That was another poster's hyperbole.
And if you don't believe in transubstantiation, Jorge, it would be wrong to participate in a ritual which you do not believe in. So it really was correct for you not to participate, and the priest did you a favor by warning you that you shouldn't.
You're right. If I knew what a bunch of holier than thou judgmental Pharisees I was going to encounter in the Catholic Church, I would have never gone there in the first place.