Historic Survey Of Almost 16,000 Catholics On Real Presence Was Ignored By US bishops: Pollsters. This Time The News Was Good!!

 Wha a difference five years makes!!

From lifesitenews.com and written by LifeSiteNews staff

Tue Jan 14, 2025 - 11:36 am EST

"The results, released October 15, 2024, are fascinating. First, there were nearly 16,000 respondents, and 80 percent of the surveys were completed. More than 97 percent of those who responded attended Mass at least once a week, and 79 percent primarily attended the Mass of Paul VI (Novus Ordo) Mass. Also, 97 percent of those surveyed stated that they personally believed that Christ’s Real Presence is in the Holy Eucharist. This was in startling contrast to the 2019 Pew poll that found that only a third of professed Catholics believe in the Real Presence and fewer than half attend Mass every week."

Finally, some good news!  Real good news!

Historic survey of almost 16,000 Catholics on Real Presence was ignored by US bishops: pollsters - LifeSite

"(LifeSiteNews) — The Catholic organization that commissioned a historic survey of U.S. Catholics’ beliefs about Holy Communion is lamenting that American bishops have taken little interest in it.

In October 2024, when the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) were conducting two campaigns, the Vatican’s sponsored Synod on Synodality and their Eucharistic Revival, the Real Presence Coalition (RPC) published what it said was the single largest survey of lay Catholics ever completed in the USA.

“One would think that the ‘listening Church’ would be bending over backwards to ‘listen’ to the voices of thousands of lay Catholics on why they felt there had been a loss of faith in the Real Presence and their recommendations on how this problem could best be addressed,” said a member of the Coalition, who preferred to remain anonymous.

“One would think that the leaders of the Eucharistic Revival would be beating down the doors of the RPC to understand the thoughts of those who had been surveyed. But, alas, this was not the case. If fact, it seemed the bishops went out of their way to avoid hearing about the survey results.”

READ: Largest ever survey of US Catholics shows faithful want an end to Communion in the hand 

The results, released October 15, 2024, are fascinating. First, there were nearly 16,000 respondents, and 80 percent of the surveys were completed. More than 97 percent of those who responded attended Mass at least once a week, and 79 percent primarily attended the Mass of Paul VI (Novus Ordo) Mass. Also, 97 percent of those surveyed stated that they personally believed that Christ’s Real Presence is in the Holy Eucharist. This was in startling contrast to the 2019 Pew poll that found that only a third of professed Catholics believe in the Real Presence and fewer than half attend Mass every week.

The top five reasons those surveyed by the RPC believed were responsible for loss of faith in the Real Presence were the relatively new practice of receiving Holy Communion on the hand while standing, the scandal of Holy Communion being given to public sinners, lack of reverence toward the Eucharist on the part of both faithful and clergy, some clergy’s “casual attitude” toward the Blessed Sacrament, and a failure of catechesis, i.e. priests simply don’t teach the faithful about the Real Presence.

Those surveyed also chose their one preferred piece of advice for bishops to foster belief in the Real Presence. The most popular (29%) was encouraging the older practice of receiving Holy Communion on the tongue while kneeling. The runners-up were “Catechize the faithful” (24%) and “Encourage greater reverence for the Eucharist” (10%).

The RPC sent LifeSiteNews a timeline of their attempts to share this information with the USCCB:

• September 17, 2024: RPC members decided to publicly release the survey findings on October 15, 2024. RPC sent email to Bishop Andrew Cozzens, head of the USCCB Eucharistic Revival, offering to review the survey results with him personally prior to the public release.
• September 23: Bishop Cozzens responded to the email but declined the offer to review the survey results with him and suggested trying to schedule a discussion with Jason Shanks, the CEO of the National Eucharistic Congress.
• September 24: Jason Shanks declined the offer to review survey results prior to their publication, stating that he would review the findings once they were publicly released on October 15.
• October 5: RPC sent a message to Archbishop Timothy Broglio, head of the USCCB, offering to delay the public release of the survey findings if Archbishop Broglio would prefer for RPC to present the findings at the USCCB November Fall Meeting scheduled for November 11-14 in Baltimore. This would have given the bishops the opportunity to see the results prior to their public release.
• October 12: Archbishop Broglio contacted the RPC requesting the findings be emailed to him. The results were immediately sent to the archbishop, and he confirmed receipt. The email to Archbishop Broglio confirmed the results were scheduled to be publicly released on October 15 unless he specifically requested a delay in order to present the findings at the USCCB November meeting.
• October 15: Having received no further response from Archbishop Broglio, RPC released the results to the public. An open letter was also sent to all U.S. bishops reiterating the offer made to Archbishop Broglio to present the findings at the USCCB November meeting.
• October 24: Having received no response to the offer of presenting the survey findings at the USCCB meeting, RPC decided to organize its own private event in Baltimore across the street from the USCCB meeting on November 11. An invitation to the private event was sent to all 200 ordinary bishops in the United States. The event included cocktails, dinner, and a presentation by the pollster hired by RPC to assist with the study.
• November 8: Archbishop Broglio responded to the message sent to him on October 15, thanking us for sending him the survey and apologizing for not responding sooner. He sent his regrets for not being able to attend our private event on November 11.
• November 9: After sending a series of 3 emails and a facsimile message to 200 U.S. bishops, the results were as follows:
  • 5 bishops responded stating they planned to attend (2%),
  • 35 bishops responded by saying they would be unable to attend (18%), and
  • 159 bishops did not respond (80%).
• November 10: RPC sent a message to Archbishop Broglio offering to provide printed copies of the survey presentation to all bishops attending the general meeting.
• November 11: RPC received a message from Archbishop Broglio declining the offer of printed copies.
• November 11: A total of 5 bishops and 2 priests attended the RPC private event. Attendees asked good questions during the presentation and were highly complementary of the results.
• December 3: RPC sent a message to Bishop Andrew Cozzens offering to meet with him in person to review the survey findings as well as debrief the bishop on the comments made by the bishops who attended our November 11 event in Baltimore. There was no response from Bishop Cozzens as of January 1, 2025.

