I'm not prejudiced against R.C.s BUT...

....

So you deny the RCC's doctrine that the bread and wine cease to be bread and wine, save for the accidents (flavor, texture, appearance)? If so, you're more than welcome to join us Anglicans! For we agree with you that the bread molecules and wine molecules, the actual physical substance and nature of the baked bread and fermented wine, remain when these things become the body and blood of Jesus (and thus we do not chew on His flesh, but we receive Him by faith and with thanksgiving).

Trent, Session 13, Ch. 8, CANON lI.-"If any one saith, that, in the sacred and holy sacrament of the Eucharist, the substance of the bread and wine remains conjointly with the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, and denieth that wonderful and singular conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the Body, and of the whole substance of the wine into the Blood-the species Only of the bread and wine remaining-which conversion indeed the Catholic Church most aptly calls Transubstantiation; let him be anathema."

 

You don’t understand the catholic doctrine.
The substance isn’t chemical.
From catholic answers :
“After transubstantiation occurs, the atoms and molecules continue doing their thing, just as they are, completely unaffected, as if nothing miraculous had happened at all. There is no chemical reaction and no accompanying physical change. The consecration breaks no chemical bonds and synthesizes no new ones.”

 

"Catholic Answers" is not RC doctrine. Trent is RC doctrine. The CCC is RC doctrine, too. Trent stated that "the whole substance" of bread and "the whole substance" of wine undergo "conversion" into Body (that is, flesh) and Blood. The CCC quotes Trent as follows:
"...this holy Council now declares
again, that by the consecration of the bread and wine there takes place
a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the
body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of the wine into
the substance of his blood."

The Baltimore Catechism taught the same principle:

*244 Q. Did anything remain of the bread and wine after their substance had been changed into the substance of the body and blood of Our Lord? A. After the substance of the bread and wine had been changed into the substance of the body and blood of Our Lord there remained only the appearances of bread and wine.

245 Q. What do you mean by the appearances of bread and wine? A. By the appearances of bread and wine I mean the figure, the color, the taste, and whatever appears to the senses.
​

According to RC doctrine, if one does not believe that the entire substance of bread and the entire substance of wine are no longer present in the consecrated Eucharist, and that nothing of the bread and wine linger but their appearances, one is anathema. I'm sorry if you did not know this about your church, but you deserve to know the truth.

 

Honestly I don’t feel like explaining the difference between substance and accidents….
Substance is an Aristotelian term that means what the thing actually is. It actually is Christ after the consecration.
The accidents are what describe it, like the way it looks or tastes or it’s molecular structure.
Substance has NOTHING to do with chemistry, it has to do with metaphysics.
It’s like saying we have souls. Can you view souls with an x ray? No.
But we know we have souls.
The same for the Eucharist. It’s really Christ, but under a microscope it will only look like bread. This doesn’t mean the substance is bread. It just appears to be bread but it’s not.


It’s ridiculous to claim the Catholic Church teaches that under a microscope the molecules look like flesh and not wine.
I mean, what do you think appearances means?
Appearances get their appearance from, well, atoms……
Like….
What do you think “appearance of bread and wine” means?
An appearance that isn’t an appearance under the microscope?
……
I think you need to think about what you’re actually saying lol.
The appearance and taste of bread remain. These come from its chemical structure

 

I thought I would share this prayer from my prayer book (eastern catholic)


“I praise thee, for through the I have learned to know the father; I bless thee through whom the holy spirit came into the world; I bow to thy most pure mother who served for the dread mystery of thine incarnation; I praise the angelic choir as the servants and singers of thy majesty; I bless Saint John the forerunner who baptized the O lord; I honor also the prophets who announced thee; I glorify thy holy apostles; I celebrate thy martyrs; I venerate thy Saints and praise all thy righteous ones…”

Clearly the words “glorify” and “praise” are not meant to be the worship of latria here.
We are supposed to praise all those who are in Christ, as they abide in Him and He in them. To praise Christ’s martyrs or apostles is to praise Christ himself.
The language might seem off to you, but the word “glorify” and “praise” can be used to refer to people other than God without intending worship.


Also like I told Rexlion, words or kissing or bowing doesn’t = worship.
Sacrifice = worship.

 

I wanted to apologize to @Invictus ; I appear to have been wrong, at least somewhat; We may have been talking past each other, but here’s St. Athanasius in ‘On the Incarnation’ (Hope this helps, too):

I hope that at least helps. It taught me something at any rate.

