ABSTRACT

Catechetical texts for the use of English Catholics were published throughout the penal period. Douai in the Low Countries was the home of one of the major centres for the training of Catholic priests for the English mission; it was also a major centre of English Catholic intellectual activity. If anything, however, the catechetical texts exhibit a greater horror at sin against the latter, as the eucharistic Christ is not betrayed to 'the Jews', but to the devil who dwells within the sinner. To receive communion whilst withholding from one's confessor a mortal sin constitutes a 'violation' of the eucharist and is 'one of the greatest crimes of which a Christian can render himself. Anxiety for the vulnerability of the eucharist was reinforced by a sense that it was remarkably easy to fall into the type of 'mortal' sin that would render the reception of communion sacrilegious.