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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 5, Number 2
 February 1994 
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MAY WOMEN GIVE HOMILIES?
Q: Recently at my parish women have begun to give the homily
after the Gospel reading at Sunday Mass. Sometimes they call it a
"faith talk." Is this allowed now?
A: No. Canon 767 of the Code of Canon Law states,"Among
the forms of preaching the homily is preeminent; it is a part of the
liturgy itself and is reserved to a priest or to a deacon; in the
homily the mysteries of faith and the norms of Christian living are
to be expounded from the sacred text throughout the course of the
liturgical year. Whenever a congregation is present a homily is to
be given at all Sunday Masses and at Masses celebrated on holy days
of obligation; it cannot be omitted without a serious reason."
Furthermore, the instruction Inaestimabile Donum, issued by
the Sacred Congregation for the Sacraments and Divine Worship and
approved by Pope John Paul II on April 17, 1980 also condemns the
practice you describe. Among the liturgical abuses condemned in the
foreword of this document is "homilies given by lay people."
Under the section on the Mass, subsection 3 states that "The
purpose of the homily is to explain to the faithful the Word of God
proclaimed in the readings, and to apply its message to the present.
Accordingly the homily is to be given by the priest or the deacon."
Q: Sometimes I hear people around me at Mass saying with
the priest, "Through him, with him, in him, in the unity of the
Holy Spirit, all glory and honor is yours, almighty Father, forever
and ever." I was not taught to do this. Is this optional or should
I say it also?
A: This concluding part of the Eucharistic Prayer, called
the Per Ipsum, is to be said by the celebrating priest alone
or with concelebrating priests, not by the faithful. Inaestimabile
Donum makes this quite clear:
"It is reserved to the priest, by virtue of his ordination, to
proclaim the Eucharist Prayer, which of its nature is the high point
of the whole celebration. It is therefore an abuse to have some parts
of the Eucharistic Prayer said by the deacon, by a lower minister,
or by the faithful. On the other hand the assembly does not remain
passive and inert; it unites itself to the priest in faith and silence
and show its concurrence by the various interventions provided for
in the course of the Eucharistic Prayer: the responses to the Preface
dialogue, the Sanctus, the acclamation after the Consecration,
and the final Amen after the Per Ipsum. The Per
Ipsum itself is reserved to the priest."
Q: I heard that the Vatican is run by an individual called
"the black pope," who holds all the real power. What do
you say to that?
A: There is a person sometimes called "the black pope,"
but his existence is not a secret and he does not have anywhere near
as much power as the real pope. "The black pope" is a nickname
given to the Father General of the Society of Jesus. When the Jesuits
were the most prestigious, influential missionary order in the world,
the people of Rome began to speak jokingly of their head as a second
pope. They called him "the black pope" because he wore the
Jesuits' black clerical garb, in contrast to the real pope, who wore
white and became known as "the white pope."
"The black pope" does not have authority over anyone but
Jesuits. Sometimes people point to him as evidence of a conspiracy
in the Vatican, but what they really have is a garbled understanding
of a Catholic in-joke.
Q: New Agers talk a lot about nirvana. What exactly is nirvana,
and how does it compare with the Christian idea of heaven?
A: In Buddhism, nirvana is the final state the soul reaches
on its journey through different lifetimes. These lifetimes are pictured
as a series of lamps, one being lit by another, until the final lamp
goes out. The word "nirvana" means "going out"
or "extinguishing."
According to Buddhists, our desires and cravings are what keep the
process of reincarnation going. By eliminating all desires it is possible
to escape the cycle of rebirth. When a person manages to extinguish
all his desires, he reaches a state of nirvana and is said to be a
saint.
When a saint dies he enters nirvana proper, in which he loses his
identity as a distinct individual. Buddha compared the question "Does
a saint survive his death?" to the question "Where does
a flame go when it is blown out?" Both questions are thought
to be intrinsically unanswerable. Neither a dead saint nor a blown-out
flame have individual identities anymore.
