According to Catholic doctrine, how much wine and how many wafers can one priest transubstantiate at one time? Does it only work on wine and bread? Does the power work at a distance? Can a bishop or the Pope transubstantiate a greater quantity?
It’s a confidence question. If he does not know what he’s working on, or can’t be sure it’s there, he can’t do his thing. Since the sacrament was invented before teleconferencing, I doubt there’s a special clause for remote action; the items have to be there to be blessed. Besides, this is a sacred activity for a sacred purpose, not a Guiness Book moment.
Ultimately, the pope would rule on any such issues.
Our grade 4 religion teacher would put this in the category of “good grief <eye roll>” questions - like this:
“Anyone can baptize someone in an emergency”.
“What if you have no arms or legs? How would you baptize someone then?”
As far as I know there isn’t a limit to how many can be done at once. It has to be bread and wine because that’s what the Bible says Jesus had at the last supper. It can only be done “hands on” so to speak. Since there isn’t a limit, it doesn’t make any difference what kind of frock he’s allowed to wear.
I posed this question to a priest once. I attended a World Youth Day vigil mass that had over 500,000 people in attendance. The pope (John Paul II) said mass, but there were many priests in the audience with supplies of (unconsecrated) hosts. When the time came they held their hosts up and the pope consecrated them, apparently by basically thinking “um, and don’t forget to get those out there too” as he consecrated the ones up at the altar.
Evidently it can happen “at a distance” if the priest is mindful of the hosts when he consecrates them. This is common at very large services where it simply isn’t practical to distribute all the hosts from the altar out to the crowds. As long as the priest has the intention of consecrating them, they’ll be consecrated (according to church doctrine). I guess this makes “sense” in that the priest normally only touches one host during the consecration process, so physical contact obviously isn’t necessary.
I have a vague memory from way back in Catholic high school, or maybe even earlier, that the hosts to be consecrated must be on the altar.
Other hosts that may be given to the congregation are taken from a tabernacle, and were consecrated beforehand.
According to the Catholic Doctrine, the host has to have some detectable wheat content. I found this out when my father was diagnosed with celiac disease, which causes an autoimmune response in the small intestine in the presence of wheat gluten. While other denominations allow wheat free hosts (rice being a popular one) The Catholic Church requires wheat, so as to be true to the remembrance that the last supper was actually Jesus’ last celebration of Passover, and the strict Jewish guidelines of what made the Passover meal. Lately, a group in Missouri has been manufacturing (baking?) hosts made up of .01% wheat gluten, which is satisfactory for wheat content, as well as not damaging to sufferers of celiac disease.
Link to relevent Wiki article, including church doctrine: http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coeliac_disease
Not necessarily on a “proper” altar - actually, they get lifted during consecration itself. They can get lifted from “whatever the priest is using to hold things”. Maybe my Jesuits and Capuchins were particularly heretical, but I’ve seen them use the top of concrete stairs or a granite outcrop in situations where even a portable altar (which is just a tiny portable table) would have been a complication.
All the priests who were in that WYD were concelebrating, all of them recited the consecration rites simultaneously.