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Q u i c k Q u e s t i o n s
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This Rock
Volume 3, Number 9
 September 1992 
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What Does IHS Mean?
Q: I've seen the acronym IHS all over the place--on altar cloths, holy cards, vestments, and prayerbooks--but I have no idea what it stands for. A friend signs his letters "IHS" and says it means "In His Service." What's the scoop?
A: IHS is the anglicized rendering of the first three Greek letters in Jesus' name. In the early Church, especially during the time of Roman persecution, this became a popular way of writing Jesus' name as a sort of code. Since then it has become a universally-used insignia and shows up on all types of Catholic religious art and accoutrements. After a few centuries, when the monogram was integrated into the general Latin usage of the Church, many were unacquainted with the original meaning and wrongly believed it meant, in Latin, Iesus Hominum Salvator (Jesus, Savior of Humanity), Iesus Hierosolyma Salvator (Jesus, Savior of Jerusalem), and even the exquisitely banal English version your friend favors, In His Service.
Q: My daughter recently married a Seventh-Day Adventist (against my husband's and my intense opposition). He attacks the Catholic Church whenever he gets the chance. One of his main objects of scorn is our Holy Father, who, he says, is the beast spoken of in Revelation 13. He claims he can "prove" this because the pope's title, Vicarius Filii Dei (Latin for Vicar of the Son of God), adds up to 666--the "number of the beast" mentioned in Revelation 13. Is this true? How can we respond?
A: You were right to object to this marriage. No doubt, with his attitude, your son-in-law will do everything he can to rob your daughter of her Catholic faith and wrest her away from the Church (this is why Paul warned us not to be "unequally yoked" [2 Cor. 6:14]). Encourage your daughter to remain steadfast in the faith, and do your best to respond to her husband's attacks in a charitable but firm way.
Let's consider his accusation. Latin, Greek, and Hebrew have numerical values assigned to various letters in their alphabets. In Latin the values are: I = 1, V = 5, X = 10; L = 50, C = 100, D = 500, M = 1,000. By extension W = 10 (because W = VV, or two Vs together), and U = V (because there was no letter U for the Romans; where you see the letter U in modern writing, use the letter V instead).
As you can work out for yourself, Vicarius Filii Dei does add up to 666 in Latin: Vicarius = 112; Filii = 53; Dei = 501. (Ignore letters which are not assigned a numerical value.) The problem is that Vicarius Filii Dei is not a title of the pope. One of his titles, in fact his chief title, is Vicarius Christi (Vicar of Christ), but, unfortunately for Seventh-Day Adventists and other anti-Catholics who attempt to use this ploy, Vicarius Christi adds up to only a measly 214, not the infernal 666.
Since the average person, Catholic or Protestant, hasn't the foggiest idea what the pope's titles are in Latin or English, anti-Catholics (some of whom know better) can get away with this subterfuge.
But what if one of the pope's titles did add up to 666? Would that coincidence prove the pope is the beast? Hardly. It would prove nothing because lots of names and titles add up to 666. By using a nifty little technique you can force a Seventh-Day Adventist to admit that the addition to 666 proves nothing, even when it's a papal title that's in questions. Here's how.
Have your son-in-law do the math, and he'll be shocked to learn that the name of the woman who started Seventh-Day Adventism, Ellen Gould White, adds up to 666: Ellen = 100, Gould = 555, White = 11. Ask him whether this "proves" that the foundress of his religion was the beast? If he says "No," then the tallying of the name means nothing. If he says "Yes," then what's he doing belonging to a church founded by the beast? Either way his argument collapses. (Isn't apologetics fun?)
Q: I believe in the authenticity of some Marian apparitions--I've been a follower of Lourdes since I was a youngster, and that was a long time ago--but suspect some more recent apparitions aren't legitimate. I'm particularly concerned about an apparition which is occurring in a city close to us. What should my attitude be?
A: You're right to be cautious. That's the attitude of the Church, which knows that, historically, most purported apparitions--whether of Mary, Jesus, an angel, or one of the saints--have been spurious.
A few months ago, not far from our offices, a woman thought she saw the face of a missing child in the shadows which played across a billboard. When this news hit the media, the street on which the billboard was situated was packed with cars several night running. All the curious were out. The police had considerable trouble keeping traffic moving. A few people claimed to see what the woman saw. Most saw only wrinkled billboard paper with shadows cast by streetlights.
Was the image really there? We didn't trek to the billboard to verify firsthand, but we were confident it was a case of wishful thinking. And so it was. In a few days the commotion died down, and that was the end of the episode.
That apparition didn't concern any heavenly being, and the woman didn't claim to receive any message from the missing girl. She just thought she saw the girl's face, much as we see animals and buildings when we lie on our backs in a field and watch billowy clouds pass by.
If this kind of thing, this seeing images where there are none, can happen in a non-religious context, think what can happen in a religious context in which emotions are high.
This woman may have had a longstanding tendency to look for signs and wonders in all sorts of matters. She may have been on the lookout for clues "from the beyond." Such clues exist, of course, in legitimate apparitions, but there can develop, even within otherwise solid Catholics, an unhealthy desire to see God "prove" himself or to confirm our worst suspicions about the state of the world.
