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Q u i c k Q u e s t i o n s
NO ANOINTING FOR TODDLERS
Q: When our three-year old son was hospitalized with a serious medical condition, we sought the anointing of the sick for him. We were told that it was against Church policy to anoint children in these circumstances. He recovered, but should something like this ever happen again, we would like to know what the rules are.
A: While I wouldn’t have used the term "Church policy" to explain the withholding of the sacrament of the anointing of the sick from your son, the answer you got seems basically accurate.
Canon 1004 states that anointing may be administered to those who have "reached the use of reason." Church law presumes the use of reason to set in at the age of seven (canon 97), although it is possible that, in a specific case, a given child might attain the use of reason prior to turning seven. Nevertheless, to say that a child has the use of reason at age three would be, I think, virtually impossible to prove.
Canon 1004 also states that one must "begin to be in danger of death" in order to receive the sacrament licitly. It is quite possible that your son’s condition, however dangerous, did not encompass the danger of death, and for that reason the sacrament would not have been celebrated. The canon does not require that one be at death’s door before seeking anointin, but death (as opposed to any other chronic but survivable condition) must be a genuine possibility before administering the sacrament.
Your instincts in seeking the Church’s spiritual and sacramental support on behalf of a stricken child were correct. In seeing to your son’s baptism, you already afforded your toddler the grace of that saving sacrament, and, in turning to the Lord in prayer during this crisis, you already invoked additional graces on his behalf and yours. Moreover, had your child been somewhat older, I am sure you would have inquired for him about confession (canon 989) and the Eucharist (canon 913) as well.
Lastly, you didn’t ask about this, but I would mention one other possibility. If your child had been in danger of death, and notwithstanding his ineligibility for the sacrament of anointing because of his age, he very likely was eligible to receive the sacrament of confirmation (canons 889 and 891). I know this comes as a surprise to many Catholic parents (and to not a few clergy!), but the 1983 Code of Canon Law is quite clear that confirmation is proper under the circumstances you describe.
Edward Peters
Q: Don’t ascetical practices such as fasting represent a sort of Gnostic contempt for the body? I know Paul talks about struggling against "the flesh," but doesn’t this refer to the sin nature, not the body?
A: No. That is the quasi-Gnostic idea—the notion of a disembodied "sin nature" and the banishment of the moral struggle from the physical realm. We have no "sin nature," if by that is meant a principle in us that is positively sinful in and of itself. Rather, we have human nature, composed of body and spirit, good in and of itself but wounded by the effects of sin.
This wound disorders our natural appetites or desires, weakens our wills, and darkens our minds. We are attracted too strongly to good things and are attracted to things that are not good for us. We may crave too much food, or we may crave bad foods—sometimes even things that are not food at all. Such disordered attraction may be a source of temptation, an occasion of sin, but it is not sinful in itself.
Yet in order to fight against sin, we must avoid occasions of sin as well as actual sin. Concupiscence (disordered desires) is not sinful in itself, but we still must fight against it. We must struggle to strengthen our weakened will and master our appetites so we will be able to resist temptation. Acts of self-denial or asceticism, done in grace, help us do this. Thus Jesus instructs us on how to fast (Matt. 6:16–18). We are expected to engage in ascetical practices of one sort or another.
Steven D. Greydanus
Q: Jesus says in John 3:3–5 that only those "born of water and Spirit" can enter the kingdom. How can you claim this refers to literal water baptism when not even you believe that all people who die without baptism are consigned to hell? You pretend to read it literally, but then you water it down (pun intended). Why not admit that he really means coming to faith, and take his exclusive language at face value?
A: Later in this chapter Jesus says, "He who does not believe is condemned already" (3:18). Almost no one thinks that all people (including infants and the severely retarded) who die without personal faith are consigned to hell, yet we do not conclude that Jesus was not really talking about faith. There are two issues here: whether a statement is meant literally and whether it is meant absolutely.
Virtually everyone allows that some who have not been "born of water and Spirit" (however that is understood) may still be saved. You probably allow for "exceptions" yourself. You have not escaped this difficulty, only compounded it by concluding that Jesus is talking about something other than literal water. (Notice the context, by the way: Immediately after Jesus’ speech, the disciples go about baptizing [John 3:22.])
The same reasoning applies to Jesus’ statements in John 6 about those who do not eat his flesh and drink his blood having no life in them. The question whether the requirement is absolute is distinct from the question whether it is meant literally. In short, both baptism and the Eucharist are normatively necessary for salvation, but not absolutely necessary.
Mark P. Shea
Q: Karl Keating has used 1 Corinthians 7 to explain how Paul felt about priests needing to be unmarried. But this statement bothered me: "If they cannot exercise self-control they should marry, for it is better to marry than to be on fire" (verse 9). Given this, how should I handle questions like, "Wouldn’t Catholics have fewer priest committing adultery and—worse—molestation, if they were allowed to marry"?
