The Center for Applied Research for the Apostolate (CARA) is a national research center affiliated with Georgetown University. Since 1964, CARA has conducted social scientific studies about the Catholic Church.

Sometimes the CARA research findings contain good news for the Church, other times the news is distressing.

Unfortunately, the recently released study about Catholics and the Real Presence contains jolting results.

In 2001, CARA conducted a broad-based poll of Catholics in the United States centered on the individual Catholic’s belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. CARA reported that only 63 percent of Catholics surveyed believe that “Jesus Christ is really present in the bread and wine of the Eucharist.”

This year, CARA conducted a companion survey that demonstrated even more distressing results.

This 2008 study revealed that today only 57 percent of Catholics believe that Jesus Christ is really present in the bread and wine of the Eucharist. Forty-three percent believe that the Eucharistic bread and wine are “only symbols of Jesus.”

Belief in the Real Presence increased substantially, depending on how frequently the individual Catholic participated in Sunday Liturgy.

Nine in ten weekly Mass attendees (91 percent) said they believed that Jesus Christ is really present in the Eucharist, compared with two-thirds of those who attend at least once a month.

Only 40 percent of those who attend “a few times a year” believe in the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. Clearly there is a correlation between active participation in the Liturgy and belief and understanding of the Real Presence.

Last year, Pope Benedict XVI issued an Apostolic Exhortation entitled Sacramentum Caritatis – The Sacrament of Charity.

The purpose of his exhortation was to awaken in all of us the truth that the mystery of the Eucharist is “the source and summit of the life of the Church,” the living Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, a mystery that surpasses all human understanding.

Pope Benedict XVI writes that by instituting the Eucharist, Jesus Christ “anticipates and makes present the sacrifice of the cross and the mystery of the resurrection.” (SC, p. 10)

He describes the action of the Eucharistic Liturgy not as the mere repetition of the Last Supper, but as an “entrance into the very dynamic of (Christ’s) self-giving.” In the Eucharist, Jesus draws us into Himself.

Pope Benedict XVI uses a very contemporary image to help the modern believer grasp the change that takes place in the bread and wine during the celebration of the Eucharistic Liturgy.

The conversion of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ introduces “within creation the principle of radical change, a sort of nuclear fission..."

This change “penetrates to the heart of all being, a change meant to set off a process which transforms reality, a process leading ultimately to the transfiguration of the entire world, to the point where God will be all in all (Cf 1Cor:15-28).”

The CARA study, while containing troubling and difficult results, also constitutes an important challenge for all of us in the Catholic Church, ordained, religious and laity alike. Belief and understanding of the Eucharist is at the very heart and soul of the Church’s life and ministry.

In a word, the Church’s faith is a Eucharistic faith, and is nourished and strengthened at the altar of the Lord. Having given this difficult matter much thought, I have concluded that the challenge we face is not so much a matter of unbelief, but rather a lack of understanding and a failure to see the great mystery of Eucharist through the eyes of the Church.

The good news is that this serious problem can and will respond to thoughtful and substantial teaching and preaching, based upon the Church’s rich Eucharistic theology.

Therefore, I challenge the pastors, teachers, parents and individual believers of our diocese to awaken in all of our hearts a renewed understanding and appreciation of Eucharist, which is the Church’s most priceless treasure.

First of all, I ask our priests and deacons to ensure that instruction on the Real Presence is a regular theme in your preaching and teaching.

Secondly, I ask teachers and religious educators to ensure that sound Eucharistic and sacramental theology are shared with the children and youth of our parishes through an age-appropriate scope and sequence that deepens our children’s understanding of our sacramental faith.

Third, I encourage Catholic parents, who are the first teachers of their children, to contemplate the meaning of Eucharist, participate at Mass as a family, and teach your children to know, understand, love and live what they celebrate at Holy Mass.

Fourth, I ask individual Catholics to encounter and embrace Jesus Christ frequently and devoutly at Mass, and allow Him to transform your life through the grace and love which comes to us through this encounter with our Risen Lord.

Next, I ask parish liturgy committees to follow the lead of our diocesan Liturgical Commission and take steps to inspire full, active, conscious participation of our people in the Sacred Liturgy. The diocesan Liturgical Commission is focusing upon adult faith formation designed to enhance the quality of Sacred Liturgy throughout the Diocese in accord with the mind and mission of the Church.

Finally, it is my hope that all of us will grow to appreciate the connection between liturgy and life, prayer and justice, worship and reconciliation, love of God and love of neighbor, so powerfully elucidated in Pope Benedict’s Encyclical Letter Deus Caritas Est, which he has intentionally placed alongside Sacramentum Caritatis.

The startling results of the CARA study provide both a challenge and an opportunity for the faith life of our people to be renewed and deepened.

The Eucharist is the “sum and summary of our faith” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1327).

In this Sacrament are the true Body of Christ and his true Blood, something that cannot be apprehended by the senses, but only by faith.

Do you believe?


Published in The Montana Catholic, Vol. 24, No. 6, June 20, 2008.