 

No apology necessary. It’s all good!

 

Okay great, so you’ve conceded on Nicea II, that it was rejected by the Latin churches as a heterodox “pseudo-synod”.

Let’s move on to the church fathers then.

This is what you get for using “Catholic” Encyclopedia. Shouldn’t you know better than to trust partisan sources with a long history of deceit?

The word Theodoret uses is proskynetai, translated as “revered”. He is not using the words for worship or adoration (dulia / latreia). And for me that’s fine, we Anglicans revere the symbols of the Church. But we don’t offer them worship, and you do. Thus Roman Catholics would be considered idolaters in the eyes of the Church Fathers. Here is the full excerpt from Theodoret, with the reference to the original greek:

https://biblehub.com/library/theodo...of_theodoret/dialogue_ii_the_unconfounded.htm

Orth. -- If, then, the divine mysteries are antitypes of the real body, therefore even now the body of the Lord is a body, not changed into nature of Godhead, but filled with divine glory.

Eran. -- You have opportunely introduced the subject of the divine mysteries for from it I shall be able to show you the change of the Lord's body into another nature. (says the heterodox)

…

Orth. -- You are caught in the net you have woven yourself. For even after the consecration the mystic symbols are not deprived of their own nature; they remain in their former substance figure and form
(therefore transubstantiation is a novelty, and from that fact alone, a heresy)

Just so you know, as late as the 16th century, Cardinal Cajetan was using the traditional Anglican canon of scripture:
https://amfortress.wordpress.com/2015/04/18/cajetans-protestant-canon/

The reason? Because the Roman church did not officially proclaim its canon until the Council of Trent. Therefore even as late as the early 1500s, by your own standard, the Roman church had no authoritative definition of the canon. By the way, the Anglican Church officially promulgated its canon (Cajetan’s!) in 1562, so the two churches promulgated their canons at around the same time. And for the prior 1500 years, according to your demand of infallibility, it wasn’t infallibly defined. Yet somehow the Church got by.

Although most people, like Cajetan, St Jerome, most church fathers, were using the Anglican, not the Roman version of the canon. Here is St Jerome, translating the very Vulgate Bible (later to be used as the bulwark of Romanism), describing the Anglican (and correct) biblical canon, as connected with the number of the Hebrew letters:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prologus_Galeatus

 

Substances are physical things. One does not talk about a thing's substance without referencing its physicality, its physical and substantial makeup. Molecules are physical components of the physical substance. One cannot logically speak of molecules as "appearances" and not as "substance."

The doctrine of transubstantiation is built upon the concept that a change in substance has been wrought without a change in appearance. The doctrine says that the bread ceases to be bread and the wine ceases to be wine, even though our senses record otherwise, and this is the miracle of RC transubstantiation of the elements which only a RC priest may confect.

Now you are trying to tell us that substance has nothing to do with the molecular makeup of a thing (so the substance changes but the physical nature does not). That is nonsense. But besides that, you've contradicted Theodoret's view (as expressed by "Orth") that the substance does not change!

 

I do but when you write something it is a courtesy to write what you mean and not expect readers to make a guess. I did think that this was going to be the Honorius to which you were referring. He was not deposed. He remained pope until his death. He was anathematised by the Third Council of Constantinople (680-1) for his alleged support of monothelitism. He was not deposed because a pope cannot be deposed.

It is usually used in arguments against papal infallibility and not the papacy in general.

This is quite contradictory. He cannot be the supreme leader and be bound by the decisions of those who come before him. Indeed, in a previous post you said you thought the pope wasn't bound by tradition. Popes cannot change what the Catholic Church considers to be divine law but no pope is bound by previous popes on any other matter.

An ecumenical council cannot depose a pope. An ecumenical council, according to the teachings of the Catholic Church, cannot depose a pope and has no other authority over a pope. You can cite no law because ecumenical councils have no such power.

He is still the pope. Canon lawyers have argued over this a lot and the consensus, whilst not agreed by all, is that a pope cannot be removed from office.

