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Guest post by Joe Hoft at JoeHoft.com – republished with permission

A survey conducted by the Catholic Church regarding the Eucharist was released on Tuesday. Here is what it uncovered.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) launched a multi-year National Eucharistic Revival campaign in 2021 in response to a Pew Research study which revealed a majority of Catholics no longer believe in the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist.

“The Pew survey revealed a very concerning problem, and the RPC designed and initiated this survey to specifically get at the root cause of this problem and probe the question of why lay Catholics believe there has been a loss of faith in the Real Presence,” said Jim Hobart, a partner with Public Opinion Strategies (POS) who assisted in the survey effort.

The RPC survey revealed that the loss of faith in the Real Presence has been precipitated by a combination of factors, including

  1. Receiving the Eucharist in the hand;
  2. Scandal of offering the Eucharist to public sinners who reject Catholic teaching;
  3. Lack of reverence on the part of both the laity and priests;
  4. Lack of solid catechesis; and
  5. Lost sense of the supernatural.

Survey respondents also offered a number of specific recommendations to U.S. bishops on how to restore belief in the Real Presence, including:

  1. Encouraging the practice of receiving the Eucharist on the tongue while kneeling;
  2. Catechizing the faithful;
  3. Promoting greater reverence for the Eucharist;
  4. Eliminating the use of Extraordinary Ministers;
  5. Withholding the Eucharist from public sinners; and
  6. Increasing Eucharistic events such as Adoration and Benedictions.

Here is the full press release: