctly identify their Church’s teaching regarding the status of bread and wine in the Eucharist. That’s not nearly what it should be, but it’s at least better than the Gallup poll a number of years ago that started the false rumor that it was far less.
This quiz isn’t the greatest, but quizzes are fun, so have at it . . .
ARE YOU SMARTER THAN AN ATHEIST? (Be sure to write down your answers as you go; the answers are given at the end of the last question.)
I think the survey does speak of poor catechesis in this country. I was shocked that so many Catholics think that receiving the Eucharist is merely “symbolic”, and don’t know that the bread and wine become the flesh and blood of Our Lord.
Drats, I got two wrong (didn’t know who Maimonides was and didn’t know who started the First Great Awakening). Not bad for an amateur, I guess.
Not bad at all! *Very* good, in fact!
Maimonides is perhaps the hardest question on the test (though personally I love reading Maimonides). The “Who participated in the Great Awakening?” question is either the hardest or the second hardest.
Doh, missed the Sabbath. Thought it started on Saturday.
That’s another of the more-tricky questions. Everybody knows that the Jewish Sabbath is Saturday, but fewer know that this day begins on the civic Friday.
I am.. probably not going to Nirvana on account of mistaking that for a Hindu concept. And Jonathan Edwards is probably not my friend. I took a guess on Maimonides but that’s all it was. 😛 So technically O got three wrong. If it’s true that less than half of Catholics know about transubstantiation, then it’s no surprise (based on what I can see) but it’s cause for continued concern. Last night a member of our choir said that she cannot understand why the Church just doesn’t let lay people celebrate Mass since we’re running out of priests. Never mind that we actually have more seminarians in Melbourne than we’ve had in a while, I had to cringe about that. I tried explaining but I’m not sure my short answer got through. 🙁
Apologizes for going on tangent, but I feel moved…
That’s not to say that Catholic religious education hasn’t been a disaster in the last generation. It has been. That’s not exclusively the fault of the clerical class. Parents in many families did not do their part to see to their children receiving a proper religious education. But when many elements of the clerical class have been actively and deliberately subverting the teaching of Catholic doctrine, it’s going to contribute to the poor state of religious knowledge among Catholics today.
Through a very specific set of coincidences I have just become a CCD teacher at my parish. In reviewing (all eight years of) the course books I think I have discovered the reason for lack of strong Catholic education barring any abuses committed “in the spirit of Vatican II”. In the 50’s stereotypically with nuns and the Baltimore Catechism everything was Theory. Students knew the facts if not the reasoning. Now the pendulum has swung to Practice where everything is how to life a Christian life in the world. Students get touchy-feely reiterations of “God loves me” and “be nice.” (As opposed to holy!)
Naturally (or would that be nurture-ally?) you need both. In fact for each year the Prologue is a condensed Catechism, while the actual book covers how to integrate it into everyday life. So either the prologue is a base for the entire book ala arithmetatic to algebra. Or the book is an elaboration of the prologue and to be covered contemporaneously with it.
In any case I ask for your prayers that I remain a teacher.
As Jimmy points out, the co-hort design for this test is silly. Atheists and Jews tend to be more highly educated than Catholics or Protestants and drawn to philosophy and religion either to counter it or understand its nuances. It would, in fact, be very difficult to find comparable co-hort classes to design a fair test measurement. Take 100 teased and bullied atheists in a Catholic college (if you could find them) and 100 teased and bullied Catholics in an atheists college (easier to find) and then run the test. I suspect the results will be similar within the margin of error.
The Chicken
yes! only 2 wrong [pats self on the back] Maybe I should be teaching ccd again. Wonder what the average score of JA.Org readers would turn out to be …
I got two wrong.
29) Didn’t know that Nirvana was Buddhist. I thought it was a Hindu belief.
9)I also got the one about the SC ruling that the Bible could be read as literature.
29/32! Looks like reading this blog helps 🙂
To help answer Adam’s question-
I got the one about the First Great Awakening wrong. I’d never heard of it until this quiz. I got the rest of the questions right, but I had to take an ‘educated guess’ on the Supreme Court decisions.