You cannot remove an insane pope. Some believe Pope Benedict XVI resigned so that he wasn't still the pope if his mental faculties declined. An insane pope would still be the pope. If the pope disappeared for a long time the Catholic Church would simply have a missing pope. No authority can remove him from office. Indeed, in the past the Catholic Church has gone without a pope for long periods when cardinals failed to elect a new one. The Catholic Church does have a process whereby a missing person can be declared to be presumed dead. Perhaps that would be an option if a pope went missing for long enough. However, I think it most unlikely this is going to happen.

 

A pope cannot be deposed? Why can't they at least take his deposition? Just kidding.

 

Ok you’re right about honorius.
But here is the old catholic encyclopedia:

“The proceedings of the Synod of Sutri, 20 December, are well summarized by Cardinal Newman in his "Essays Critical and Historical" (II, 262 sqq.). Of the three papal claimants, Benedict refused to appear; he was again summoned and afterwards pronounced deposed at Rome. Sylvester was "stripped of his sacerdotal rank and shut up in a monastery". Gregory showed himself to be, if not an idiota, at least a man miræ simplicitatis, by explaining in straightforward speech his compact with Benedict, and he made no other defence than his good intentions, and deposed himself (Watterich, Vitæ Rom. Pont., I, 76); an act by some interpreted as a voluntary resignation, by others (Hefele), in keeping with the contemporary annals, as a deposition by the synod. The Synod of Sutri adjourned to meet again in Rome 23 and 24 December. Benedict, failing to appear, was condemned and deposed in contumaciam, and the papal chair was declared vacant. As King Henry was not yet crowned emperor, he had no canonical right to take part in the new election; but the Romans had no candidate to propose and begged the monarch to suggest a worthy subject.”


Does this not sound like a papal deposition?


Also I’d like to know where you got that “you cannot depose an insane pope” from.

 

Substance is an Aristotelian term.
I honestly already tried to explain it to you.
Bread has matter. Matter is made up of atoms. The substance of a thing is metaphysics, not chemistry. You are trying to impose modern scientific knowledge on more than 2000 year old metaphysics and trying to prove me wrong.
Do you not see the issue here?


“ So, a substance is a thing or object (consisting of prime matter taking the form of that particular thing), and its accidents are its properties (qualities, attributes, features), what can be said of it (predicated of it). For example my cat is a substance having the accident “black”, my grandchild is “female”, the tree in the garden is “leafy”. You can readily see that the substances (cat, grandchild, tree) are self-standing items, existing “in themselves”, but they cant be a property of something else – nothing can be “cat” or “tree”, so they cant be “present in (as a feature of) another ”

“According to Aristotelians, such a substance has only "prime matter" as its matter. Prime matter is matter with no substantial form of its own. Thus, it can change into various kinds of substances without remaining any kind of substance all the time.”


So after the consecration the “prime matter” of the bread remains, but the substance is replaced.


However, prime matter is a metaphysical term, NOT chemistry.


I’d appreciate it if you didn’t paint out belief in the real presence as ridiculous. We aren’t delusional. Everyone knows a consecrated host under the microscope looks only like bread.
That is why I can say in modern scientific terms, it retains the accidents or molecules or whatever you want to call it.
The point is that even though it’s the body of Christ, under a microscope it doesn’t look like that.
Clearly it retains some of its “nature” aka its accidents or PROPERTIES.
What the thing is changed (body of Christ) but it’s properties (how it looks even under a microscope) have changed.

BTW, you obviously didn’t carefully read what I wrote, because you said substance is physical. I clearly said it wasn’t and that soul is a substance. Read the definitions I provided more carefully please.



You argue theodoret is on your side. But he thinks the Eucharist is a sacrifice.
Theodoret didn’t say the substance didn’t change he said the nature didn’t change.
Prove to me he believes he’s offering bread to God as the sacrifice of Christ and I’ll concede I’m wrong.

 

good evening, everyone! To iterate the thread title, I’m not prejudiced against Roman Catholics (I’ve been reading through Father Brown this semester) but...

I might be robbing @Stalwart of his usual lines, but doesn’t that show you how much Roman doctrine has changed?

 

The Council of Sutri (or Synod of Sutri) was called by the Holy Roman Emperor Henry III and opened on December 20, 1046, in the hilltown of Sutri, at the edge of the Duchy of Rome. The Catholic Church does not list this as an ecumenical council.

