"It would have been cannibalism is if a disciple two thousand years ago had tried literally to eat Jesus by sinking his teeth into his arm. Now that our Lord is in heaven with a glorified body and made present under the appearance of bread in the Eucharist, cannibalism is not possible."1
This is a quote from Jason Evert, a young Catholic apologist who is a degreed theologian and spokesperson for Catholic interests. I want to respond to his explanation of why transubstantiation is not cannibalism. The doctrine of Transubstantiation teaches that the substance of the Eucharistic bread and wine are changed into the literal substance of the literal flesh and blood of Jesus. The doctrine of Transubstantiation denies any symbolic or metaphorical interpretation of, "eat my flesh and drink my blood."
Jason argues that the reason why eating the literal flesh and drinking the literal blood of Christ is not cannibalism, is because Christ is not present so that one may eat Jesus by "sinking his teeth into his arm." So, it is only cannibalism if you eat it off the bone while he is present? So, are we to assume that if tribal cannibals would start filleting their victims that they would no longer be cannibals because the are not eating it off the bone? What if they were to store the human meat for 200 years and their children's children were to eat it, would they not be cannibals? You see a person does not have to be physically present or alive for eating their flesh to be cannibalism.
It does not matter how you slice it (pun intended), or by what means it was provided, if one eats literal human flesh it is cannibalism!
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