Got 31/32, had no idea who Maimonides is. Thought it sounded Jewish or Islamic; since I’m not familiar with Jewish thinkers after Christ, I guessed Islam. It would interesting to see how the averages stacked up if partial credit was given for that sort of assessment, e.g. There’s six choices, and I can eliminate 4 (correctly); I don’t know what the answer is, but I know what it isn’t! Of course, multiple-choice tests aren’t mean to be able to measure this kind of thinking.
I have to confess that the only reason that I know who Maimonides is, because there’s a hospital named for him in Brooklyn. Otherwise, I probably wouldn’t know either.
I am.. probably not going to Nirvana on account of mistaking that for a Hindu concept. And Jonathan Edwards is probably not my friend. I took a guess on Maimonides but that’s all it was. 😛 So technically O got three wrong.
Those are exactly the three that I missed as well. So I got 29/32.
I agree with Jimmy that the content of the quiz could have been better.
31/32 — would have probably got the one on Maimonides wrong if I didn’t already own a copy of “Guide for the Perplexed”.
Not embarrassed at all that I didn’t know what Jonathan Edwards was associated with! 🙂
got 31/32 got the Nirvana question wrong.
There should be another section. Catholics who read Jimmy Akin’s site. But I brought it down I got 27 right.
30/32. Missed the question about offering prayer in schools and the one about the majority religion in either Pakistan or Indonesia… I can’t recall which one of the two I missed.
Perfect 32 of 32. Although I must admit I guessed on Jonathan Edwards.
Got em all 🙂
100%
But, I have an unfair advantage: The Holy Spirit led me to this blog back in 2002, and I’ve been reading and listening to Jimmy for nearly 8 years now. Plus, I read the comments in these comboxes, and they’re very enlightening.
(I teach American History, so the Jonathan Edwards question didn’t stump me.)
What is it about missing Jonathan Edwards? Isn’t he taught in American history? Nirvana? Sixth grade social studies? Shame on you guys 🙂 I could see missing Maimonides unless you are into Jewish rabbis.
I did look over the questions, but did not look at all of the answers, since most of them were pretty obvious, so much so that, in my opinion, an intelligent eighth-grader should have been able to answer most, if not all of the questions, so a score of sixty percent by atheists is NOT impressive. In fact, none of the scores reported (67% was the average among atheists, really?) were impressive. Getting 28.8 questions right (29) is enough for a 90%, so most of you guys scored in the high 80% – 100%.
I was a bit ticked at the countries they asked the religions of – talk about loaded questions related to current events (you would know the answers if you watched the news, regularly). Now, if they had asked about the religion of Uganda, it might have been more interesting (Catholic/Protestant, by the way).
This Rock ran a test back in the 1990’s purported to be a merciless Catholic quiz. I wonder if Jimmy could reprint it for the readers and perhaps invite the author(s) of the PEW study to take it!
Also, technically, their answer about transubstantiation is wrong. Catholics do not believe that the bread and wine becomes the body and blood of Christ, but rather, the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ, so unless I knew the mindset of the test-maker and how simplistically he pitched the answers, I might have missed that one, since, technically, it was not correct as written and the correct answer should have been, “none of the above”.
That being said, this test had nothing to do about being smarter than an atheist. It should have been: are you more informed than an atheist. As I said, above, most atheists are better educated and more tech savvy than the general population, so this was a loaded quiz from the beginning. On the other hand, one can AT MOST conclude that Catholics know less about other religions than atheists. Big deal. The question about transubstantiation was not fair in that Catholicism in the United States has been so permeated by Protestantism, that I can see why some people got the answer wrong. The percent of people who answered A or B (transubstantiation or consubstantiation) would indicate than many more people were close to an understanding than 55%. Also, how many atheists could answer some simple questions without looking them up, such as: does confirmation leave a mark on the soul?
It did get me thinking, however, that I could have some fun in the comboxes. Are you guys up for a real quiz? I call it The Chicken’s Cruel Catholicism Cwiz. How about it?
The Chicken
I scored 29. I got the date Islam started wrong, the First Great Awakening wrong and the question about the US Supreme Court wrong. Considering that I am an Australian I consider that I scored 30! lol
29/32
Missed Maimonides, Nirvana, and The Great Awakening (What is that anyway?)
Yay! I scored 100%!
30/32. Missed Maimonides and Jonathan Edwards.
31/32. Got Nirvana wrong. Ugh! Guessed on Jonathan Edwards and got it right (woo-hoo!).
