Are you and I one of those "contemporary Catholics" he is speaking about? Do you understand the difference between belief and acceptance by your experience of Jesus Christ?
In the Catholic Church today, one must wonder how we have got to a point today where only 25% (or so, depending who you ask) of self-identifying Catholics believe in the most fundamental of all Catholic teachings: the Real Presence of Jesus, body, blood, soul and divinity, in the Holy Eucharist. What many of our Protestant brothers and sisters exclaim about Catholics is that we worship "the bread god". Sadly, they don't seem to understand and/or believe the unity of the Gospels, since Jesus himself explained this both in John chapter 6 and then later at the Last Supper, when he prayed over the bread and wine and said, "this IS my body" and "this IS my blood." You can't argue it in the Greek in which the New Testament was written. Jesus is not explaining a symbol, but it is actually, substantially and really his own body and blood. We can know this from the fact that he did not dissuade some of his followers from leaving his company (including his own Apostles!!!) because they had difficulty accepting this teaching [see Jn 6:66 and following). It is important for us as Catholics, no matter where we are in our pilgrimage to Heaven to reassess whether we "BELIEVE" or whether we "accept" the Lord's teachings. Perhaps, we can remember this when a priest offers the Holy Eucharist to us. Instead of a half hearted or mumbled response, we can say with clarity and conviction: "AMEN!"
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