Nirvana is different from the Christian idea of heaven. Nirvana is
a state of desirelessness; heaven is a state of having one's most
fundamental desire (for God) fulfilled. Nirvana is a state of ultimate
apathy and indifference, heaven of ultimate joy and fulfillment. Paradoxically,
Buddhists regard nirvana, the state of desirelessness, as the most
desirable state.
Nirvana also differs from heaven because it suggests one will eternally
lose his body and his individual identity, while Christians claim
they will keep both of them eternally.
Q: I was told that devout Jews believe in purgatory. Is
this true?
A: In essence, yes, though they do not call it purgatory.
Jews do believe in a purification (a purgation) which takes place
after death. When a Jewish person's loved one dies, it is customary
to pray on his behalf for eleven months using a prayer known as the
mourner's Qaddish (derived from the Hebrew word meaning "holy").
This prayer is used to ask God to hasten the purification of the loved
one's soul. The Qaddish is prayed for only eleven months because
it is thought to be an insult to imply that the loved one's sins were
so severe that he would require a full year of purification.
The practice of praying for the dead has been part of the Jewish faith
since before Christ. Remember that 2 Maccabees 12:39-46, on which
Catholics base their observance of this practice, shows that, a century
and a half before Christ, prayer for the dead was taken for granted.
Unlike Protestantism, Catholicism has preserved this authentic element
of Judeo-Christian faith.
Q: Who are the "other sheep" Jesus mentions in
John 10:16? In a TV ad the Mormons say that verse refers to Jews who
allegedly migrated to South America around 600 B.C.
A: Jesus said, "And I have other sheep, that are not
of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will heed my voice.
So there shall be one flock, one shepherd." Most Catholic biblical
scholars, following the teaching of the early Church Fathers, agree
that the "other sheep" are the gentiles, to whom the gospel
was sent after the Jews rejected Christ (Rom. 11:11-12).
During his public ministry Jesus confined his proclamation of the
gospel to the Jews (Matt. 10:5-6, 15:24), and initially this remained
the focus of the apostles' preaching, although Jesus had foretold
that the gospel would eventually be carried to "all nations"
(Matt. 28:19, Acts 1:8). This opening up of God's blessing even to
Gentiles was foretold in the Old Testament (Ps. 2:7; Isa. 2:2-6).
Paul explained this to Gentile Christians: "Therefore remember
that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called the uncircumcision
by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by
hands--remember that you were at that time separated from Christ,
alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants
of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in
Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near in the
blood of Christ" (Eph. 2:11-13; cf. Rom. 3:22; Gal 3:27-28).
Q: What happens to prayers that are offered on behalf of
deceased who, unbeknownst to the one who prays, are already in heaven
or hell? Are those prayers wasted?
A: They are not wasted. Those in heaven don't need our prayers,
and those in hell are unable to profit by them. Only those who are
undergoing purification prior to entering full union with God in heaven
(1 Cor. 3:12-15) can avail themselves of our prayers. When we pray
for them we are asking God to mitigate their suffering. If the persons
we pray for are not in purgatory and have already gone on to heaven,
the Lord will apply our prayers to others in need of them.
Q: The chaplain of our local Catholic hospital told me that
Catholic hospitals routinely prescribe the "morning after"
pill to rape victims and that he agrees with this position. I asked
how this could be justified in light of the Church's condemnation
of contraception and abortion. He said, "If the woman thinks
she might be pregnant [from the rape], she should not take the `morning
after' pill."
A: A classic example of double speak. It seems the priest
backpedaled once he saw you were familiar with the Church's teaching
on this issue, but his proviso makes no sense. The Catholic Church
condemns acts of direct abortion as always gravely sinful. The chaplain
knows this is true (if he does not, he received radically defective
seminary training or is intellectually incompetent and should not
hold the position of chaplain), even though he chooses to flout Church
teaching and sanction the dispensing of the "morning after"
pill, an abortifacient drug. The "morning after" pill is
not a contraceptive--it does not prevent conception--its
only purpose is to induce the abortion of an already conceived child.