A: There is no statistical evidence that unmarried people are more likely than married people to fall into the sins you mentioned. Most adulteries, for examples, are performed by married people (by definition, at least one party to adultery must be married—if neither is married, the sin is fornication, not adultery—and commonly the other party is married also). The moral defects that lead some into molestations are found in both the married and unmarried; those defects do not arise out of the state of celibacy—nor out of the state of matrimony. Among Protestant ministers we find cases of marital infidelity and, yes, molestations. Your non-Catholic friends surely would not conclude that a married clergy therefore should be rejected.
Karl Keating
Q: Some of my non-Catholic friends say the Church is satanic. What can I do?
A: If the Catholic Church is accused of being satanic, that is no more than its Founder, Jesus Christ, was accused of. When our Lord was on earth, he had the same problem. He was driving demons out, and some said he was doing this by the power of the devil. How did Jesus respond? He said, "How can Satan drive out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand; that is the end of him" (Mark 3:23–26).
The Catholic Church drives out the devil, too. This practice is called exorcism. No one can deny that the Catholic Church has been doing exorcisms on people and driving out Satan for nearly two millennia. Therefore, we must reason like Jesus: If the Catholic Church were from the devil, it could not drive the devil out.
We shouldn’t be surprised when such charges are made against the Catholic Church. Jesus told us, "A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master; it is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher and the servant like his master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household" (Matt. 10:24–25).
Mario Derksen
Q: My Baptist friend says that when Jesus talks in John 6 about "eating his flesh and drinking his blood," he was using a shocking metaphor to shake up people who were not ready for his real point (faith, of course), just as when he said, "Destroy this temple and in three days I will rebuild it" (John 2:19). What do you say?
A: I say, if Jesus’ hearers were not ready for his "real point," and if that "real point" was faith, then why did Jesus go on at such length earlier in the chapter (6:29–47) about having faith in him?
In John 2, as your friend rightly says, Jesus didn’t wish to speak openly of his Resurrection to faithless men, so he used a "shocking metaphor" to obscure his real point and to "shake them up" at the same time. But in John 6 Jesus spoke quite openly about having faith in him. He laid those cards right on the table. Why would he then seek to muddle what he already had stated so plainly?
Jesus used figurative language for one of two reasons: to illumine, or to obscure. When he sought to illumine, he sometimes appended plain explanations to his metaphors (especially if he had been misunderstood), but nowhere did he do what your friend thinks he did here: follow a clear exposition with puzzling metaphors on the same point. There would be no reason to do so. If he meant to be obscure, he would not have been so plain to start with; if he meant to be clear, he would not have muddied the waters with obscure metaphors.
Steven D. Greydanus
Q: What is the biblical reason Catholics pray to dead saints for intercession?
A: No one prays to dead saints, because those in heaven are more alive than we are. The Lord is God of the living, not of the dead. The fervent prayer of a righteous man is very powerful (James 5:16). Those in heaven are surely righteous, since nothing unclean can enter heaven (Rev. 21:27). Those in heaven are part of the Mystical Body of Christ and have not been separated from us by death, but surround us as a great cloud of witnesses (Heb. 12:1). They stand before the throne of God and offer our prayers to him (Rev. 5:8) and cheer us on as we run the good race. Intercession among members of the body of Christ is pleasing to God (1 Tim. 2:1–4) and even commanded by him (John 15:17). Those in heaven have a perfected love, so how could they not intercede for us? Christ is the vine, and we are the branches; if we are connected to him, we are inseparably bound together as well. Can the eye say to the hand, "I need you not"? Neither are we to say we don’t need the prayers of our brothers and sisters (alive here or in heaven), because salvation is a family affair.
Jason Evert
Q: I serve at the altar in our parish. My priest has asked me merely to bow before the altar when serving during Mass, though the altar has a tabernacle on it. What should I do?
A: It’s hard to answer your question without more information about the situation, but here are the basic principles involved: One is supposed to genuflect whenever one passes before the Blessed Sacrament reposed within a tabernacle (General Instruction of the Roman Missal 233). One is also supposed to give a bow of the body whenever one passes in front of the altar (Ceremonial of Bishops 72).
The former discipline takes precedence over the latter. Thus, if the Blessed Sacrament is in a Tabernacle on or near the altar, one genuflects and does not bow. If there is no tabernacle on or near the altar, or if the tabernacle is empty, one bows to reverence the altar and does not genuflect.
The Church’s laws state that one is supposed to make the appropriate sign of reverence whenever one passes in front of the altar or tabernacle. The exception it makes is for people who are carrying articles in procession (e.g., a cross, a candle, book of the Gospels). These people are not supposed to genuflect or make a bow of the body (Ceremonial of Bishops 70). A bow of the head, on the other hand, would be all right, though the law does not seem to mandate it specifically in this circumstance.
I would assume that the same would apply when carrying something in front of the altar (e.g., cruets, a ciborium, etc.) to avoid the danger of dropping the article or spilling its contents. So if you are carrying something in front of the altar, I would advise you to neither genuflect nor make a bow of the body, but merely a bow of the head. This is especially the case if you are carrying the Lord’s Body or Blood.
In former years, when Communion rails were common, during distribution of Communion the priest would pass in front of the altar and tabernacle without making a sign of reverence. His back would be turned to them, the tabernacle often would be empty and left open to signify this, and he had Jesus in his hands at the moment, which required his utmost attention and care.
James Akin
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