Yes, I am! 32 out of 32 (on account a I know who Maimonides was! *G*)
I don’t believe, The Chicken, you have any need to take umbrage with the test’s definition of the Eucharist. It’s perfectly accurate to say the bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ. To my mind, it’s best to leave it at that even. Of course, since Jesus’s soul and divinity are united with his body, once the bread and wine are consecrated then his soul and divinity are, yes, present in the Eucharist. But I find this manner of always referring to the Eucharist as soul and divinity a little misleading. It sort of implies that the priest has the power to call down such from heaven. But I’m not comfortable with that … better to say the priest has the power to transform bread and wine into Christ’s body and blood and leave it there. Would it not also have been possible for a consecration to take place after the crucifixion and prior to the resurrection? At which time it would have been inaccurate to say that the soul and divinity were present because they weren’t then united with Jesus’s natural body and so would also not have been united with his sacramental body in the Eucharist. So I say, the test’s definition was perfectly accurate.
Dear Adam,
You wrote:
It sort of implies that the priest has the power to call down such from heaven. But I’m not comfortable with that … better to say the priest has the power to transform bread and wine into Christ’s body and blood and leave it there. Would it not also have been possible for a consecration to take place after the crucifixion and prior to the resurrection?
You are not correct. The priest, when he confects the Eucharist, in persona Christi, causes the substance of the host to be converted to the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ, period, not just the body and blood. The reason for this is that the substance of the host is a live body and one cannot have a live body without a soul and Christ is one person, so one cannot have a full person without his divinity.
For the same reason, it would not have been possible to confect the Eucharist after the Crucifixion, but before the Resurrection: Christ’s body was not alive. The Eucharist is the living Christ.
The quiz was badly incomplete in its wording.
The Chicken
Yes, it should have read “body and blood, soul and divinity” but I was just impressed CSM got “body and blood” into the question.
Got 15 out of 15 🙂 (what do I win?)
Ah…another one is there too…
30/32 (dang geography and name of someone…should have went with the other guess)
Well, The Chicken (and Lucien) I don’t want to argue the subject at length, being tangential to this blog post, but there are in fact very sound, Thomistic arguments for supporting my point (that “the actual body and blood of Jesus” suffices as a definition of the Eucharist) in the book A Key to the Doctrine of the Eucharist by Abbot Vonier, from which I take the thought experiment of the pre-resurrection consecration. Your own rebuttal of the idea is simply to presuppose your conclusion, that “the substance of the host is a live body.” I don’t see a necessary reason for this, nor does Vonier in his excellent treatment of the matter.
Certainly, to refer to the Eucharist as body blood soul divinity is true and of great value to many in their devotion. It’s just not definitionally necessary to include the soul and divinity. I’ll gladly let you have the last word here and if you really cared to argue the subject at length I’d be happy to do so by e-mail, but It’d certainly behoove you more to argue with Vonier who is a real theologian, unlike my simple self.
I got 2 wrong… I missed the one on Jonathan Edwards (Thought it was Finney), and also got the one about whether it is legal for a teacher to lead class in prayer.
I have to agree w/ Skygor. I’m new to Catholicism, but have all of my kids involved in religious education. As a former atheist, I’m not keen on touchy-feely or comparative religious studies (at least, not until they are old enough to know their own religion inside and out).
Not to be all “hellfire and brimstone” but the kids NEED a bit of it. Yes, I’m indoctrinating my kids. And, yes, I think there’s quite a bit more to the idea of following Christ than just the warm feeling that “God loves me.” Narrow gate, people. Narrow gate.
Are we raising kids or training saints?
I say this as someone who insisted on learning everything the hard way… I want what is best for my kids (and all kids) and what’s best isn’t “warm fuzzies”….the best parts of existence are God and Heaven. Any teaching that falls short of providing kids with instructions regarding how to follow “the straight and narrow” is a crime against future generations.
Yeah, I’m a kook on this point.
I agree it is not required for the CSM to clearly articulate the definition, but at the same time in the Catechism it states:
CCC 1374 The mode of Christ’s presence under the Eucharistic species is unique. It raises the Eucharist above all the sacraments as “the perfection of the spiritual life and the end to which all the sacraments tend.”201 In the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist “the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained.”202 “This presence is called ‘real’ – by which is not intended to exclude the other types of presence as if they could not be ‘real’ too, but because it is presence in the fullest sense: that is to say, it is a substantial presence by which Christ, God and man, makes himself wholly and entirely present.”
