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We do not judge you, we believe that God will judge you, and we do our best to guide you to a favorable judgement according to our beliefs. Our interpretation of what we have read and studied is that if you do not believe in transubstantiation and the true physical presence, you should not participate in communion because we believe that is what God wants.

We could be wrong.

But we still believe what we believe, and expecting us not to believe it or to allow non-believers to accept communion anyway would be asking us to change our faith or to knowingly help you risk your soul.

Neither of those is going to happen.

By continuing to argue this point, you are questioning the basic beliefs of Catholicism, and although I am not a scholar, I suspect you are not the first to do this. If these things could be explained scientifically or proved conclusively, they would not be called mysteries, and no faith would be required, and everybody on earth would be of the same faith.

You ask how we know Christ is physically present in the host. Can you explain how you know He is spiritually there?
Of course not, no one can. It is a matter of faith. You have yours, we have ours, and they are different. They are not, however, incompatible. Catholics don't believe that everyone else is condemned to hell. We don't believe that everyone who receives a sacrament 'unworthily' goes straight to hell. They might, but we won't find out until we get there. Until then, we just follow the rules as we interpret them. Like I said, we could be wrong.

Besides, nobody on this forum made the rules, nobody on the forum can change the rules, and I doubt that you are going to cause any Catholics on this forum to give up their beliefs.

Go to church, don't go to church. Take communion or don't. If you break the rule, odds are no one will notice. If you don't break the rule, odds are no one will notice. Except you. And your wife.

O2

You have really stated my problem - the "basic beliefs of Catholicism." I've attended a lot of Christian churches. In almost every one of them, the "basic beliefs" have to do with things like God's love, the Trinity, guidelines for living a Christian life, guidelines for interaction with God and with other people, etc. Yet, somehow, whenever I get into a discussion with Catholics talking about their "basic beliefs" they are always referring to some isolated part of their dogma that is based upon some less-than-certain interpretation of Biblical language. In other words, the focus is on why they are different, and better (or more correct), than other Christians. And I cannot imagine how anyone can read the Gospel and conclude that this approach is what Jesus wanted.