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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 11
 November 1995 
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Kneeling for the Lamb of God?
Q: During the "Lamb of God" at Mass, is it permissible to kneel? There are several groups of people, including my family, that kneel at the beginning of this prayer until the end. It seems reverent, but I feel like it's wrong to add anything to the Mass.
A: According to the General Instruction to the Roman Missal the proper posture during the "Lamb of God" is standing. The confusion arises when one attends both the so-called Tridentine Mass as well as the present rite of Mass. The proper rubrics for the Tridentine Mass call for the faithful to be kneeling at the "Agnus Dei." If one attends both liturgies, it is proper to follow the rubrics particular to each Mass--and it is less distracting to those around you.
Q: Who was it that said "Ignorance of the scriptures is ignorance of Christ?" My Baptist friend says it was Martin Luther, who rescued the Bible from the neglect it was receiving at the hands of the Catholic Church.
A: Nice try by the non-Catholic but incorrect. The quote is from Jerome, best known for translating the Bible into Latin (the Vulgate edition) in the early fifth century. You can find the quote in the prologue to his Commentary on Isaiah.
Q: Why do you Catholics refuse to accept the only authorized version of the Bible, the King James Version? Your false Catholic Bibles have books added to them that don't belong in the Bible. If you used the King James Bible you would become real Christians.
A: Catholics refuse to accept the King James Version of the Bible, or the Authorized Version as some still call it, precisely because it is not an authorized translation.
The only authority behind the King James Version was King James himself. But who was King James? He was a temporal ruler, a head of state, specifically king of England in the seventeenth century. What authority did he have to authorize a translation of Scripture? No authority whatsoever.
Let's look at it another way. What authority would a Bill Clinton Bible have? As a political head of state he has just as much right to have Scripture translated as King James had. You would reject a Bill Clinton Version. If so, why accept a King James Version?
As to Catholic Bibles having added books that are not in the King James Version, they may not be in your modern edition of the King James Version, but the deuterocanonical books as Catholics know them were in the original King James Bible. Those who compiled the original translation, having rejected the authority of the Church, mistakenly put these books of Scripture in a separate section labeled "Apocrypha" but providentially did not take it upon themselves to remove them completely from the Bible. In 1615 the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury imposed a year's imprisonment as penalty for publishing Bibles without the Apocrypha. The same cannot be said of modern editions like your own, which have removed them and thus fail to measure up to the original King James Version.
Finally, reading the King James version is no guarantee that the reader will reject Catholicism and embrace Protestantism. The example of Anne of Denmark should suffice. The Lutheran princess Anne married King James of Bible fame and subsequently converted to Catholicism.
Q: Are Catholics who get abortions excommunicated? Do they have to go to confession to the bishop in order to receive forgiveness? There is disagreement at my parish as to the answers to these questions.
A: Despite the common misinformation prevalent today, the penalty for having an abortion is still excommunication. Canon law states, "A person who procures an abortion incurs an automatic (latae sententiae) excommunication" (CIC 1398). This penalty extends to all who help in the procurement of the abortion, not only the woman in whose womb the baby is murdered.
Since the promulgation of the new Code of Canon Law in 1983, the penalty for abortion is no longer reserved to the bishop, and any priest able to hear confession can absolve a penitent from the grave sin of abortion. Previously only the bishop could absolve one from such as sin.
Q: Was St. Athanasius, the "Defender of Orthodoxy," wrongly excommunicated by a pope? A Traditionalist friend of mine says he was and that this gives credence to claims of the Society of St. Pius X that Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre was wrongly excommunicated as well.
A: For centuries scholars have debated the authenticity of the fours letters of Pope Liberius condemning Athanasius during the Arian persecution of the fourth century. The predominant opinion today is that they are genuine. However that may be, in the context of your question their authenticity is irrelevant.
The emperor Constantius, having embraced the Arian heresy, had Pope Liberius exiled, imprisoned, and tortured in an attempt to force him to accept Arianism and to condemn Athanasius, one of the few remaining orthodox bishops.
If the letters of condemnation are genuine, they were written under duress. Prior to his imprisonment, Liberius continually had defended Athanasius and the orthodox faith against the Arians. Many scholars believe the letters were in fact dictated by his captors in that they reverse almost word for word his previous letters of support for Athanasius.
As to Archbishop Lefebvre and the Society of St. Pius X, there is no parallel. Lefebvre was not excommunicated by decree of Pope John Paul II. In 1988 he was excommunicated automatically (latae sententiae) by the his own act of disobedience when he consecrated four bishops without the approval of the Pope--in fact, against the direct and clear command of the Pope not to do so.
Canon law, which Archbishop Lefebvre was quite familiar with, is quite clear on the issue: "A bishop who consecrates someone a bishop and the person who receives such a consecration from a bishop without a pontifical mandate incur an automatic excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See" (CIC 1382).
Q: I was told by a priest that the Church no longer believes in diabolical possession--that is, that demons or the devil actually can take possession of someone. He offered as proof that the Church abolished the minor order of exorcist. Is this true?
A: No, it is not true. The Church has not changed its teaching about the devil and his demons and their ability to possess.
While it is true that the Church no longer confers a minor order of "exorcist," under the revision of the sacrament of orders a bishop has the authority to grant the power to perform exorcisms to certain priests in his diocese.
Canon law states, "No one can legitimately perform exorcisms over the possessed unless he has obtained special permission from the local ordinary [bishop]. Such permission from the local ordinary is to be granted only to a priest endowed with piety, knowledge, prudence, and integrity of life" (CIC 1172).