And the Council of Trent stated:
(13th Session CANON I).-If any one denieth, that, in the sacrament of the most holy Eucharist, are contained truly, really, and substantially, the body and blood together with the soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, and consequently the whole Christ; but saith that He is only therein as in a sign, or in figure, or virtue; let him be anathema.
As long as everyone understands that contained within the “Body and Blood” there is His “Soul and Divinity” there is no problem – if that understanding is lacking in the definition, we have a problem.
Your own rebuttal of the idea is simply to presuppose your conclusion, that “the substance of the host is a live body.” I don’t see a necessary reason for this, nor does Vonier in his excellent treatment of the matter.
What?
The Eucharist is Christ, raised from the dead. The whole point of Christianity is this reason. That is a de fide teaching of the Church.
There are NO Thomistic arguments that I know of that support your point, since St. Thomas’s classification of existence as formal, efficient, material, and final causes is taken directly from Aristotle who used these to argue that a living human had a soul. A dead body does not.
It may be colloquially correct to refer to the body and blood of Christ as being the accidents of bread and wine, which is why I said I would accept that answer given that the writer of the quiz was writing for, it seems, a fairly uninformed audience, but, technically the bread and wine becomes the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ. It can be no other. If Prof. Vonier thinks otherwise, then either we are not communicating properly, so that I misunderstand what he is saying (or what you are trying to report that he says) or he is wrong.
I will look over what I can find of his work to see if I can clarify his point.
I don’t know why I’m so grumpy, today. Sorry, Adam. Hopefully, I don’t come across as harsh sounding. It is an interesting discussion.
The Chicken
Let me back up. Adam, can you give some of the reasons that Abbot Vonier would say that the Eucharist is simply the body and blood of Christ? Is he, perhaps, not just using a shorthand, assuming his readers will understand the other parts? I would like to see the points of the argument.
I have no way to contact you by e-mail, but I don’t think Jimmy would mind the discussion taking place in the combox because it is an important point of apologetics. If he wants us to stop, he will say so.
The Chicken
I scored 28 questions right on this quiz. (I’m studying to become Catholic.)
Chicken, you’ll have to give me a little time to do so. I’ll need to make recourse to the book to make certain I can reconstruct all of it correctly. So, later tonight I’ll post something.
Charlene, I totally agree about indoctrinating our kids. I believe it is a parent’s duty to indoctrinate his/her kids. By that, I mean that want to equip them to navigate through this world by means of a Thomistic worldview in order to safely reach the next world.
Master Chicken, Adam D. provides a link to his personal web site which gives his contact information, including a phone number.
Adam D., that’s really good artwork! At first glance it reminded me of Steve Hanks and then 5 seconds later, I read that you use oils, whereas Mr. Hanks uses watercolors (I think). Anyway, I envy your talent!
Don’t mind me. I’m just trying to help and encourage. If I miss any of those purposes, please correct or ignore me.
Master Chicken, Adam D. provides a link to his personal web site which gives his contact information, including a phone number.
As long-time readers know, I am the MASKED Chicken. I don’t have any e-mail set up with that name and I don’t send e-mails under my real name unless it is an emergency. One of the disadvantages of wanting anonymity on the Internet.
Perhaps, however, we might discuss the matter at his website, although the discussion is a good one for here.
The Chicken
The Great Awakening (What is that anyway?)
An era in colonial America characterized by passionate religious fervor and massive increases in church membership.
Well, well, well.
It seems they divvied up people into self-described atheists/agnostics, and people who described their religion as “nothing in particular.”
The second group, BTW, has the worst religious literacy.
http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/29/atheism-and-indifference/
31/32..stupid Jonathon Edwards.