Therefore, its use may never be regarded as a morally acceptable option,
even under the principle of double effect.
The chaplain's stipulation that the abortifacient should not be administered
in cases where "the woman thinks she might be pregnant"
boggles the mind. What purpose would this serve? Does he realize what
the "morning after" pill is? Does he understand the Church's
teaching on abortion? If he does, then he is dissembling. If not,
what's he doing as a hospital chaplain?
Q: It seems unfair that God would damn to hell someone who
lives in a state of grace his entire life, yet commits a mortal sin
at the end of his life and dies in that state. Wouldn't his righteous
life outweigh the one final sin?
A: You're looking at this issue all wrong. It's incorrect
to think of sin and virtue as "outweighing" each other,
at least in the case of someone who dies in either the state of grace
or the state of mortal sin. At death your disposition toward God,
whether friendship or rebellion, is fixed for eternity. You are unable
thereafter to "change your mind." That's why the damned
in hell cannot repent and become God's friends. Likewise, the blessed
in heaven are in no danger of rebelling against God and losing their
salvation.
Second, the question of "fairness" is irrelevant to this
issue. God is all just and all merciful. During our lives he extends
his mercy to us, repeatedly allowing us to repent and turn from sin
and thus shields us from the eternal consequences of our sins. But
at death his justice demands that we be recompensed on the basis of
our relationship to him.
The Lord explains that fairness is not the issue: "When a righteous
man turns away from his righteousness and commits iniquity and does
the same abominable things that the wicked man does, shall he live?
None of the righteous deeds which he has done shall be remembered;
for the treachery of which he is guilty and the sin he has committed,
he shall die. Yet you say, `The way of the Lord is not just.' Hear
now, O house of Israel: Is my way not just? Is it not your ways that
are not just? When a righteous man turns away from his righteousness
and commits iniquity, he shall die for it; for the iniquity which
he has committed he shall die.
"Again, when a wicked man turns away from the wickedness he has
committed and does what is lawful and right, he shall save his life.
Because he considered and turned away from all the transgressions
which he had committed, he shall surely live, he shall not die. Yet
the house of Israel says, `The way of the Lord is not just.' O house
of Israel, are my ways not just? Is it not your ways that are not
just? Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according
to his ways, says the Lord God. Repent and turn from all your transgressions,
lest iniquity be your ruin. Cast away from you all the transgressions
which you have committed against me, and get yourselves a new heart
and a new spirit! Why will you die, O house of Israel? For I have
no pleasure in the death of any one, says the Lord God; so turn, and
live" (Ezek. 18:21-32; cf. Matt. 20:1-15).
One needs to understand the gravity of mortal sin. By committing mortal
sin a person implicitly rejects God and the entire life of holiness
he has led up to that point. By spurning that life he spurns the reward
he would have gotten as a result of it. It is his own fault if he
dies in a state of alienation from God and his reward.
Q: I am a homosexual who wishes to obey the Church's teachings
on homosexuality, but I am not sure what they are. I know that the
Church teaches homosexual acts are wrong, but it teaches that all
sex outside of marriage is wrong--a teaching which I support.
What if two homosexuals were married to each other? Would sex between
them be legitimate, and could the Church ever change its position
and allow homosexuals to marry?
A: This is a sensitive area, and you are to be commended for
your commitment to support and fulfill the Church's teaching. The
answer to both questions is no.
The reason homosexual acts are wrong is not simply that they take
place outside of marriage, but that they are contrary to natural design.
For various reasons, both inside and outside of their control, some
people have desires that are not in accord with nature. When these
desires are acted upon, the result is an unnatural and immoral act.
Even if two homosexuals were "married," they would still
be having unnatural sex.
The Church cannot change its teaching on marriage, which is grounded
in natural law. Under natural law a man can marry only whom he was
designed to marry: a woman. He cannot validly marry another man any
more than he could an animal or a plant. Any attempted marriage between
a man and another man would be invalid by definition. It might be
recognized by the state as a legitimate marriage, but it would not
be so before God.
