The Eucharist is Worshipped as God

In the Catholic Answers newsletter for Oct 11, 2005, Karl Keating, one of the foremost Roman Catholic apologists and founder of http://www.catholic.com/, made the following statement:

What about transubstantiation? If the belief is false, then adoration and processions do amount to idol worship. You worship an idol when you worship something that is not God. If the Eucharist is not really Christ--if the Real Presence is not really present--then the host is just a piece of bread, and to adore it or even to honor it in a procession is to give the bread the regard that is due God only.

March 10, 2006 - Pope Backs Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration Particularly in Rome Diocese VATICAN CITY, MARCH 9, 2006 (Zenit.org) - Benedict XVI has supported an initiative to offer the possibility of perpetual Eucharistic adoration in churches of the Rome Diocese.

The Pope expressed his enthusiasm for this initiative during his meeting March 2 with Roman parish priests, as reflected in his conversation with them. A text of the conversation was subsequently published in Italian by the Vatican.

Father Alberto Pacini, rector of the Church of St. Anastasia on the Pallatine Hill -- which has had perpetual Eucharistic adoration for the past five years -- made this proposal to the Pope.

The experience of this parish has led other churches to follow its example. St. Anastasia's has also become the headquarters of a movement of Eucharistic evangelization.

"My proposal, my suggestion, my desire, my aspiration would be that each of the five sectors of Rome have perpetual Eucharistic adoration," said Father Pacini.

The Holy Father thanked the priest for the information and for his efforts in promoting this initiative, describing "perpetual adoration" as "a neurological point of the life of faith in Rome."
"I only wish to thank God, that following the [Second Vatican] Council, after a period in which something of the meaning of Eucharistic adoration was lacking, this adoration has been reborn everywhere in the Church, as we saw and heard in the Synod on the Eucharist," Benedict XVI said.

He continued: "Certainly with the conciliar constitution on the liturgy, all the wealth of the Eucharistic was particularly rediscovered, the celebration where the Lord's will is fulfilled: He gives himself to us and we respond giving ourselves to him."

But now "we have rediscovered" that "the ability to celebrate his sacrifice and in this way enter into sacramental, almost corporal communion with him, loses its profundity and human richness if adoration is lacking, adoration as the act that follows receiving Communion," the Holy Father said.

"Adoration," he added, "is to enter into profound heartfelt communion with the Lord, who makes himself bodily present in the Eucharist." St. Anastasia's has also become the headquarters of a movement of Eucharistic evangelization.

"My proposal, my suggestion, my desire, my aspiration would be that each of the five sectors of Rome have perpetual Eucharistic adoration," said Father Pacini.

The Holy Father thanked the priest for the information and for his efforts in promoting this initiative, describing "perpetual adoration" as "a neurological point of the life of faith in Rome."
"I only wish to thank God, that following the [Second Vatican] Council, after a period in which something of the meaning of Eucharistic adoration was lacking, this adoration has been reborn everywhere in the Church, as we saw and heard in the Synod on the Eucharist," Benedict XVI said.

He continued: "Certainly with the conciliar constitution on the liturgy, all the wealth of the Eucharistic was particularly rediscovered, the celebration where the Lord's will is fulfilled: He gives himself to us and we respond giving ourselves to him."

But now "we have rediscovered" that "the ability to celebrate his sacrifice and in this way enter into sacramental, almost corporal communion with him, loses its profundity and human richness if adoration is lacking, adoration as the act that follows receiving Communion," the Holy Father said.

"Adoration," he added, "is to enter into profound heartfelt communion with the Lord, who makes himself bodily present in the Eucharist."