Vicki Yamasaki, Coalition member and chair of Corpus Christi for Unity and Peace, told LifeSiteNews that she “can’t begin to guess” why the USCCB isn’t enthusiastic about the survey. However, she hasn’t given up hope of collaborating with them to renew belief in the Real Presence.

“I want to emphasize our commitment to fostering open and respectful dialogue within the bishops,” Yamasaki said by email.

“Our Real Presence Survey, completed in July 2024, represents the voices of thousands of lay Catholics who are deeply concerned about the loss of faith in the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. We genuinely believe that the insights and recommendations from this survey can contribute positively to the ongoing efforts of the Synod on Synodality and the USCCB Eucharistic Revival.”

“While it has been challenging to engage with the leadership directly, we remain hopeful and steadfast in our desire to collaborate. We are grateful for any opportunity to share the findings and work together to find solutions to renewing belief in the Real Presence.”

Michael Hichborn, Coalition member and president of the Lepanto Institute, believes, however, that the USCCB have been “embarrassed” by the survey results, which suggest their recent Eucharistic revival efforts were based on a misunderstanding.

“Imagine spending tens of millions of dollars on an event predicated on misinformation,” he said to LifeSiteNews by email.

“The National Eucharistic Congress last summer was convened because of the false impression that the majority of Mass-attending Catholics do not believe in the True Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. What our survey shows is that this is not the case. The reality is that Mass-attending Catholics DO believe in the true presence of Christ in the Eucharist, while those who have stopped practicing the Faith are the ones who do not.”

“Furthermore, our survey provides real context for why those no longer practicing the faith no longer believe. As our survey shows, Communion in the hand, lack of Eucharistic reverence by clergy, the provision of Communion to pro-abortion politicians and other similar acts have been the primary factors in diminished belief. Given this, corrective measures by the bishops would require them to reverse long-standing permissions, which would be met with heavy resistance.”

Hichborn believes that the Eucharistic Congress was “a very expensive form of preaching to the choir” and what is needed is some old-fashioned missionary work.

“Sadly, an attitude of what I call ‘event Catholicism’ has overridden common sense,” he told LifeSiteNews. “Rather than spending tens of millions of dollars on big ‘flash in the pan’ events and campaigns, the bishops ought to be following the model of their predecessors: going into the communities themselves to preach, to teach, and to convene processions of their own. The restoration of the faith begins with zealous reverence for our Eucharistic Lord and the routine and public exposition of His Glory.”

The anonymous Coalition member who first alerted LifeSiteNews to the bishops’ lack of interest in the survey compared their reaction with Cardinal Blase Cupich’s recent attempt to stop Chicago Catholics from kneeling to receive the Blessed Sacrament.

“Catholic commentator Dr. Larry Chapp nailed it in his column reacting to Cardinal Cupich’s ban on kneeling to receive communion said it well,” he remarked and quoted Chapp’s opinion that the “letter from the Cardinal shows us is that for all the talk about a more ‘inclusive’ and ‘listening’ and ‘synodal’ Church, and for all the agitprop pontifications from folks like Cupich about how in a synodal Church the ‘people of God’ are ‘finally’ getting their say, all the rhetoric surrounding the Synod about listening to all voices is an empty sham.”

He believes that there are a number of reasons why the bishops have not responded to the survey: a lack of interest in “faithful Catholics who actually practice their faith”; not liking that the findings are contrary to modernist beliefs; not wanting to divert attention from their own Eucharistic Revival, or not wanting to “to legitimize a survey which exposes their knee-response to the 2019 Pew Study, resulting in a multi-million-dollar campaign that targeted the wrong people.”

LifeSiteNews reached out to the USCCB and to Shanks for comment but has not yet received a response."

End of article...

Now, why wouldn't the USCCB bishops take the advice of those surveyed, re-install communion rails, and have the faithful be allowed to receive the Holy Eucharist, kneeling and on the tongue?

Do you have the answer for that question??   I do...

Pray for strength and honor!

Viva Cristo Rey!  Bl. Fr. Miguel Pro, Fr. Emil Kapaun and Fr. Vincent Capodanno, pray for us...

St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle...

St. Joseph pray for us!!

Gene DeLalla