This is a difficult teaching to hear for one struggling with homosexual
desires, but it is the truth. To get help, consider contacting Courage,
a nation-wide Catholic organization set up to help homosexuals lead
chaste lives. The address of its headquarters is: Courage, c/o Rev.
John Harvey, St. Michael's Rectory, 424 W. 34th St., New York, N.Y.
10001. Their phone number is (212) 421-0426. Our prayers are with
you.
Q: Who brought Christ back from the dead? Did Jesus cause
himself to rise, or did God the Father raise him up?
A: All three Persons of the Trinity cooperated in bringing
Jesus back from the dead. You can see this in a variety of passages.
Acts 2:24, 3:15, and 4:10 stress the role of God the Father in the
Resurrection, John 10:18 stresses Christ's role, and Romans 1:3 stresses
the role of the Holy Spirit.
This reflects the teaching that all three Persons of the Trinity cooperate
in any divine action outside the Godhead, as shown in the creation
of the world (Gen. 1:1-2:4, Ps. 33:6, John 1:3, Acts 17:24) and the
birth of Christ (Luke 1:35, John 5:36, 6:38).
Q: The Gospels place emphasis on the Samaritans (for example,
in the parable of the Good Samaritan). Who were they and why were
they important?
A: The Samaritans were people who lived in what had been the
Northern Kingdom of Israel. Samaria, the name of that kingdom's capital,
was located between Galilee in the north and Judea in the south. The
Samaritans were a racially mixed society with Jewish and pagan ancestry.
Although they worshiped Yahweh as did the Jews, their religion was
not mainstream Judaism. They accepted only the first five books of
the Bible as canonical, and their temple was on Mount Gerazim instead
of on Mount Zion in Jerusalem (John 4:20).
The Samaritans of Jesus' day were strict monotheists. In some respects
they were more strict than Jews about the commands of the Mosaic law,
especially the sabbath regulations, but they did not share the Jewish
stricture against pronouncing the divine name Yahweh in their oaths.
Because of their imperfect adherence to Judaism and their partly pagan
ancestry, the Samaritans were despised by ordinary Jews. Rather than
contaminate themselves by passing through Samaritan territory, Jews
who were traveling from Judea to Galilee or vice versa would cross
over the river Jordan, by-pass Samaria by going through Transjordan,
and cross over the river again as they neared their destination. The
Samaritans also harbored antipathy toward the Jews (Luke 9:52-53).
That the Samaritans were separated from and looked down upon by the
Jews makes them important in the New Testament. Jesus indicated a
new attitude must be taken toward the Samaritans when he passed through
their towns instead of crossing the Jordan to avoid them (John 4:4-5),
when he spoke with a Samaritan woman, contrary to Jewish custom (John
4:9), and when he said a time would come when worshiping in Jerusalem
or on Mount Gerazim would not be important (John 4:21-24). When asked
whom to regard as our neighbor, Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan
precisely because Samaritans were despised.
The apostles recognized that in the Church Samaritans must be accepted
as equal to Jews. Peter and John conducted a special mission to Samaria
to confirm Samaritans who had already been baptized by Philip (Acts
8:14-17). This initiation of the Samaritans was a middle stage between
the preaching of the gospel to the Jews (Acts 2) and the preaching
of the gospel to full-blooded Gentiles (Acts 10).
Today a few Samaritans survive, not having lost their identity through
intermarriage. There are about 300 active practitioners of the Samaritan
religion, most of whom live in the city of Nablus. Although their
temple is long since destroyed, they still celebrate Passover every
year in its ruins on Mount Gerazim.
Q: Doesn't cosmic justice require us to believe in reincarnation
when we see innocent children suffering? If these children have not
done anything in this life to deserve suffering, they must have done
something wrong in a past life. Right?
