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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 11, Number 11
 November 2000 
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No Pet Motels in Heaven
Q: Do animals have souls?
A: Yes, they do. All living creatures have souls. Plants have what are called vegetative souls, which enable them to grow and reproduce. Animals have what are called sensitive souls, which allow them to feel. Humans have what are called rational souls, which allow us to engage in thought. Only the latter kind of soul survives death.
Q: I know that, as a Catholic, an annulment is required to remarry in the Church. However, can you become engaged while waiting for an annulment?
A: This is not explicitly prohibited by canon law. However, moral law would indicate that, apart from exceptional circumstances, the answer is no.
A declaration of nullity—commonly called an annulment—establishes that one is free to marry. Since marriage enjoys the favor of the law, until the annulment is granted, the presumption is that one will not be able to marry. One should act in accordance with that presumption until the contrary is established.
Failure to do so can lead to dire consequences. If you get engaged prior to receiving a declaration of nullity and it turns out that one is not granted, then you will be in a very difficult situation. You will have gotten your hopes up for a situation that cannot come to pass. You will have done the same thing to another person—your fiancée or fiancé—whom you profess to love. Real love would not put another individual in such a position. Finally, many Catholics in your situation would find themselves in a near occasion of mortal sin, as they would be tempted to "jump ship" and have a wedding outside the Church. This, of course, would result in an invalid union and a state of living in grave sin.
All told, it is far more responsible to act in accordance with the presumption that you are not free to marry until it is shown that you are. It spares everyone a world of hurt and temptation.
Q: How would you bring an ex-Catholic who converted to Mormonism back to the faith? Would you even try?
A: Sure you would. All people need the Christian faith, even those who have abandoned it. It is a spiritual work of mercy to share the gospel with one who has erred in his faith. Here are three lines of discussion that might be particularly fruitful.
(1) Point out to him that Mormonism teaches the blasphemous doctrine that we ordinary human beings can become gods; ask him if he really has it in him to say that one day he could be a deity with billions of people worshiping him.
(2) Because Mormonism teaches that deities are only a more mature stage of development for humans, why should deities be worshiped to begin with? As children we may honor our parents for being more mature than we are and for taking care of us, but we don’t worship them.
(3) Wasn’t "ye shall be as God" the original lie that Satan told in the garden, causing the fall of the human race?
Before trying to talk to a Mormon, especially an ex-Catholic one, make sure that you are firm in your own faith. Be sure to study up on Mormonism, too. Two particularly useful books are Inside Mormonism and When Mormons Call by Isaiah Bennett.
Q: God promised the Jewish people they would be able to enter into the kingdom of heaven if they kept the covenant they made with him. Since God doesn’t break his promise, doesn’t this mean Jews don’t have to follow Jesus, the new covenant?
A: To begin with, the Old Covenant is no longer in effect. Christ has fulfilled it (Col. 2:14–17). Further, it never had any ability to save apart from Christ (Heb. 10:1–10). It was always anticipated that salvation would come through Abraham’s Seed, the Messiah (Gal. 3:8, 16). Thus the Old Covenant never justified anyone (Gal. 3:11). Consequently, attempts by Jewish people to be put right with God on the basis of keeping the Old Covenant would not bear fruit (Gal. 3:10).
It was always expected as part of the Old Covenant that the Jewish people were obligated to accept the Messiah—the Prophet like Moses (Deut. 18:15)—when he came. Deliberate failure to do so would be spurning the Son of God, which would be a mortal sin. Thus Jesus told his Jewish contemporaries: "I told you that you would die in your sins, for you will die in your sins unless you believe that I am he" (John 8:24).
Now, a Jewish person may be innocently ignorant of the fact that Jesus is the Messiah and thus not be held accountable for not embracing him as such. Such a person may be saved provided that he is otherwise in good conscience seeking to follow God. However, it is not on the basis of the Old Covenant that he would be saved but on the basis of Christ. Jesus also said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but by me" (John 14:6). An individual may not know that’s how he’s coming to the Father, but there is no other basis for salvation. Not even the Old Covenant.
