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Q u i c k Q u e s t i o n s
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This Rock
Volume 10, Number 10
 October 1999 
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THIRTY-THREE PERCENT? NO WAY!
Q: I have repeatedly heard it said that only 33 percent, or something like that, of Catholics believe in the Real Presence. How scandalous! Is this true?
A: No, it's not, and it makes me want to tear my hair out every time I hear that bogus statistic. While the actual statistics are not what they should be, and do reveal a great deal of faulty catechesis, the numbers are nowhere near as dire as the above statistic would lead one to believe.
Allow me to set the record straight: The Gallup Organization conducted a phone poll of 519 American Catholics, 18 years or older, regarding their attitudes and beliefs about Holy Communion. The poll was conducted from December 10, 1991, to January 19, 1992. Pollsters consider a survey of this type to have an error rate of plus or minus five percent.
One of the questions asked was this: "Which one of the following statements about Holy Communion do you think best reflects your belief:
"[A] When receiving Holy Communion, you are really and truly receiving the body and blood, soul and divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ, under the appearance of bread and wine, or
"[B.] When receiving Holy Communion, you are receiving bread and wine, which symbolize the spirit and teachings of Jesus and in so doing are expressing your attachment to his Person and words, or
"[C.] When receiving Holy Communion, you are receiving bread and wine, in which Jesus is really and truly present, or
"[D.] When receiving Holy Communion, you are receiving the body and blood of Christ, which has become that because of your personal belief"
"[E.] Don't Know
"[F.] Refused [to answer]."
The results: 30 percent picked A, 29 percent picked B, 10 percent picked C, 23 percent picked D, two percent picked E, three percent picked F, and an additional three percent volunteered that none of the above expressed their belief. We will refer to the latter category as option G.
Now let's put the pieces together: Options A and D both essentially describe transubstantiation, though option D omits mentioning Christ's soul and divinity and includes the erroneous notion that transubstantiation is dependent on one's personal faith. Nevertheless, add the two together and it turns out 53 percent of American surveyed believe in transubstantiation.
Now add in option C, which does assert the Real Presence, even though an erroneous view of it (i.e., consubstantiation), and it turns out that 63 percent believe in the Real Presence.
Presumably, some of the remaining eight percent would also believe in the Real Presence. Consider, for example, a person who would have said yes to option D except for the fact that it omits reference to Christ's soul and divinity; this person may well have said "none of the above" even though he clearly believed in the Real Presence.
This kind of presumption applies to answers E, F, and G. Those who said they didn't know (E) may simply have not wanted to think through the implications of a list of confusing options with important, answer-affecting clauses. Those who refused to answer the question (F) may have been too busy to think through the rather cumbersome options they were offered and simply declined to answer. And those who said that none of the above expressed their belief (G) may have misheard or misunderstood an important clause in an answer, or have simply preferred a different way of saying the same thing.
My guess is that at least half of the final eight percent believed in the Real Presence but simply didn’t say this in a way that the survey would record. If that is so, just over two-thirds of Catholics believe in the Real Presence, and even if it is not so, we’re still in the two-thirds ballpark.
Now let’s throw in a final factor: This survey was taken among Americans who answered a phone and said they were Catholic. In all likelihood, this includes some Episcopalians and Anglicans who prefer to be called Catholic rather than Protestant; their answers would feed the non-transubstantiation categories. Also included, perhaps, were people whose parents had them baptized Catholic but then failed to have them educated in the Catholic faith. Are we to expect uncatechized people to understand and believe in transubstantiation?
And finally, the survey would include people who had lapsed but were still willing to identify themselves as Catholic when asked to name a religious affiliation. Such people are likely to have lost much or all of their faith. Should we expect that they would understand and believe in transubstantiation?
If we had a way (which we don’t) of factoring out the answers given by the uncatechized, the lapsed, and those erroneously identifying themselves as Catholic, my guess is that the number of those giving non-transubstantiation and non-Real Presence answers would shrink significantly. It can safely be said that a sizeable majority of active, catechized American Catholics believe in transubstantiation and that the over-whelming majority believe in the Real Presence.
The fact that only 30 percent of those polled gave the proper answer is not good, but when you add up the actual numbers and put them in context, the situation is not nearly as dire as many are making it sound.
What should we say, then, when asked how many Catholics believe in the Real Presence? We should say, "I don't know; the Gallup poll only covered America. To my knowledge nobody's done a global survey."
What should we say when asked how many American Catholics believe in the Real Presence? "About two-thirds; more if you count only active, catechized Catholics."
I hope, therefore, that people will begin putting to rest the bogus idea that only a third of Catholics believe in the Real Presence. That phony statistic needs to be stricken from apologetic discourse, 'cause it just ain't so.
James Akin
Q: I saw a TV program that said historians doubt Jesus was born at Bethlehem because there is no record of a census at that time and thus no reason for Joseph and Mary to go to Bethlehem. Is that true?
A: It is certainly true that some historians have doubts about any historical event, and some are especially eager to disbelieve events recorded in Scripture. That doesn’t mean they have any evidence against what Scripture says.
It is no surprise that there is no record of the census preceding Jesus’ birth, since there is no record of many events from this time. The fact is, the historical records for things like this are very spotty. We don’t have Rome’s governmental archives to consult. And of course what your TV show meant is there is no record apart from the Gospel of Luke of the census. The Gospel of Luke is a record, but they are discounting him, despite the fact that his book of Acts has been shown to be the work of a fine historian. But the argument from silence proves nothing.
