There are three essential problems in contemporary Catholic eucharistic theology, and each concerns the separation of two concepts that ought to be inseparable: eucharistic conversion and conversion of life; real presence and sacrifice; and the sacrifice of the cross and the sacrifice of the Eucharist. It is not accidental that these problems coincide with the most vexing theological differences between Catholics and mainline Protestants on the Eucharist; the post-Reformation Catholic theological conversation has been defined by the need to evaluate the problems that sparked the Western schisms.1 Until the early twentieth century, of course, this internal conversation was primarily defensive, fortifying established confessional positions.2 Since the Catholic Church’s institutional validation and centralization of the ecumenical movement at the Second Vatican Council, theologians have sought instead to adopt a broadly acceptable consensus position on these issues, assisted by critical reformulations of traditional positions in new philosophical language.3