Q: Catholics can go to Mass on Saturday evening. Why?
A: What you’re after is why Catholics can fulfill their Sunday obligation by going to Mass on Saturday evening. The simple answer: Because that’s what the law says.
Canon 1248 §1 of the Code of Canon Law states: "The precept of participating in the Mass is satisfied by assistance at a Mass which is celebrated anywhere in a Catholic rite either on the holy day or on the evening of the preceding day."
As to why the law says this, one may look to Eucharisticum mysterium (EM), a 1967 instruction issued by the Sacred Congregation for Rites during the period when this was first being implemented on a wider basis (it had previously been in use, though in fewer areas): "This concession is meant to enable the faithful in today’s conditions to celebrate more easily the day of the Lord’s resurrection" (no. 28).
Times had changed, and in many places "at the request of some diocesan Ordinaries the faculty of satisfying the Sunday precept by hearing Mass on Saturday evening [had] been granted for the purpose of making it easier to fulfill this obligation, to eliminate the deplorable failure to do so, and to make up for the regrettable shortage of clergy wherever this or other similar reasons exists"( La Civilità cattolica 115:3:94, quoting Vatican Radio).
Under current law, the fulfillment of the obligation on the evening preceding the holy day is no longer restricted to certain areas or circumstances.
Q: I recently heard a fellow worker (who is a Seventh-day Adventist) say that anyone alive over 70 is living on "borrowed time." Have you heard about this?
A: In general, when people say that someone is "living on borrowed time" it means that their life has extended beyond what would have been expected and that their death could come at any time. What your friend may have in mind is Psalm 90:10: "The years of our life are threescore and ten, or even by reason of strength fourscore; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away."
Most people in ancient Israel were lucky to live to 70 ("threescore and ten") years, even luckier to live 80 ("fourscore") years. However, this Bible passage does not imply that humans are required by God to die around this time. If this is what your fellow worker is referring to, he is taking Scripture too literally.
Q: Acts 17:24 says: "The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by man." How do we square that with the fact that God is present in church?
A: Paul was addressing a group of pagans, who typically identified their deities with idols kept in temples, which were regarded as the houses of the deities. His point was that the true God should not be thought of as a deity whose presence is confined to a particular locality or building. He is not denying that God manifests his presence in a special way at sacred places, only that he is not limited to them.
This is in harmony with what Solomon said when he dedicated the Temple at Jerusalem: "Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain thee; how much less this house which I have built!" (1 Kgs. 8:27). Thus today God may be present in churches in various ways (by his omnipresence and by multilocation in the Eucharist, for example), but he is not bound or limited to church buildings.
Q: Does sin "hurt" God, or does sin hurt just the Body of Christ? I say that sin does hurt God. We see God react to sin in Scripture with anger and displeasure, as with Noah’s generation and Sodom and Gomorrah. Scripture even says at one point that God regretted making man. Jesus in Gethsemane is a perfect example of how sin hurt God. It hurt him so much he sweated blood.
A: The divine nature is all-good and incapable of suffering from any defect or injury. Therefore, our sins do not hurt God, properly understood. When Scripture speaks of God being angry, grieved, etc., over our sins, this is not to be understood as God experiencing pain on account of what we have done. It is metaphorical language that shows the gravity of our transgressions.
Being outside of time, God is not capable of changing his mind. Numbers 23:19 says, "God is not man that he should lie, or a son of man that he should repent." And James 1:17 notes that God is "the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change." Thus when Scripture says that God repented of having made man, it means that man’s sins were so grave that God would be warranted in not making man at all, not that God literally changed his mind about having made man.
The case of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane with regard to suffering is different. Because at that point God had assumed a human nature that was capable of suffering, Jesus did indeed suffer on account of our sins. In fact, Anselm explains this as part of the motive behind the Incarnation. God could not suffer in his divine nature, so he took on a human nature capable of suffering in order to make satisfaction for our sins.
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