In the days before there were memes, Evangelical churches used to display catchy posters on their noticeboards. They included “Ch —ch. What’s missing? UR” and “If it were illegal to be a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?” Of course, it was once illegal in England to believe that Jesus Christ is really present body, blood, soul and divinity under the signs of bread and wine.
You would be hard-pressed to convict anyone today on the evidence of the way our liturgy is celebrated in most places. People are discouraged from genuflecting to the tabernacle or kneeling to receive Holy Communion. In some cases, they are humiliated for receiving on the tongue. Priests affirm that God is perfectly delighted that people talk rather than pray in church before and after Mass. The habitual use of extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion in contravention of the norms, to the point where they have become a kind of quasi-hierarchical order in the Church, has hardly helped encourage faith in the Real Presence. This is particularly so when they are so inadequately formed that they explain their role as “giving out the wine” at Mass.