Well, the Masked Chicken, I’ve combed my copy of Key to the Doctrine of the Eucharist and this subject is addressed directly in chapter 19 called Concomitance. As he does throughout the book, Vonier relies heavily on quotes from St. Thomas, especially in the Summa. All of what Thomas has to say about the Eucharist is in terms of sacramental theology and as such, understanding his thought fully on the Eucharist means understanding his whole sacramental theology (precisely Vonier’s goal in this book). Trying reconstruct it all is a little too vast for me to do here. I will just jump right to some of Thomas’s developed concepts. He says, for instance, in question 76, Art.2:
Vonier says too:
My version of Vonier’s book does not have a citation to give for tracking down these specific phrases. But even in what Lucien quoted of the Council you see reflected the same theology by use of the word together. “in the sacrament of the most holy Eucharist, are contained truly, really, and substantially, the body and blood together with the soul and divinity of our Lord ” which is a reflection of this concept, concomitance.
speaking again about the nature of the sacrament being, as sacrament, body and blood, Thomas says in question 81, art. 3
by which Thomas means Jesus’s soul and divinity. They are accident’s of Christ’s body.
Vonier elaborates a little noting:
This last part adds a bit of gravity to the importance to this distinction, though I’ve gone long enough and don’t care to start defending it too. We cannot offer Jesus’s soul and divinity as a sacrifice. These just happen to be concomitant with his body and blood which are given to us to offer.
This all was probably too long. Sorry for that.
Gregory, thanks for the compliments!
32/32 if anyone’s counting. I have a mostly useless master’s degree in medieval Spanish literature; didn’t know it would come in handy here (Maimonides).
Dear Adam,
Vonier is right, but nothing he said contradicts what I said. Let me flesh this out (no pun intended).
First, let’s put the doctrine of comcomitance in historical perspective:
In the 13th century (the century in which St. Thomas was writing), there was a controversy involving what happened at consecration. Leading this contraversy was Berengarius. St. Thomas’s discussion of the Eucharist was written, partially, to resolve this contraversy.
The doctrine of Comcomitance was developed because some people during the period felt that if they only recieved the host, they did not recieve the whole Christ. St. Thomas points out, by the doctrine of comcomitance, that where there is the body of the risen Christ, there must also be the blood, although, in the Eucharist, not is the same type of contact they had in the original body, being contacted in space, but rather by a sharing in type, since one cannot separate a body from its blood and still have a living person and since Christ is living in the Eucharist, his body and blood must be simultaneously present in a non-spacial way. So much was this doctrine misunderstood, that the Church forbid the laity from receiving the Precious Blood for centuries just to emphasize that receiving the Host was to receive the whole Christ.
Now, although the body and blood are united comcomitantly by virtue of the whole flesh of Chist’s person (and we receive a person when we recieve the Eucharist), nevertheless, we receive the whole Christ and his personhood is not just that of a man, but that of God and man, so his divinity os also united to his person (and, thus, the host) by the hypostatic union. The hypostatic union IS a type of comcomitance (Vonier is wrong on this point), but it is a type of comcomitance that unites two different ontologies: material and divine. This comcomitance, however has a realization in only one instance: Christ. There is no other to whom the hypostatic union applies, so whereas material comcomitance could, in theory, be applied, by analogy, to other material objects )for instance, we often say we are breathing oxygen when we speak of breathing air, but it is understood that nitrogen is present comcomitantly), the particular type of comcomitance known as the hypostatic union may only be applied in one instance and that is Christ. So material comcomitance and the hypostatic union are related in type if not in exact ontological classes.
This is why the Council of Trent makes two separate clauses when speaking of the body and blood and the soul and divinity of Christ: they are separating the ontological classes. They do not mean to say (as I think your quote of Vonier implies) that they considered there is no comcomitance within the Eucharist between the body, blood, soul and divinity of Christ (I disagree with Vonier’s reading of the Council), but rather that there are two different, but related, types of ontological relationships.
Christ’s soul and divinty are not accident’s of Christs body. That is a form of Adoptionism, if memory serves. Jesus’s divinty is a part of his substance as the God-man. That is why, unlike what you say, above, it is right to say that God died on Calvary. To say that we cannot offer Christ’s soul and divinity as a sacrifice is a form of the Nestorian heresy and I am sure that Vonier did not say that.
For the same reason, we could not have the Eucharist while Christ was in the grave. His soul was separated from his body (visiting the souls in the Netherworld). This is a de fide teaching. Where there is no soul, there is no person. Christ MUST be present, body, blood, soul, and divinity in the Eucharist. It was, in fact, only for this period of time during the entire Incarnation, when the Eucharist could not be offered. the fact that, if we could have confected the Eucharist, the bread would be ONLY the body at that point, which is what St. Thomas says, is a mere hypothetical. He is NOt saying that the Eucharist coould, in fact, have been confected.