The Annales Romani record the events thus:

"Henry, most victorious king by the grace of God...When he arrived at the city of Sutri, he called the Roman clergy along with Pope Gregory to meet with him. He ordered a special synod to be held in the holy church of Sutri and there, lawfully and canonically, he sat in judgment upon Bishop John of Sabina, called Silvester; the archpriest John, called Gregory; and the aforementioned Pope Benedict."

The council was called to resolve disorder over the papacy. A faction in the church encouraged Henry III to intervene, both to resolve the conflict and to receive his crown from the pope in an official ceremony. In the autumn of 1046 Henry III, already King of the Germans, crossed the Alps at the head of a large army and accompanied by a retinue of the secular and ecclesiastical princes of the empire, all of whom were his sworn vassals. Henry had two intentions, to be crowned Holy Roman emperor by the pope at Rome and, in order that the pontiff concerned have an unassailable title—one that would not cast doubts upon his conferred imperial title— to establish order in the Duchy of Rome.

Rome was in a state of warfare between noble factions, each of whom had a candidate they regarded as pope. A pope presided at St. Peter's, another at the Lateran and a third at Saint Mary Major. Two of them, Benedict IX, a scion of the counts of Tusculum, and Sylvester III of the Crescenzi clan, represented rival factions of the Roman nobility. The claim of the third, Gregory VI, was peculiar in that he had purchased the title in good faith from Benedict IX two years previously. Each claimant had a number of supporters in the Roman church and held a portion of the city.

Henry was met by Gregory at Piacenza and was received with honor. It was decided that a synod should meet at Sutri, some 40 km north of Rome, well beyond the city's factional violence. Before the assembly Gregory testified that he had, "in all good faith and simplicity," purchased the papacy from Pope Benedict IX in 1044. After the departure of Benedict, the Bishop of Sabina had also declared himself pope, as Sylvester III. In 1045 Benedict, not having received his pay-off, returned to Rome and renewed his claim to the papacy.

The council summoned the three pontiffs, and both Sylvester and Gregory attended. The claims of all three popes were quickly dismissed. Sylvester was stripped of his sacerdotal rank and exiled to a monastery. Gregory resigned (his words were recorded as: "I, Gregory, bishop, servant of the servants of God, do hereby adjudge myself to be removed from the pontificate of the Holy Roman Church, because of the enormous error which by simoniacal impurity has crept into and vitiated my election."), and the council ended on December 23. A form of the council was repeated in Rome the following day to oversee the dismissal of Benedict. The papacy was declared to be sede vacante.

On December 24–25 Henry turned first to the powerful Adalbert, Archbishop of Bremen, who refused the dangerous honor. Henry's next choice for the papacy was his personal confessor, Suidger, Bishop of his recently created See of Bamberg. Suidger became the new pope, taking the title Clement II, but insisting on retaining the See of Bamberg, which was a source of financial support beyond the reach of Roman factions. He was immediately enthroned on Christmas Day.

As his first pontifical act, Clement II placed the imperial crown upon his benefactor and the queen consort, Agnes, daughter of William V, Duke of Aquitaine. The new emperor received from the Romans and the pope the title and diadem of a Roman Patricius, a dignity with antecedents in the Late Empire, which since the tenth century had been assumed to confer the right to nominate the pontiff. Within a few decades the Gregorian Reforms would call this custom into question.

Benedict would again renew his claim to the papacy in 1047, when Clement II died.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Sutri​

One of the issues when trying to understand this period is to acknowledge that whilst a century after the saeculum obscurum (the hiding of holiness, some of the darkest days of the Papacy) we are in a period where the Papacy was under significant (if not undue) influence from the Roman Families and the defence of the Papal States was a more significant issue than the advancement of the Gospel.

Much of the deposing was about resolving the issues politically rather than spiritually. This is somewhat divorced for the exercise of the Papacy as we have seen it in our own lives. I really don't think that this part of history is particularly useful for demonstrating very much in terms of the Papacy, except perhaps as a cautionary note as to why we should refrain from embrace an absolute understanding of Papal Infallibility.

 

I seem to remember the name ‘Orsini’; I know they were major land owners. I have the vague memory that they owned the town of Orvieto for a while. Don’t quote me on it; if anyone actually cares, Ill look it up.​

 

I struggle to understand why you are not arguing for the Anglican Position of Real Presence. Your notion of substance seems to be Hegal's ghist, which is pretty much they kind of road Anglican take, without explaining it quite that far, as we recognise that it is clothed in mystery or if you like ineffability.