By these restrictions on the power of exorcism the Church seeks to guard against two extreme positions: those who see diabolic possession behind all strange behavior and those who reject even the possibility of diabolic possession at all.
Q: In the Mass, after the words of consecration have been pronounced over the host, one of the "Mysteries of Faith" that can be used says, "When we eat this bread and drink this cup we proclaim your death Lord Jesus until you come in glory." If transubstantiation has occurred, isn't it heretical to refer to the Body of Christ as "bread"?
A: Not if properly understood. It is not bread in the common sense, but the "Bread of Life" or the "Bread which came down from heaven."
Some critics of what is commonly called by them the Novus Ordo (New Order of Mass), but what is properly termed simply the Ordo Missae (Order of Mass), see a contradiction here, but there isn't one. Christ, truly present in the Eucharist after the words of consecration have been pronounced, is our "daily bread"--not common bread, but heavenly bread.
What Jesus said before the consecration is still true after: "I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh" (John 6:48-51).
Q: The Jehovah's Witnesses have stumped me again. In discussing the divinity of Christ they brought up the scriptural verse which says "He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation (Col. 1:15)." They say this proves that Jesus was the first created being and therefore cannot be God. What should my response be?
A: This is a common argument used by Jehovah's Witnesses and typical of their methodology. As usual they have taken a phrase out of its context in an attempt to prove their misguided theology.
The heart of the question is whether the term "first-born" implies that Jesus was included in or a part of creation and therefore a creature and not divine. Taken out of context it seems to imply that but read the verse before and the verses after to get the real picture.
The context ( verse 15-20) makes it clear that Jesus is the agent of creation, which places him above it: "For in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities -- all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. (verse 16-17)."
If "in him all things were created," and "all things were created through him," and "He is before all things" then Christ cannot possible be a thing, a creature.
The word "first-born" does not necessarily mean the first element inclusive in a series. In Scripture it frequently means "pre-eminent" or "supreme" rather than the temporal sense of "born before." The Psalms refer to David as "the first-born, the highest of the kings of the earth (Psalm 89:27)." But we know that David wasn't the first king on earth. He wasn't even the first king of Israel. But in God's estimation he is the pre-eminent earthly king: Jesus is frequently called "Son of David."
There is however, a proper sense in which Christ is a part of creation. The eternal Word became incarnate, took on a human nature along with his divine nature in order to redeem humanity's fallen nature.
We would suggest you discuss the first chapter of the Letter to the Hebrews with your Jehovah's Witnesses friends when debating Christ's divinity. While they believe Christ to be an angel, in Hebrews we find: "For to what angel did God ever say, 'Thou art my Son, today I have begotten thee'? Or again, 'I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son'? And again, when he brings the first-born into the world, he says, 'Let all God's angels worship him.' Of the angels he says, 'Who makes his angels winds, and his servants flames of fire.' But of the Son he says, 'Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever, the righteous scepter is the scepter of thy kingdom.'"
Q: I heard a preacher on television say that the Roman Catholic Church invented the idea of purgatory in the Middle Ages so the pope could make money by charging people to say Masses for their dead relatives. Is this true? I have always liked what this particular man preaches and even support his ministry. As a Catholic what should I do?
A: First, you and hundreds of thousands of other Catholics need to stop supporting televangelists who preach a message contrary to the teachings of the Catholic Church. As Paul found out on the road to Damascus, when you attack Christ's Church (or help others to) you attack Christ.
It is one thing to disagree about the doctrine of purgatory itself, but it is absurd to charge that the Catholic Church invented the whole idea out of thin air. It is simple enough to show that the belief predates the Church by several centuries.
The Second Book of Maccabees states, "It is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they might be loosed from their sins" (2Macc. 12:46). This is teaching about a third state of existence after death; those in heaven don't need prayers, and those in hell are beyond them, so the reference must be to a third state.
Whether one accepts the canoni city of Maccabees is irrelevant to this question. Scholars agree that the book was written sometime in the second century before Christ. We therefore can conclude that at least some pious Jews, hundreds of years before Jesus established the Church, believed in the notion of purgatory, even if they did not use that term and even if they had only hazy notions about it and did not envision it as a "place" or "state" separate from heaven and hell.
Q: In the Litany of Loreto, Mary is referred to as the morning star. But in the Book of Revelation Christ is called the morning star. Is this an attempt to place Mary on the same level with Jesus?
A: No, the Church does not place Mary on the same level with Jesus. After all, Mary is a creature--granted, the most blessed and perfect of all creatures, but a creature nonetheless.
Morning stars are the last stars visible before the rising of the sun. They seem to herald the arriva l of the sun. Similarly the title "morning star" refers to someone who is a precursor of a cosmic even t. The Bible sometimes uses the term in a positive way (Job 38:7, 2 Pet. 1:19, Rev. 2:28) and sometimes in a negative way (Is. 14:12), depending upon the nature of the impending event. Mary is rightfully called "the morning star" because, like the celestial bodies that herald the dawn of another day, she bore witness to the dawning of the Sun of Justice, the Son of God.
Q: What are your recommendations for Bible translations? I'd like to read the ideal one.
A: Sorry--there is no ideal translation. Translations are only better or worse. At Mass you probably hear readings from the New American Bible with the 1970 translation of the New Testament, but at book stores the NAB now on sale includes the revised New Testament, which is more accurate and more traditional in phrasing. Especially good for Bible studies is the Catholic Edition of the Revised Standard Version.
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