Not only that, but prior to Pentecost, only Christ could offer the Eucharist, since the power to confect had not bee conferred to the Church (it was at Pentecost). Thus, when Christ were dead, the Eucharist could, again, not be confected, since only he could do it and he was dead.
The personalist reading of trnasubstantiation is a recent development of doctrine, not a contrary one to the sacrificial nature of the Eucharist, since Christ died, as a person. In fact, Vonier is wrong to say that this is a recent development in the Church. It is a recent acceptance into doctrine, but it’s realization goes back through the strain of mystics who held a personal relationship to a real person in the Eucharist.
A Sacrament is a visible sign that confers grace and points to an invisible reality. The Eucharist is a visible sign of the invisible risen Christ who was sacrificed, once, for all. The Eucharist is a sacrifice because it is not linked to time and the sacrifice on Calvary is re-presented, time is stripped away, when the Eucharist is confected.
I have more to say, but I have to teach a class. This is my understanding of things and why I maintain that Vonier is mostly correct (although he is too strict in his application of the idea of comcomitance, in my opinion), but that he does not contradict the idea that the correct way to refer to the Eucharist is the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ. I take the quiz formulation to be an incomplete short-hand for this.
The Chicken
At this point, the Chicken, you’re disagreeing with the good doctor, St. Thomas. I think I have shown in my few citations that my mind, Vonier’s mind, is simply that of Thomas. Thomas quite plainly says (my first quote from question 76) exactly what I said about concomitance and he himself provides the idea of consecrating the Eucharist prior to the resurrection. Thomas uses concomitance to mean the concomitance of the blood with the body, the body with the blood, the soul with both and the divinity with both. It’s not limited just to the relationship between blood and body. And then again in question 81 Thomas explains that the words of consecration refer precisely (limitedly) to the body and blood. Yes, that means of a necessity that the soul and divinity will become present but it is not, as Thomas would say, by nature of the sacrament, as sacrament. It is the nature of the sacrament to make present the body and blood. Note that Thomas’s question 81 art 3 is “Whether Christ received and gave to the disciples His impassible body?” which he negates, saying that Christ, in the last supper, gave them his passable body because a consecration of the elements makes sacramentally present Christ’s body in the same state that the natural body is in. Which is why Thomas asserts we could consecrate the bread and wine before the resurrection. That is simply what the sacrament is. The words of consecration are limited thus and it is not our place to presume further. Thomas’s questions regarding the Eucharist, questions 73-83, make these assertions plain a number of times in a few different ways.
my last point, and this time, truly, I leave you to have the last word.
The Catechism of the Council of Trent also makes plain the distinction of what is present in the Eucharist, affirming that the soul and divinity are indeed present, but by virtue of their unity in Christ’s natural body, and not by virtue of the sacrament.
in its section treating of the Eucharist:
Dear Adam,
This seems to be a classic case of two people talking past each other. I did not assert some of things you seem to think and perhaps I misunderstood what you were getting at. I will try to respond, later, but I have no idea why the discussion has to be stopped at this point. Sacramental theology is a good and noble thing to discuss in a blog of this nature.
The Chicken
I saw this quiz featured on some news site the other day and it was obviously being used to look down on Catholics – the news anchor was only shown asking people after Mass – and basically laughing at their ignorance. They made it appear that it was a quiz about Christianity and no-one knew their faith. Very biased, especially when I got the chance to see the actual questions, and at most eight of the questions concern the Catholic faith. Who cares if catholics average fewer correct than athiests when the questions are about hindus?
Good write-up, Jimmy.
I got 32/32 also, and I also got a really bad aftertaste of media bias and anti-catholicism.
Dear Adam,
I went back and check Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, and he says, almost verbatim, what I said in my 5:53 am post, above. Here is what Ott says:
Book Four The Doctrine of God the Sanctifier
Part 3 The Sacraments
Section 2 The Seven Sacraments
III The Eucharist
Section 1: The Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist
Chapter 3: The Nature and Manner of the Real Presence of Christ
8 The Totality of the Presence (pg. 384, Tan edition)
The body of Christ is present under the form of bread and the blood of Christ is present under the form of wine ex vi verborum, that is, by the power of the words of consecration. Per concomitantium (by concomitance), that is, on account of the real connection between the body and blood of Christ, his blood and his soul are also present with the body of Christ under the form of bread, as he is a living body (Rom. 6,9) (Concomitiantia naturalis), and on the ground of his hypostatic union His Divinity is also present (concomitiantia supernauralis). Similarly, under the form of wine besides his blood Christ’s body and soul and Divinity are also present by concomitance. Cf. D 876 S. th III 76, I.
