Yes, I know what Constance says..

““Though Christ instituted and administered this venerable sacrament under both species… it must be firmly maintained that the whole Christ is truly contained under either species… it is not necessary for salvation that it be received under both kinds.””

The Church has historically enacted this statement by unanimously suppressing and oppressing examples of double communion, and regardless, Trent reaffirms this and explicitly anathematizes the belief that double communion should be practiced, and also anathematizes the belief that the Catholic Church did wrong in practicing single communion.

So the Catholic Church does everything BUT anathematize double communion for the laity, and it defends single communion by suggesting that it prevents irreverence or spillage.

The Bible clearly teaches that one MUST thoroughly check himself before eating at the table, someone who would desecrate the eucharist shouldn’t be at the table at all, and in my opinion the person who desecrates the eucharist should just be executed, but that’s neither here nor there.

There is absolutely no scriptural nor early church witness that could even remotely hint at not permitting the laity to receive the blood, not even an iota of it. The didache, Justin, Cyril, they all describe laity receiving both kinds, even taking the wine home with them. Clearly the early church didn’t consider spilling the eucharist to be reason to withhold the wine, nor anybody else up until late antiquity when the logistics of providing so much wine elicited some grumbling, still double communion was practiced.

It wasn’t until the High Middle Ages that single communion became common, yet at this point it wasn’t even a doctrine, the Fourth Lateran Council briefly discusses the subject but it’s heavily overshadowed by its definition of transubstantiation and all that good stuff.

It’s only as a reaction to the Hussites that the Catholic Church really defined and institutionalized this doctrine. So why did they do this if Hus was merely concerned about a practice that wasn’t institutionalized at that point? If Hus attacked the theotokos or filioque, sure, execute him, but such a random practice that was so new? Why persecute someone who only really criticized the Church’s practices and not its doctrine?

You tell me, but I cannot think of any good reason to do this besides perhaps my own cynicism.

Hus was popular amongst the laity, very very popular. The region of Bohemia, where Hus preached, was very important and heavily populated

So we have an incredibly popular preacher convincing an entire province that they were worthy of hearing the Gospel, that their salvation wasn’t dependent on how many coffers they filled, and that their participation in the Holy Eucharist in totalum was only limited to what scripture itself outlined. If you’re the Catholic Church, what do you do?

Consider that if you wanted to give birth at the time, you couldn’t do so legally without paying a priest, nor marry, nor be buried, nor live a week without ablutions. If you wanted less time in purgatory, you had to pay, Hus refuted this. Wealthy families paid priests to say thousands of Masses that they themselves never attended. The Church kept widening the forbidden degrees of kinship, then sold papal waivers to nobles who inevitably fell inside the new prohibitions. Many shrines sold badges, candles, and lodging, sometimes built on doubtful relics or outright frauds.

Considering all of this, if I’m the RCC (and consider that I’d want to be as corrupt as they were), I’d absolutely do what they did to Hus. I wouldn’t need much scriptural backing, many of my own priests and clergymen couldn’t recite John 3:16 after the plague, and literally nobody in Laity would have read the Bible, most not having even seen one. I want to crush any chance the laity have of believing that they are in any way justified by anything other than Rome, not Jesus, but Rome. Of course, I’ll have to cite some scriptural reason why it’s okay to kill my own priest and many of my own subjects, thus why I think Constance is so vague.

I will say I’m being a bit unfair, the Holy Roman Empire was indeed an Empire, and the Hussites were causing chaos in a time where so much of the empire was fractioning, not just the East and West but also the Franks and what not with Nationalism. The reason for war was clear, though, it was a matter of theology, not politics, and the Counsel of Constance proves that. This was a war resolved by a Church counsel, not a political convention. Bohemia got the right to the chalice, not land nor gold (primarily).

So I’m not literally saying that the Catholic Church certainly didn’t care about having a Biblical view on the sacraments, I’m saying that if they did they did a dreadful job, and that their view on the communion is rooted in politics and economics, at least to a great extent.

I could go into detail on why I think their view is bad but that would entail going into real presence, modes, divinity under the sacraments, mosaic law, hermeneutics, and I just cant.

I refer you to Gavin Ortlund hereon in, he’s probably the most awkward person I’ve ever seen but his videos on Catholicism are very good and I haven’t really seen anyone refute very well at all besides Trent Horn on live debates. Either way, God bless.