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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 4, Number 10
 October 1993 
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WHO WAS FELIX CULPA?
Q: This has been bothering me for ages. Who was Felix Culpa?
A: Let's see. He was Jack Klugman's roommate in the Italian
version of The Odd Couple, right? No?
Now we've got it: If we remember our Latin rightly, culpa
is "the cat," so Felix Culpa is the cartoon character Felix
the Cat. Still no? Okay, here is the truth: Felix is Latin
for "happy" (so the Roman governor to whom Paul spoke in
Acts 24 was known as "Governor Happy"), and culpa
is Latin for "fault" (so the apology "mea culpa"
means "my fault"). The phrase felix culpa literally
means "happy fault."
This term is used in theology to refer to the sin of Adam. By eating
the forbidden fruit, Adam committed a grave sin (fault), but this
fault had a happy side-effect since it set the stage for the redemption
of man, the most important event in history. Because of this unexpected
consequence of the Fall, people sometimes speak of Adam's sin as a
felix culpa.
Q: When a Catholic and a non-Catholic get married, does
the non-Catholic have to promise to raise the children of the marriage in
the Catholic faith?
A: No. This used to be the case, but the current Code of Canon
Law (1983) does not require the non-Catholic to make this promise.
The Code does state that "the Catholic party . . . [must]
promise to do all in his or her power to have all the children baptized
and brought up in the Catholic Church" (c. 1125), but the non-Catholic
party does not have to promise to have the children raised Catholic.
This rule attempts to do justice to the consciences of both the Catholic
and the non-Catholic. The non-Catholic party is not asked to violate
his conscience if it requires him to refuse to promise to raise the
children Catholic, and the Catholic party is asked to live out the
belief that Catholicism is true by doing all that is possible to have
the children raised in the truth. The final decision about how the
children will be raised is to be a joint decision made by both parents.
Canon law requires that all of this be understood by both parties
before the marriage is contracted.
Q: How can Catholics say Christ does not die again on the
altar when the Council of Trent states that he is immolated in the
Mass?
A: Simple. "Immolate" does not mean "kill."
It is a synonym for " sacrifice," a concept which does not
require the sacrificial gift to be killed (Num. 8:11-21, Rom. 12:1).
According to its word-roots, "to immolate" means to sprinkle
with sacrificial grits or meal. In ancient times the sacrificial gift
was sprinkled with this meal as part of the ritual. Eventually the
word "immolate," which originally referred to only part
of the ceremony, was extended to cover the whole act of sacrifice,
and so it became detached from its original meaning of "to sprinkle
with meal" and became a synonym for sacrifice.
Because sacrifices often involve killing, the term immolate can have
this association, but that is not the way in which the Church is using
it. This is obvious from the language Trent uses, that in the Mass
"Christ is contained and immolated in an unbloody manner"
(session 22, ch. 2)--an unbloody manner being one that does not
involve killing.
Q: I converse with Protestants who say the power to forgive
sins has been given to all Christians. Why do Catholics say it has
been given only to priests?
A: Because Christ was talking only to the apostles when he
gave the power to forgive sins (John 20:21-23). Only a small number
of disciples were present, for they were in an enclosed room (20:19).
In fact, one disciple, Thomas, was not even there and had to have
a special encounter with Jesus (20:24ff). This shows it was not all
the disciples generally who received the power to absolve, but only
the core group of the disciples--the apostles.
Confirmation for the fact that only clergy can absolve is found in
James 5:14-15, where the sacrament of holy anointing is discussed:
"Is any among you sick? Let him call for the presbyters [priests]
of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil
. . . and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven."
In the sacrament of anointing we see forgiveness tied to the clergy,
therefore how much more will it be when we are dealing with the sacrament
of confession itself.
Q: Could you explain the criteria used in naming a church
a basilica? A church in my area may be designated a basilica soon,
and some of my non-Catholic friends have been asking about this subject.
I need an answer.
A: The term "basilica" originally was used for a
building with a certain type of architecture, but it has become an
honorific title acknowledging a special status among churches.
Basilicas are ranked above all churches except cathedrals, and they
are divided into two classes: major and minor. Major basilicas have
greater prestige, plus privileges that minor basilicas generally don't
share, such as having certain indulgences associated with them.
In the past, some churches became basilicas through the popular custom
of referring to them as such, but in the sixteenth century it was
stipulated that no new basilicas could be made without papal approval.
Typically, minor basilicas are made from churches that have some special
historical significance.
For example, here in San Diego we have the Mission Basilica San Diego
de Alcala, which was the first church in California. It was founded
in 1769 by Blessed Junipero Serra and was constructed near the site
of California's first Mass.
One distinctive feature of minor basilicas is a sanctuary fixture
known as a pavilion (or conopoeum), a tall, cone-shaped canopy that
is composed of alternate bands of red and yellow silk (colors of the
papal government). This canopy has a circular wooden frame at its
base and is capped with a copper cross. The original function of the
pavilion was to shelter the patriarch.
Q: What is semi-Pelagianism? Recently a Protestant apologist
said that the Catholic position on grace is a textbook case of semi-Pelagianism.
And is there something called just plain Pelagianism?
A: The apologist does not know what he is talking about. Some
conservative Protestants accuse Catholics of semi-Pelagianism, but
most don't know what the term means. (Ask them to the define it the
next time you hear them make this accusation.)
