The Council of Trent summarizes the Catholic faith by declaring: "Because Christ our Redeemer said that it was truly his body that he was offering under the species of bread, it has always been the conviction of the Church of God, and this holy Council now declares again, that by the consecration of the bread and wine there takes place a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance>/b> of his blood. This change the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called transubstantiation (CCC, 1376).
Substance
a : physical material from which something is made or which has discrete existence b : matter of particular or definite chemical constitution
Species
a. the external form or appearance of the bread or the wine in the Eucharist. b. either of the Eucharistic elements. Canon says that the “substance” has changed. That which it was made of is no longer present but has changed. It’s only the “appearance” that remains the same. Trying to tell us that Catholics believe it’s still bread but really it’s changed in substance into the body of Christ doesn’t work so well when the RCC says differently.
Using John 6 without including the 57th verse is rather disingenuous. If you believe that it’s Jesus “flesh” than you must also believe that His flesh also came down out of heaven.
John 6:57 As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also will live because of Me. 58 This is the bread which came down out of heaven; not as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live forever.
Did the flesh Catholics claim they are eating come down from heaven? When Jesus said “this is my flesh” was He talking about the physical flesh He acquired from Mary?
That is the most inane attempt to corrupt Church teaching I have seen in weeks. The Catechism is not a physics text, it is a theological and philosoplical work. In this context the term "Substance" must be used in a theological and philosophical context.
Substance, when used in a philosophical context is a term used to denote the changeless substratum presumed in some philosophies to be present in all things. The Greek antecedents to the New Testament defined substance as that which possesses attributes but is itself the attribute of nothing. Less precise usage identifies substance with being and essence.
If you still want to claim the Church teaches something else you have to deal with article 252 of the Catechism.
Peace with you.
No matter how they slice it, they cannot get around the fact that the CCC teaches that the host becomes in substance, the literal body and blood of Christ, and that it never changes appearance but is still just a wheat wafer.
The semantic gymnastics they go through to rationalize it away are olympian in magnitude.