Mark P. Shea
Q: Often non-Catholics ask, "Why do Catholics call their priests ‘father’?" They call our attention to Matthew 23:9: "You must call no one on earth your father."
A: Initially, you might respond, "What do you call your mother’s husband?" If a Catholic is wrong in calling his priest "father," then so is everyone who refers to his own natural father in that way Both usages would be prohibited by a literal interpretation of Jesus’ words.
Jesus came not to abolish the law of the Old Covenant but to fulfill it (Matt. 5:17). If in Matthew 23:9 he is forbidding us even to acknowledge our natural fathers as "father," how can we keep the fifth commandment ("Honor your father and your mother")?
Look again at the passage in question. In contrast to the attitudes of the Pharisees, Jesus is specifying the qualities Christian leaders must exhibit (Matt. 23:1–12). The Pharisees aspired to being called "rabbi" (or "master" or "teacher"), leaders of schools of thought. Among the schools headed by teachers called "rabbi," there were many divergences of belief, some of them in actual contradiction.
A similar situation prevailed with regard to the term "father" (in Aramaic, abba, a title of honor). The title was given to well-known Jewish religious authorities. As with "rabbi," so with "father": The term designated the progenitor of a particular, even contradictory, interpretation of the Jewish faith.
Why did Jesus declare that no Christian leader is to be called "rabbi" or "father"? In Matthew 23:1–2, and especially in verses 8–10, Jesus is condemning the formation of contradictory schools of thought in his Church. The role of leaders in Christ’s Church is faithfully to hand on Christ’s teaching received through the apostles (Matt. 28:19). The words of Paul epitomize the essential attitude of the Christian teacher: "This is what I received from the Lord and in turn passed on to you" (1 Cor. 11:23).
The history of Protestantism is essentially the story of this very process—the unending proliferation of sectarian groups, saying "I am for Martin Luther," or "I am for John Calvin," or "I am for John Wesley."
Incidentally, both Old and New Testaments associate priesthood with fatherhood (cf. Judges 17:10 and 18:19 and 1 Cor. 4:15), but in this case, Jesus’ command is not violated. Being a simple priest is in no way turning yourself into a guru and founding your own school of thought.
Fr. Ray Ryland
Q: Once people are baptized Catholic, are they Catholic forever? What if they marry outside of the Church, or join another religion? If they aren’t Catholic anymore, how can they become Catholic again?
A: Once someone is validly baptized, Catholic or otherwise, they are baptized forever (CIC 845). You can never "lose" your baptism, although you might lose the benefits of baptism by personal sin.
Whether someone baptized Catholic is thereafter always Catholic is a slightly different question. In most cases, the answer will be "yes" (see CIC 111 & 205). But to be considered in full communion with the Church requires a basic profession of the Faith, some level of sacramental participation, and some degree of submission to ecclesiastical authority (CIC 205). One can imagine someone who was baptized Catholic rejecting any or all of these elements to the point where he simply could not be considered fully Catholic anymore, notwithstanding the fact that he remained baptized.
The 1983 Code of Canon Law contains a new norm that deals with technical requirements related to marriage but has implications for your question. Briefly, canon 1117 requires that canonical form for marriage be observed by anyone baptized Catholic unless that person has left the Church "by a formal act of defection." The 1983 Code does not define what this might be, but clearly the concept of leaving the Church—as opposed to simply marrying outside the church or attending services at another denomination, even for a long period of time—exists in canon law and has repercussions in Church life. A public declaration of defection from the Church, under credible circumstances, might constitute a formal act of defection. In any case, since Catholic baptism establishes a canonical presumption of Catholic affiliation, canonical proof of defection from the Church must be produced to overcome that presumption.
As to how one can come back into the Church, canon law does not specify a procedure. I would think that sacramental confession is the best route to follow. If, however, there was some public act (say, a letter to a bishop) by which one’s formal defection was accomplished, it would be prudent to repudiate such an act in the same or a similar public manner.
Edward N. Peters
Q: Someone on our parish liturgy committee who recently had been to Europe said that in some of the old cathedrals there, the tabernacle is in a side chapel, and so this is the preferred arrangement. Is this true?
A: No. History’s preferred arrangement—and the cathedral exception—is summed up in canon 1268 in the 1917 Code of Canon Law:
"§1. The most holy Eucharist cannot be kept continually, that is, habitually, except on only one altar of the church.
"§2. It shall be kept in the most excellent and the most noble place of the church and therefore regularly on the major altar unless it seems that the veneration and cult of such a sacrament is more convenient and decent elsewhere, observing the prescriptions of liturgical law, which pertain to the final days of the great week.
"§3. But in cathedral churches or in collegial or conventual ones in which choral functions are conducted at the main altar, lest ecclesiastical officials be impeded, it is opportune that the most holy Eucharist not regularly be kept at the major altar but in another chapel or altar.
"§4. Let rectors of churches take care that the altar in which the most holy Sacrament is reserved be decorated above all the others so that by this appearance the faithful be moved to greater piety and devotion."
It is a historically flawed argument to claim that the arrangement of some European cathedrals reflects the preferred placement of the tabernacle. As the former Code of Canon Law illustrates, the placement of the tabernacle in these cathedrals was the exception, not the rule, and not the preference.
The current 1983 Code allows more flexibility in placement but in no way establishes a preference for side chapel placement. It simply states, "The tabernacle in which the Most Holy Eucharist is reserved should be placed in a part of the church that is prominent, conspicuous, beautifully decorated, and suitable for prayer" (CIC [1983] 938 §2).
James Akin
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