The Eucharist is of course a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving where we offer ourselves as a living sacrifice to the praise and worship of God.

 

You know I was thinking the same thing, more or less. Maybe they have trouble with “only after an heavenly and spiritual manner... and the mean whereby the body of Christ is received and eaten in the supper is Faith.” I guess that might be construed as not being really present, but that’s not what it says.

 

So you accuse the catholic encyclopedia of deceit

Why am I sitting here, finding the same exact word, worship, on Phillip schaffs Anglican Protestant translation?

“Orth.—You are caught in the net you have woven yourself. For even after the consecration the mystic symbols are not de201prived of their own nature; they remain in their former substance figure and form; they are visible and tangible as they were before. But they are regarded as what they are become, and believed so to be, and are worshipped”
https://ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf203/npnf203.iv.ix.iii.html#fna_iv.ix.iii-p640.1

Why does the dictionary give the definition
προσκῠνέω • (proskunéō)

1. to make obeisance to the gods, fall down and worship, worship, adore
2. to prostrate oneself before a king or superior, bow, bow down

Why do both phillip schaff and the catholic encyclopedia translate it as the English word worship? Could it be because they have hired people who actually know geek ?

Your interpretation of the Greek is not relevant when even Phillip schaff translates it as worship.
Unless of course, you’re willing to provide credentials as being certified in Ancient Greek.


It’s also funny you say you προσκῠνέω the Eucharist but consider the same προσκῠνέω towards icons to be idolatrous. What’s the difference, exactly?
(Please don’t say it’s that you believe the Eucharist is Christ because Christ deserves proper worship, not “veneration”).

Even if theodoret doesn’t articulate transubstantiation it’s not really a problem, because he STILL worships it and STILL calls it the sacrifice of Christ offered to God by priests.
Do you believe this?
You don’t.
You’re also contradicting yourself because you said “some” of your bishops believe the Eucharist changes.
It can’t halfway change. Either it becomes the body and blood or it doesn’t. You literally have one foot in and one out. Don’t wanna be like those pesky evangelicals because they say it’s only a symbol. Don’t want to be a papist either because then I’ll have to admit the Eucharist actually becomes the body and blood of Christ (and that requires too much faith). So instead I’ll dance around it, and say a change does occur but it’s not really Christ, and it’s a symbol but not fully a symbol because a change occurs, etc., etc.
Just make up your mind. You can’t be in the middle.
Either it’s a true and proper sacrifice, and the body of Christ, or it’s not.
I’ll repeat what I keep saying: if theodoret doesn’t believe the Eucharist is Christ, why does he call it the sacrifice of Christ offered by the priests?

I suggest everyone on here read this book:

Prayers of the Eucharist
Early and Reformed

This is written by an Anglican, and details all of the Eucharistic prayers of the early church from East to west in a historical, non polemical way.
In it you will find every single liturgy of the early church was the sacrifice of Christ offered to God.
You’ll also find some prayers to Mary.


I don’t want to sit here and argue about “anti type” , “substance,” “worship.”
Just take a brief look at that book (I can help anyone find it for free if you want)
And tell me if you find any liturgy that isn’t sacrificial and believes in the actual real presence, not some in between state.

Seriously, it’s a great book.

 

Because anglicans believe it’s idolatry to worship the Eucharist. I believe the Eucharist is truly and substantially christ, under the appearance or accidents of bread and wine. And these accidents appear to be bread, but it’s not bread, it’s Christ.
I worship Him in the sacrament.
Anglicans don’t believe the same thing we do at all.
Is your priest obligated to eat a consecrated host if it falls to the floor?
Does the Anglican Church view it as a sacrilege of the very body of Christ ( not a symbol) to purposefully throw the Eucharist on the floor, or do some other devious thing with it?
The thing is I don’t deny it looks like bread, but I actually believe it’s not bread.
If the Anglican Church was like the orthodox, both East and oriental. as well as the ancient Assyrian church of the East, which handles the Eucharist like it’s the very body of our Lord (because it is) then I would say we believe the same thing. But it’s obvious we don’t.
I’ve already been accused of idolatry for worshipping the Eucharist. Anybody that says to worship the Eucharist is idolatry is a memorialist, plain and simple.
Either it’s the body of Christ or it’s not.
“Spiritual presence” means nothing. Divinity is everywhere present.