Study: Fewer than a third of US Catholics believe in the Real Presence

Fewer than a third of U.S. Catholics surveyed for a recent study said they believe in Christ’s Real Presence in the Eucharist, a finding one Catholic sociologist professor says points to the need for renewed evangelization.

Mark Regnerus, a co-author of the new study in Sociological Inquiry, reported that only 29% of Catholics surveyed said they believe in the Real Presence. He discussed the findings in a Nov. 3 essay for What We Need Now titled “Tracking Catholic Belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.” For the study, researchers analyzed responses from 1,049 self-identified Catholics who took part in a nationally representative survey of 5,400 U.S. adults in 2025.

The survey asked Catholics what happens to the bread and wine at consecration. Respondents could say they become the body and blood of Christ, that they are symbols of His body and blood, or that they were unsure.

Regnerus pointed to a 2019 Pew Research Center survey that found just 31% of U.S. Catholics believed in the Real Presence, a finding he said prompted the U.S. bishops to launch the three-year National Eucharistic Revival. He noted that the 2025 survey, conducted after the revival, found no statistically significant difference from Pew’s result. Pew’s survey did not offer the “unsure” option.

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However, Regnerus also pointed to a more encouraging finding among weekly Massgoers. About 60% said they believed in the Real Presence, roughly twice the share among Catholics surveyed overall.

Belief was even more common among a narrower group. In a separate analysis of the same survey that was not included in the published study, Regnerus found that 88% of Catholics who attended Mass at least weekly, reported going the previous weekend, and said their faith was “more important than anything else” believed in the Real Presence.

Catholics who rarely attend Mass, Regnerus said, are among those who most need to hear what the Church teaches about the Eucharist and have fewer opportunities to hear it at Mass. He recalled how his own belief had changed.

“I once didn’t believe in the Real Presence myself,” he said. “I do now. It is still mysterious. And I understand why many don’t believe it, Catholic or otherwise. Are Catholics who deny it intentional in their denial? Some, perhaps, but I suspect most are not,” he continued. “Rather, it is apt to be a casualty of average Catholic disengagement. What we need now is the remedy—evangelism, clarity, and explanation.”

Regnerus also looked at what else might account for differences in belief among the Catholics surveyed.

“Indeed, apart from religious measures, there is very little that predicts different answers to the question about the Eucharist,” he wrote.

Political identity, sex, and where respondents lived had little bearing on their answers. Regnerus noted that divorced Catholics were slightly less likely than married Catholics to say they believed in the Real Presence, while those with a college degree were more likely to say they believed.

Regnerus pointed to the education finding in making the case for “teaching the faithful what the Church holds to be true.” He said priests have a role in explaining the faith to Catholics who encounter competing views about what the Church teaches.

He wrote, “But in a world wherein Catholics are saturated with information—and hence competitors to orthodox belief—it is incumbent on priests to remind parishioners what the Church holds to be true theologically (and socially, etc.).”