(June 26, 2015 at 11:48 am)Pyrrho Wrote:(June 26, 2015 at 9:31 am)Brian37 Wrote: Yep, this former Catholic always hated the taste of those wafers, always wanted to dip them in nacho cheese or peanut butter. But that motif of symbolic cannibalism stems from animal sacrifice of prior polytheism.
You were a bad Catholic if you believed it was just symbolic. The official doctrine of the Catholic Church is that it LITERALLY becomes the flesh of Jesus through the magic of transubstantiation:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transubstantiation
The most blessed sacrament retains the apperance of bread and wine, but in essence it literally becomes the flesh and blood of the Lord. There is no magic involved.