Your comment seems to illustrate a very small understanding of St. Thomas Aquinas and his contributions to theology. According to Fr. Torrell’s biographical account, St. Thomas ceased to write after encountering the Beatific Vision of God while celebrating the Mass. In context, everything that can be said about God falls short compared to the Beatific Vision. All of his life, St. Thomas spent time writing about the Lord as his first love. Can anyone blame St. Thomas for ceasing to write after having a direct encounter with the Lord?

Furthermore, the Church has upheld St. Thomas’ writings as par excellence for the formation of seminarians and theologians. I invite you to take a closer examination of St. Thomas’ works and see the depth of love that flows throughout.

I will not speculate further whether you arrived at your opinion through a firsthand examination of St. Thomas or not; however, I do ask that you reserve judgment until you have a more informed knowledge.

I do understand that.

I was thinking about the pastoral aspect that comes from clearing away confusion by parishioners. Eg., if Fr. Kelly’s parishioners were concerned that they would not be receiving the Real Presence because Fr. Kelly who doesn’t believe in Transubstantiation had confected the elements, they needn’t worry. They’ll still receive the Real Presence even if the priest doesn’t believe it.

And if these parishioners are concerned about family and friends receiving the Real Presence in the Eucharist, yet their family and friends don’t believe in the Real Presence, well, their family and friends still obtain the Real Presence too.

Of course, as you said, the worship behavior may be altered because these folks don’t believe in the Real Presence, but the fact remains that they still receive the fullness of the Real Presence whether they believe it or not (per Eucharistic dogma of the Catholic Church).

Here is my contribution to this blog:
One time while kneeling in the pew and contemplating on Transubstantiation during the Consecration, a thought welled up in my mind; by analogy, in the virtual world of the Internet I can type First Things; however, now, I will consecrate the typed word First Things by hyper-linking the word and voila … as by magic, a whole new wonderful world of Ideas spring into being.

Sincerely yours,
Frans Monnereau

Thanks for your response. I think I understand what you’re saying.

“Well, different behavior is appropriate.”

Yes, I see what you’re saying. And with regards to the relationship between facts and behavior, don’t you agree that the “fact” of the Real Presence is still in the Communion Elements per Magisterial dogma even if the Catholic priest and some of the Catholic laity misbehave by not believing in the doctrine of Transubstantiation?

The title of the post is “Does Quantum Physics Render Transubstantiation Meaningless?” Your answer is no.

I’m asking this: “Does Not Believing in Transubstantiation Render Transubstantiation Null and Void?” Would your answer be no as well?

Why is it important whether Christ is truly present? Well, for one thing, if Christ is truly present, we have an opportunity to worship him in a way that we otherwise could not — an opportunity that we will not avail ourselves of if we do not know that he is there.

Moses saw a burning bush. Suppose that, not realizing that God was there, Moses had said, “Oh that is just a brush fire” and walked on?
Would that have made a difference? As it happened he approached the bush, and God told him that it was holy ground (due to God’s being present) and that Moses should remove his footwear on that account. Would it have been holy ground even if Moses had disbelieved God? Or had misunderstood what God was saying? Wouldn’t it have been holy ground as a matter of fact regardless of what Moses thought of the matter? Surely it would have been. Was it important that it was holy ground? Surely it must have been if God saw fit to inform Moses of the fact. What difference did it make that it was holy ground? Well, different behavior is appropriate. If the ground is holy, then one shows respect by removing footwear, if it isn’t holy one doesn’t.

It is not that Lateran IV and Trent raised “questions that need not be asked”. The questions had already been asked by others, as Brandon above correctly points out.

The first use of the word “transubstantiation” by a council was in 1215, by the Fourth Lateran Council, which said simply “His body and blood are truly contained in the sacrament of the altar under the forms of bread and wine, the bread and wine having been transubstantiated, by God’s power, into his body and blood.” In 1215, the Catholic Church had hardly canonized the philosophy, let alone the physics, of Aristotle! Recall that in 1210 a local council at which the Bishop of Paris was present forbade the teaching of Aristotelian physics: “Neither the books of Aristotle on natural philosophy [i.e. science] nor their commentaries are to be read at Paris in public or secret, and this we forbid under penalty of excommunication.” And St. Thomas Aquinas wasn’t born until 1225, ten years after the word transubstantiation was used by Lateran IV.