The Cf. is a reference to Denzinger, Sources of Catholic Dogma. D. 876 is a quotation from the Council of Trent, Session XIII,
CHAPTER III.
On the excellency of the most holy Eucharist over the rest of the Sacraments.
The most holy Eucharist has indeed this in common with the rest of the sacraments, that it is a symbol of a sacred thing, and is a visible form of an invisible grace; but there is found in the Eucharist this excellent and peculiar thing, that the other sacraments have then first the power of sanctifying when one uses them, whereas in the Eucharist, before being used, there is the [Page 78] Author Himself of sanctity. For the apostles had not as yet received the Eucharist from the hand of the Lord, when nevertheless Himself affirmed with truth that to be His own body which He presented (to them). And this faith has ever been in the Church of God, that, immediately after the consecration, the veritable Body of our Lord, and His veritable Blood, together with His soul and divinity, are under the species of bread and wine; but the Body indeed under the species of bread, and the Blood under the species of wine, by the force of the words; but the body itself under the species of wine, and the blood under the species of bread, and the soul under both, by the force of that natural connexion and concomitancy whereby the parts of Christ our Lord, who hath now risen from the dead, to die no more, are united together; and the divinity, furthermore, on account of the admirable hypostatical union thereof with His body and soul. Wherefore it is most true, that as much is contained under either species as under both; for Christ whole and entire is under the species of bread, and under any part whatsoever of that species; likewise the whole (Christ) is under the species of wine, and under the parts thereof.
It is clear from the following that, as I said, above, the hypostatic union is a type of concomitance, although it is a supernatural one that unites two different ontologies. Also, it is clear that it is the living Christ which is present in the Eucharist. A dead man cannot present himself as a sacrifice or to be sacrificed. Thus, I repeat, the Eucharist could not be offered while Christ was in the grave.
Theologians may disagree. It appears that Vonier and Ott disagree in part. They are both dogmatic theologians, both in high regard.
My point was that the correct way to refer to the reality of the Eucharist is as the body, blood, soul, and Divinity of Christ. It is also correct, as you point out, to refer to the sacramental action as being that of converting the bread into the body and the wine into the blood of Christ. The consecration converts the substance of the bread into the body of Christ, but at the same time imports the blood, soul, and Divinity to it by concomitance. The sacramental action accomplishes both at the same time, although the primary action of the sacrament is to convert the bread to the body.
This is the teaching of the Church as best I can see it. You were talking about the front half of the effect of consecration, the sacramental/sacrificial aspect, and I was talking about the back half of the effect of the consecration, the importation by concomitance of the whole Christ. As I mentioned, above, it seems as though we were a talking past each other. In other words, at the consecration, the bread and wine becomes the body and blood of Christ in its primary action, but it becomes the soul and Divinity in its secondary action by concomitance.
I hope this clarifies things. It was good discussing things with you.
The Chicken
29. since i’m not american and never met a mormon that has to be ok! (but oh i wanted 100 %!)
100%
@Charlene
Let’s hope this doesn’t get lost. I highly recommend two books to -everyone- about the faith: the New Catholic Picture Bible by Rev. Lawrence G. Lovasik, SVC and the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. That bible covers every main story in one page, has excellent vivid illustrations, and explains each story in the last paragraph. These sell for are a penny used plus shipping and usual just have the original owner’s name written in. It’s a kids book so there is -no- excuse not to read it. The fact that it is excellent is icing on the cake. The Compendium which you can read for free at the Vatican website covers all the basics. If credo Catholics actually read it, they would realize how clearly and easily they can explain their -entire- faith to another person.
My biggest problem is actually making them do it. Just as children (and their parents) will never learn how to pray unless they do it. Children (and their parents) need their catechists to -make- them pray (and read those two books.) “Drill them into your children. Speak of them at home and abroad, whether you are busy or at rest.” (Dt 6:7)
32! Going to a Baptist college about 40 years ago helped with Jonathan Edwards!