Our suspicions may be entirely right--things may be every bit as bad as we suspect--but we shouldn't conclude, based on that sad fact, that God will vouchsafe us some special sign. Maybe he will, maybe he won't. Throughout most of history, when things have been as bad as they are today (and they have been every bit as bad in the past; only those who don't know the past think all things are worse now than ever before), God has not given any miraculous sign, at least not one given to a seer for eventual public consumption.
Yet we also know, if we look at something like Lourdes scientifically, that something is going on. The kinds of things that happen at Lourdes (referring here to the healings) have no credible explanation other than the miraculous. These miraculous events give credence to the claim that Mary appeared. True, they don't prove she did, but the weight of the evidence, we think, moves in that direction.
Had she ever appeared before Lourdes? The hard evidence suggests she had. For example, scientists can examine the cloth at Guadalupe, where Mary is said to have appeared four and a half centuries ago, and can see that even its continued existence--it's only plant fiber and should have decayed in a few years--suggests supernatural intervention and thus the legitimacy of the vision.
In the Middle Ages and even before there were reports of saints' appearing, but the authenticity of most of those very early apparitions, as with so many since, relies, as a rule, exclusively on the credibility of the seer, something not easy to judge at a millennium's remove.
Anyway, it comes down to this, in our opinion: Apparitions have occurred, and they are nothing new with our times. They didn't start in modern times. Since they have occurred in the past, they may be occurring now. There is no need to conclude that apparitions stopped, say, in 1858 at Lourdes.
But we need to approach each purported apparition with caution. We must be always ready to abandon a purported apparition if the Church rules against it or it there's anything fishy about it. After all, even authentic apparitions are merely private revelations.
No private revelation is binding in conscience on anyone except the person to whom it is given. If your neighbor has a real apparition, and if he's convinced it's authentic and ultimately from God, then in conscience he's bound to follow it--but you aren't, even if you think the apparition is real.
You can be a perfectly good Catholic and pay no attention at all even to apparitions which really occurred. If you don't believe in them, or if you do believe in them but don't pay attention to them, you aren't guilty of any sin.
You are bound to believe and follow all general revelation, but general revelation ended with the death of the last apostle, commonly believed to be John the Evangelist, who died near the year 100. This general revelation is protected and interpreted by the magisterium of the Church.
Q: Is it okay for me to visit a Kingdom Hall, which is the name the Jehovah's Witnesses give to their church building?
A: Yes and no. If you've done your homework on the Witnesses and want to see for yourself how they conduct their services and what techniques they teach their people, go ahead. You won't be harmed, and you may learn some skills which you could apply in your door-to-door work.
But if it's a matter of your being intrigued by what the Witnesses at your door have been saying, and you're thinking, "I just want to find out for myself," stay away. If you have the least suspicion in your mind that the Witnesses might be on to something, you don't know enough about your own faith or about theirs.
If you did know enough, if your grasp of the Catholic faith were solid and if you knew from your studies that nothing the Witnesses could say could undermine your faith, then you wouldn't suspect that they might have some good doctrinal or historical insights. They have none.
That may sound closedminded, and it would be if we were talking about a legitimate Christian group, but the Witnesses are not Christian, and their doctrines are not well thought out--as shown by the fact that their translation of the Bible, the New World Translation, includes many deliberate mistranslations intended to support their peculiar beliefs. (Bibles issued by Catholics and Protestants don't lend support to ideas such as the non-existence of hell or that Jesus was not divine but was really Michael the Archangel.)
No matter how weak the Witnesses' theology may be, don't underestimate the power of the members' suasion. They're good convincers. Don't put yourself into a situation of intellectual temptation: "Oh, I can handle these guys, even though I don't know much about my own faith." If that's the way you think, you're just the pigeon they're looking for, because as soon as you find yourself unable to refute one of their claims and unable to back a Catholic claim, you'll toss in the towel and change your mailing address to Kingdom Hall.
Don't laugh. It happens all the time. Many Catholics tend to be a little smug: "I don't need to know my faith because my faith is true." That attitude is fine--until you suddenly find yourself empty-handed when asked a serious question about your faith. You might think today that you won't succumb to the blandishments of the Witnesses, but that's what all of their converts once said.
Q: I know Catholic Answers staffers have had debates with leading (and sometimes with unknown) anti-Catholics. I've been thinking about doing something similar in my area. Any suggestions?
A: Yes, and not enough room for them all.
1. First you need to know the other side's arguments. Read its literature and take notes.
2. Make sure you have a solid grasp not only of the fine points of the Catholic position on the topic of the debate, but also understand well what overview you need to give the audience. A debater can give all the right facts yet lose the audience if he doesn't explain clearly what it is he's trying to prove. As the adage has it, "First tell them what you're going to tell them, then tell them, then tell them what you've told them."
3. Don't use ad hominem tactics. Your opponent may be a dunce, but never say so. If he's a dunce, he'll show that on his own.
4. Make sure you work out the debate's ground rules. Some of our opponents have tried to take advantage of the format of the debate.
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