Semi-Pelagianism was a theological movement common in France in the
fifth and early sixth centuries. It was an attempted compromise between
Augustine's teachings on grace and those of the heretical monk Pelagius.
Pelagius said the human will freely commits good or evil and that
grace is needed only to help the will do what it already can do on
its own. He said that we do not inherit original sin, physical death,
or spiritual death from Adam. We learn to sin only by following the
bad example of our parents and others.
Finally, Pelagius said that Christ does not bring us new life; he
merely helps us by the good example he set for us on the cross, and
by following his example we gain grace and are saved.
Semi-Pelagianism was nowhere near this extreme, but it still denied
important points of the faith. Its basic claims were: (1) the beginning
of faith (though not faith itself or its increase) could be accomplished
by the human will alone, unaided by grace; (2) in a loose sense, the
sanctifying grace man receives from God can be merited by natural
human effort, unaided by actual grace; (3) once a man has been justified,
he does not need additional grace from God in order to persevere until
the end of life.
All of these propositions, together with those of full-blown Pelagianism,
were condemned in 529 at the second Council of Orange (can. 5, 10,
and 18) and again in 1546 by the Council of Trent (Decree on Justification,
chs. 5, 6, 8, and 13). It is thus impossible to say that Catholic
views on grace and free will are semi-Pelagian, for the Church explicitly
condemns the errors of the semi-Pelagians.
Q: Some people in the Church of Christ movement argue that
theirs must be the true church, the one established by Jesus, since
it has a biblical name (Rom. 16:16 refers to "the churches of
Christ"). They note that when a husband takes a bride, she acquires
his surname. Since the Church is called, especially by Catholics,
the bride of Christ, they argue that the true Church's name will be
the Church of Christ.
A: There are two arguments here. One is biblical and one is
cultural.
The biblical argument is easily dismissed. Romans 16:16 is the only
verse that refers to the "churches of Christ." In this verse
the phrase is not used as a title, but as a geographical reference
to the local congregations of the one Church established by Christ.
It is not to be taken as meaning that Christ established several different
churches.
So far as the cultural argument goes, while wives may take their husbands'
names, they usually do not take their titles. "Christ" is
a title, not a name. If the Church were to be named after Christ,
it would be the "Church of Jesus" (a phrase which does not
appear in Scripture). To be really accurate it would use the Aramaic
form of his name and be called the "Church of Yeshua." To
our knowledge there is currently no denomination calling itself this,
but, given the sorry history of Christian schisms, there may be one
before very long.
This "churches of Christ" argument seems to be the chief
one used by members of that denomination. Be on the lookout for it.
You may not find it convincing, but thousands have.
Q: After reading the article on transubstantiation in the
July, 1993 issue of This Rock, a fellow religion teacher insisted
to me that the Catholic Church accepts other theologies of the Eucharist
besides transubstantiation. She stated that Pope Paul VI had said
this in his encyclical Mysterium Fidei. Is this so?
A: It depends on what you mean. The Church does permit a variety
of explanations of the transformation of the elements, so long as
these explanations do not contradict transubstantiation. In the 1960s
it became popular for some theologians to say that what happens to
the bread and wine is a transfinalization or transignification.
Transfinalization would be a fundamental change of the entity's purpose
(e.g., physical nourishment made into spiritual nourishment). Transignification
would be a fundamental change in what the entity signifies (e.g.,
from signifying food into signifying Christ).
In Mysterium Fidei Pope Paul VI stated that it is permissible
to say these things happen on the altar--so long as one says transubstantiation
also occurs. In fact, the pope stated that transfinalization and transignification
occur precisely because of transubstantiation.
He said: "As a result of transubstantiation, the species of bread
and wine undoubtedly take on a new signification and a new finality,
for they are no longer ordinary bread and wine but instead a sign
of something sacred and a sign of spiritual food; but they take on
this new signification, this new finality, precisely because they
contain a new `reality' . . . For what now lies beneath the aforementioned
species [that is, what is now the new substance of the elements] is
not what was there before, but something completely different . .
. the body and blood of Christ" (Mysterium Fidei 46 [1965]).
There is also room for different explanations of how transubstantiation
occurs. So long as one says that the whole substance of the unconsecrated
elements is changed into the whole substance of Christ--body,
blood, soul, divinity--with only the appearances of bread and
wine remaining, flexibility of explanation is permitted.
Q: I know that God is the most perfect being possible, yet
he does not have the ability to make a being equal to himself. Wouldn't
he be even more perfect if he had the ability to copy himself?
A: No. If God had the ability to make a being equal to himself
then he would actually be less than perfect. God is all-perfect ("omniperfect")
and so has all possible perfections. One is the kind of existence
he has.
Theologians and philosophers distinguish between two kinds of existence:
necessary and contingent. Something which necessarily exists is something
that could not fail to exist. Something which exists contingently
is something that depends on something else for its existence. All
created beings are contingent since they depend on their Creator to
bring them into existence. (This is true even if they are outside
of time.) Since God has the most perfect form of existence as a consequence
of his omniperfection, God is a necessary rather than a contingent
being.
Suppose God did create a being equal to himself. This duplicate or
clone, to whom God would be equal in every way, must be contingent,
since created. But this would mean that God himself would have only
contingent existence (if the clone were a true clone) and would lack
the perfection of necessary existence. Thus God would be less than
perfect if he had the ability to copy himself. For him such an ability
would be a weakness, not a strength.
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