Transubstantiation is a Roman Catholic dogma.  It claims that the “body” and
“blood” of Jesus Christ in the Lord’s Supper (Holy Communion) or Eucharist, in the mass,
literally become His body and blood.  Christ established the Lord’s Supper in Matthew
26:26-28.  The Christians in the time of the Book of Acts believed that the bread
symbolized the body of Jesus, and that the wine, which was mere grape juice, symbolized
the blood of Jesus.  In the Lord’s Supper Christians remember the crucifixion of Jesus.
The authors of the New Testament writings never taught that the bread and grape juice
were literally body and blood.

 Pope Innocent III (pope, 1198-1216) presented the new teaching to the fourth
Council of Lateran which declared it in 1215 A.D.  Thus the dogma began.

 When an officiating priest utters consecration words, a miracle is supposed to
occur, and the bread (host) and wine (fermented) are believed to become literal body and
blood.  It should be remembered that this dogma arrived late in the history of the Italian
Roman Catholic Church denomination.

 Moreover it is believed, really imagined, that God and man (Jesus) are literally
body and blood.  The Italian Roman Catholic Church teaches that Jesus is God and that
He, God, came through the womb of the Virgin Mary, and that Mary is the mother of
God.  This is another dogma.

 When the bread (host) and wine (fermented) are miraculously changed into literal
body and literal blood, the “species,” alias the bread and wine, appear to remain bread and
wine, but the substance is said to have changed into real body (flesh) and real blood.  It is
ridiculous to think of eating any god or drinking his blood.  It is a paganistic holdover.
When the science of chemistry developed so that chemical analysis could be conducted,
some chemists analyzed the bread and wine before and after the so-called miracle of
transubstantiation.  Without doubt absolutely no change occurred.  This proved
scientifically that transubstantiation is a false doctrine.  It is mere dogma.  Catholicism
then claimed that the miracle is so great that science cannot discover anything about it.
This claim is as illogical as Inquisitors in the evil Inquisition who refused to see that the
moon is not a smooth, round sphere, when they looked through Galileo’s telescope.
Scientific evidence did not prevent the Inquisition from condemning Galileo.  This was a
religious screw-up that the pope who authorized the Inquisition, and his church
denomination which carried it out, has never lived down its condemnation of yet another
great scientist.

 The Council of Trent (meetings, 1545-1563) put transubstantiation into more
verbal terminology.

 Aquinas (1225-1274), sainted (canonized) as Saint Thomas Aquinas, by Pope John
XXII in 1323 A.D., upheld the dogma of transubstantiation.

 Beliefs have consequences.  Transubstantiation had and has serious consequences.
During the twelve Crusades which popes started and promoted (end of 11th century to
end of 13th century A.D.), Jews and Muslims, in defending their wives, other women, and
their country, were told by their leaders that the Crusaders were Catholic cannibals.  The
leaders explained that they ate the flesh of a god and drank his blood.  They were, so far as
Jewish and Islamic leaders were concerned, “Christian cannibals.”  It is unbelievable that
enemy Jews and Muslims joined forces in defense and fighting against the “cannibal
Crusaders.”  The Crusades would fail to capture the Holy Land for the popes and their
church denomination.  The popes were terribly erroneous in their promises and claims.
 

 Holy Scriptures DO NOT teach or uphold transubstantiation.  But the Bible is not
the authority in Catholicism.  The pope is the reigning authority.

 I do not think for one minute that Roman Catholics are cannibals.  That would be
sheer nonsense.  Transubstantiation is false.  Bread and wine are exactly that, bread and
wine, never, NEVER, literally body and literally blood.  I have several Roman Catholic
friends.  I also taught for three years for Saint Gregory’s College in Shawnee, Oklahoma.
Saint Gregory’s College, a Roman Catholic College, is one of the two oldest colleges in
Oklahoma.

 I wrote a master’s thesis at Oklahoma University.  It was for the Master of Arts
(MA) Degree in philosophy.  The chairman of the degree committee was a renowned
Thomist from Hungary.  The thesis is “The Essence of God in the Philosophy of Saint
Thomas Aquinas.”  Thomism was declared to be the official philosophy of the Roman
Catholic Church by Pope Leo XIII in 1879, and Pope Pius XI, in 1923.  It was upheld by
other popes.  Although I do not at all agree with my master’s thesis it was a learning
experience in many ways, including some unbelieveable knowledge and bad experience.

 Cult doctrine?  If transubstantiation was a doctrine of an unpopular church
denomination or a small church denomination it would be called a cult doctrine.  That is
exactly what it is!