Theology news rarely sends shock waves through Catholic offices around the world, but this headline did: "Just one-third of U.S. Catholics agree with their church that Eucharist is body, blood of Christ."
The key word in that famous Pew Research Center survey was "transubstantiation," which the report defined as the belief that the "bread and wine used for Communion become the body and blood of Jesus Christ."
It mattered, of course, whether the Catholics in this survey went to Mass. Nearly 70% of self-proclaimed Catholics said the consecrated bread and wine were mere "symbols," but 63% of those who reported weekly Mass attendance affirmed transubstantiation. Insiders noted that this meant that 37% of observant Catholics didn't embrace this crucial church doctrine.
"Any effort to measure human behavior is fraught with peril and complications," noted John C. Green of the University of Akron, reached by telephone. A trailblazer in studies of politics, pulpits and pews, Green has often served as a Pew Research consultant.
"If people say they go to Mass once a week, how certain can you be that they're telling the truth? … When it comes to doing surveys about what believers say and what they do, you can never ask too many questions."
Now, as Catholics prepare for a new pope, Pew has released new insights into lines of tension and division among American Catholics. Five years after the "transubstantiation" study, a new survey includes more evidence that "U.S. Catholics" disagree with many core Catholic doctrines and, thus, want a "more inclusive" church.
The tricky question, again, was how to define "U.S. Catholic," since the survey said: