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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 6, Number 1
 January 1995 
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Playing footsie with footnotes?
Q: I have a New American Bible that has an unsettling footnote to Matthew 16:2123. Those verses state, "From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly from the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised." The footnote says, "Neither this nor the two later passion predictions (17:2223; 20:27-29) can be taken as sayings that, as they stand, go back to Jesus himself However, it is probable that he foresaw that his mission would entail suffering and perhaps death, but was confident that he would ultimately be vindicated by God (see 26:29)." Is this true?
A: It's another illustration of the non-infallibility of the foototes in Catholic Bibles. (See the January 1994 "Dragnet" column for an instance in which we nailed another incorrect footnote.) While one might suggest that this prediction is a paraphrase of something Jesus said rather than an exact quotation from him, it must be regarded as the substance of one of his actual historical utterances.
This is underscored by the fact the Gospel writer gives a specific time when Jesus began to make this claim ("From that time on . . ."). It was not a bit of embellishment invented by a later writer and inserted to give a literary flourish. It was something Jesus actually said.
The only reason anyone ever challenges the idea that Jesus predicted his passion, death, and Resurrection is out of an anti-supernatural bias. Jesus could not have predicted these things because, the reasoning goes, that would mean he knew the future, which is impossible. The idea that Jesus never predicted his own death and Resurrection became popular over a century ago with liberal Protestant Bible scholars, and they infected many Catholic Bible scholars in turn.
This attempt to de-supernaturalize the consciousness of Christ was recently refuted in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which states, "[The] truly human knowledge of God's Son expressed the divine life of his person. The human nature of God's Son, not by itself but by its union with the Word, knew and showed forth in itself everything that pertains to God. . . . The Son in his human knowledge also showed the divine penetration he had into the secret thoughts of human hearts. By its union to the divine wisdom in the person of the Word incarnate, Christ enjoyed in his human knowledge the fullness of understanding of the eternal plans he had come to reveal" (CCC 473-474). Thus Christ humanly knew the supernatural mission he had come to perform and what it would involve.
The Catechism also deals with the texts where Christ predicts his passion and resurrection: "'When the days were near for him to be taken up [Jesus] set his face to go to Jerusalem' [Luke 9:51]. By this decision he indicated that he was going up to Jerusalem prepared to die there. Three times he had announced his Passion and Resurrection; now, heading toward Jerusalem, Jesus says: 'It cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem' [Luke 13:33]" (CCC 557).
The footnote in your New American Bible is thus not only completely out of line with the historical teaching of the Catholic Church, but with the Church's contemporary teaching as well.
Q: The Living Bible for Catholics has a distressing footnote on John 3:5 ("Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God"). The footnote says that the water in the passage may refer to "the normal process observed during every human birth." Aren't Catholics required to say that this refers to water baptism rather than to the "waters" of human birth?
A: Yes, they are. This is one of the passages in Scripture the exact meaning of which has been infallibly defined by the Church. The word "water" cannot refer to amniotic fluid or anything other than natural water, and the passage must be understood as referring to baptism.
The Council of Trent defined, "If anyone shall say that real and natural water is not necessary for baptism, and on that account those words of our Lord Jesus Christ, 'Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Spirit' [John 3:5], are distorted into some sort of metaphor, let him be anathema" ( Canons on the Sacrament of Baptism, can. 2). The footnote in the Living Bible for Catholics is out of sync with the magisterium in suggesting that any interpretation other than baptism is possible for a Catholic.
Q: My parish does not give the sacrament of confession to children until two years after they have received First Communion. I have heard that this is in violation of what Rome says, but my priest says otherwise. Who is right?
A: You are. The 1983 Code of Canon Law says, "It is the responsibility, in the first place, of parents and those who take the place of parents as well as of the pastor to see that children who have reached the use of reason are correctly prepared and are nourished by the divine food as early as possible, preceded by sacramental confession" (CIC 914).
Cutting out the opening words relevant to parents, the canon says, "It is the responsibility. . . of the pastor to see that children who have reached the use of reason. . . are nourished by the divine food as early as possible, preceded by sacramental confession" (CIC 914).
Your priest has a responsibility under the Code of Canon Law to see that the children of your parish are given the instruction and opportunity for sacramental confession prior to their reception of First Communion.
The importance of this has been re-emphasized by the Vatican in the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
"Children must go to the sacrament of penance' before receiving Holy Communion for the first time" (CCC 1457). If your parish does not supply its children with the instruction and opportunity for confession prior to First Communion, it is in violation of the Vatican's directives.
Q: In light of the ecumenism following Vatican II, are Catholics now under serious obligation (that is, binding under pain of sin) to skip Sunday Mass once in a while and worship instead at non-Catholic churches?
A: "Required"? "Not allowed," you mean! A Catholic may not "worship instead at non-Catholic churches." To do so is to violate the First Commandment. (This is to be distinguished from engaging in, say, an ecumenical prayer service.) It is mandatory, under pain of mortal sin but allowing for exceptions arising from necessity, for every Catholic to attend Mass every Sunday (or Saturday evening) and on holy days. Catholics are under no obligation to attend non-Catholic services. Such visits are purely voluntary and may be undertaken so long as no scandal is given. Vatican II's Directory on Ecumenism allows some participation at such services in common responses or hymns that are not in variance with the Catholic faith.
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