Sir, - In his Irishman's Diary the normally benign, inoffensive author likened Catholic communicants of the Eucharist to cannibalists. He was thus allying himself with Lorraine Borathner, a fundamentalist and notorious arch-enemy of Roman Catholicism, whose best-known book Catholicism (1962) seems to be the repository for many other writers.
Borathner says the fear and dread of the priest, so characteristic of Romanist lands, is comparable to the fear and dread that pagan people have for the witch-doctor, which demonstrates how little he knows about either.
Christ is not present in the Eucharist under a form in which cannibalism could be possible. His body and blood are really substantially present, but not in a natural way.
The Catholic position has always been that after the Consecration the Body and Blood of Christ are contained in the smallest particle of the host and the tiniest drop from the cup. It is an entirely supernatural mode of Presence. Christ did intend to leave the substance of his bodily being under the appearance of bread and wine for the purpose of uniting us as really to his humanity as his humanity is united to his divinity, the union involved being sacramental and in his case personal or hypostatic. - Is mise,
Father ENDA
MacCORMACK,
Clogher,
Co Tyrone.