No, the use of transubstantiation by Lateran IV hardly entailed a wholesale acceptance of Aristotelianism.

It is true that the doctrine of transubstantiation came to be seen as an endorsement of Aristotelian/Thomistic thought. But the original reason for the Council’s use of that word was to express the idea that the elements themselves underwent a CHANGE at the consecration. I don’t propose to argue here about the Scriptural and patristic evidence. Suffice it to say that there is considerable evidence to be found in those sources for the idea of a change taking place of the bread and wine themselves. It the prefix “trans” that is important in this regard. The Orthodox use other terms that have the equivalent prefix “meta”.

Some Protestant controversialists in the past said that the doctrine of transubstantiation either (a) entails making Aristotle’s metaphysics an article of faith, or (b) involves an attempt to give a theoretical, quasi-scientific explanation of HOW the Real Presence occurs, HOW God does it, and thus remove the mystery. The Catholic Church has officially disavowed the intention of doing either of those things. But apparently some will insist nevertheless that the Catholic Church is doing these things. Attributing beliefs to church bodies that they do not themselves avow is not, I think, a helpful thing. It does not promote greater mutual understanding.

My post was not directed at Protestantism. It was directed by a Catholic (me) against the statements of another Catholic who appeared to be confused about Catholic teaching and was confusing others. Given the ecumenical nature of First Things, I will not allow myself to get drawn into an inter-confessional dispute that has little to do with the purposes of my original post.

Does this Catholic still receive the Real Presence even though she or he doesn’t believe in the Real Presence?

If so, and he/she still receives the Real Presence despite not believing in the Real Presence, why does the doctrine of transubstantiation matter?

Furthermore, let’s say that there are some Catholic priests who don’t believe in transubstantiation either when they confect the elements. It doesn’t matter, right?, because the elements will still have the Real Presence for the partakers of Communion.

So if I understand this correctly, you could have a Catholic priest who doesn’t believe in Transubstantiation, but his confected elements still have the Real Presence, AND you could have a Catholic communion participant who likewise doesn’t believe in the Real Presence, and he or she would still receive the Real Presence anyways.

Soooooo, why all the hullabaloo over the doctrine of transubstantiation when by the Eucharistic dogma of the Church the priests and the people still receive the Real Presence whether they believe in it or not?

It is not fair to say that Newtonian physics has been superseded. Mechanical Engineers, and all other engineers for that matter, use Newton’s formulation, as well as the equivalent energy formulations of Laplace and Hamilton, when dealing with speeds much less than light or sizes much larger than atoms; which is to say, in almost all cases. In this way Newtonian mechanics can be viewed as a qualified form of Relativistic and Quantum Mechanics.

Rev. Lorfeld,

How can you know what is meant by “logos” without regarding its pre-Biblical meaning? It was used by John, it stands to reason, because it conveyed a certain idea to those who read it, presumably a Greek audience or one knowledgeable of Greek ideas.

You claim, “Philosophical gymnastics simply are not necessary to affirm that what we receive in the bread and wine of the Eucharist is certainly Christ’s true body and blood. ” If that is the case, what is necessary? Merely faith? Is not that fideism?

What you say is very reasonable. I would like to think that your interpretation of Fr. Kelly is correct. What makes me doubt it is the context: he is attacking what he takes to be excessive — almost “fanatical” — reverence for the Christ present in the Eucharistic elements. That suggests to me that he is not concerned so much with terminological issues and adequacy of expression, but with the doctrine itself. He talks about different forms of the presence of Christ in the Eucharist — presumably he has in mind the truth that Christ is also present in the congregation. He seems to think that undue emphasis is given (“Catholics can become fanatical about”) “one form of the Body of Christ in the bread as the REAL presence.” That suggests that his problem is with the “objectivity” of the Real Presence according to the doctrine of transubstantiation — i.e. that Christ is present despite the spiritual dispositions of the congregation or even the existence of any congregation. (e.g. Transubstantiation says that Christ is present even in reserved hosts when no one is around.) But the doctrine of transubstantiation is “objective”, whether expressed in Aristotelian language or not. So it is hard to see his statements as being anything other than an attack on the doctrine itself, rather than merely a criticism of the words used to express it.

Yours is a more charitable interpretation, and I hope it is right.

In any event, Fr. Kelly, as a person who is part of the media, has an especially great obligation to express himself carefully and not in a manner that lends itself to the interpretation that he calling into question a central truth of the faith.