A: Wrong. There are two problems with this argument. First,
even if the suffering of innocents did require us to believe in a
prior existence, it would not require us to believe in reincarnation.
The Mormons believe in a disembodied pre-existence, in which people
were capable of sinning, but they do not believe in reincarnation.
Second, the suffering of innocents does not require us to believe
in a pre-existence at all. Not all suffering is punishment for one's
own sins (John 9:1-3). The prime example of this is Jesus, none of
whose sufferings were for his own sins, for he had no sins (Heb. 4:15).
Justice requires that everyone in the universe ultimately gets what
he deserves. If a person has suffered unjustly he will be compensated
for the pain endured. When we see innocent children suffering, it
gives us just as much reason to postulate a future life in which they
will be rewarded (i.e., in heaven) as it does a past life in which
they sinned. The idea that God will compensate one who has been wronged
is taught in Exodus 22:22-24, Malachi 3:5, and Matthew 5:11-12, 10:28-30.
Q: Catholic moral theologians talk about "natural law,"
and scientists talk about "the laws of nature," but the
two groups don't seem to be referring to the same thing. How does
natural law differ from the laws of nature?
A: Pope John Paul II answered this question in his most recent
encyclical. He said that the natural law of moral theology "receives
this name not because it refers to the nature of irrational beings,
but because the reason which promulgates it is proper to human nature"
(Veritatis Splendor 42). The moral law is called "natural
law" because it is based on our nature as rational beings. It
is not based on the nature of irrational beings, such as animals,
plants, or inanimate matter. When scientists refer to the "laws
of nature," they have in mind physical laws such as the law of
gravity or the laws of thermodynamics.
Q: A Protestant speaker said the Council of Trent was inconsistent
because it accepted some "apocryphal" books, such as 1and
2 Maccabees, as canonical, but did not accept others, such as 1 and
2 Esdras. Why is that?
A: Trent simply reaffirmed the historic canon of the Bible
after it had been challenged by Protestants. The same books Trent
affirmed had been affirmed by councils and popes prior to Trent. The
first recorded council dealing with the canon was the Council of Rome,
which was held in 382 under the presidency of Pope Damasus. Later
councils, such as Hippo (393) and Carthage (397) and the ecumenical
council of Florence (1438), reaffirmed the canon issued by the Council
of Rome.
At all these councils the canon that was proclaimed included the seven
"deuterocanonical" books (1and 2 Maccabees, Tobit, Judith,
Baruch, Wisdom, and Sirach) and rejected 1 and 2 Esdras. Trent was
not being inconsistent; it was reaffirming what the Church had always
taught.
Q: What is the difference between a rabbi and a Jewish priest?
In the Gospels were these two ways of referring to a single office?
A: The offices of rabbi and priest were distinct. Priests
were descendants of Aaron, and they worked at the Temple in Jerusalem,
though in Jesus' day there were so many of them that they did not
work through the whole year (Luke 1:5, 8-9). A rabbi was a religious
teacher who operated out of the local synagogue and was not required
to belong to any particular family or tribe in order to hold his position.
Unlike priests, rabbis at that time did not receive payment for their
teaching; they were expected to have a secular job instead (notice
that Paul was a tentmaker [Acts 18:2-3; see also 1Cor. 9:3-15]).
Rabbis and priests tended to have different theological beliefs. Most
priests were members of the Sadducees, the aristocratic, priestly
party in Jerusalem, while most rabbis were Pharisees. These groups
had great theological hostility toward one another. One key point
on which they disagreed was whether there would be a resurrection
of the dead. Pharisees said there would be, while Sadducees said there
was no afterlife (Acts 23:8). The Sadducees also said angels and spirits
do not exist, while Pharisees said they do.
Despite the mutual hostility, the two groups served together on the
Sanhedrin, the ruling body of the Jews. When he was on trial before
the Sanhedrin, Paul used the fact that its priests and rabbis had
differing views to start an argument which jammed the machinery of
justice and got him a change of venue to a Roman court (Acts 23:6-31).
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