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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 14, Number 6
 July-August 2003 
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Being Catholic Matters
Q: If one could be of another faith that rejects Church teachings and still reach the kingdom of heaven, then what’s the point of being a Catholic?
A: 1. Catholicism is true.
2. Unless we strive to be faithful to the truth to the best of our understanding, we will not be saved.
3. The farther one is away from the Church, the less the chance of making it to heaven.
4. Those who culpably refuse to embrace the truth in the Church cannot be saved because they are ultimately rejecting Christ.
Q: Is there anything morally wrong with hunting deer for sport as opposed to hunting out of necessity for food?
A: As on so many issues, there is no specific Church teaching on this subject. Still, one can apply basic moral principles (coupled with basic factual information about deer hunting and related issues) to derive an accurate conclusion. While some folks may not like it, the basic answer is that deer hunting for sport is not morally problematic.
As the Catechism of the Catholic Church indicates, it is wrong to cause animals to suffer needlessly (cf. CCC 2418). This is not because it is a violation of the animal’s rights—animals do not have rights. Instead, the immorality lies in the fact that torturing any living thing fosters a delight in suffering and is thus an abuse of human nature.
It would be wrong to hunt out of a desire to make animals suffer, but in general most hunters seek to minimize the suffering of deer by using shots designed to make the animal’s death as quick and painless as possible. When this fails and an animal is injured but not killed, it is part of the hunter’s code to put it out of its misery as quickly as possible.
Hunting for sport provides a valuable service to nature as well. Wildlife in general—and deer in particular—have a tendency to overpopulate the areas in which they reside. Each area can support only a certain number of animals of a given kind, and the excess animals die of starvation and sickness unless they are culled.
What the state wildlife commissions do is calculate how many deer can be supported in the local environment, study the deer population to see how many have been born in a particular period, and determine the difference. The number of deer licenses that are granted to hunters in a given year is based on the number of deer that the land cannot support and would die anyway.
By allowing deer to be hunted, the deer population suffers less than if it was left to suffer starvation and sickness. Hunters who serve in this culling program are thus playing an important role in natural resource management. States must hire professional hunters to fulfill this role when sport hunters cannot.
Q: My friend got a scholarship to a Methodist university. Being Catholic, should she go?
A: Provided that the school does not require one to compromise one’s faith—and that one’s faith is strong enough not to be jeopardized by the environment—one is free to choose whichever school is most suitable to one’s needs and circumstances.
Q: Has the Church said anything against the enneagram?
A: Yes. The recently released Vatican document Jesus Christ the Bearer of the Water of Life states, "An adequate Christian discernment of New Age thought and practice cannot fail to recognize that, like second- and third-century gnosticism, it represents something of a compendium of positions that the Church has identified as heterodox. John Paul II warns with regard to the ‘return of ancient gnostic ideas under the guise of the so-called New Age: We cannot delude ourselves that this will lead toward a renewal of religion. It is only a new way of practicing gnosticism—that attitude of the spirit that, in the name of a profound knowledge of God, results in distorting his word and replacing it with purely human words. Gnosticism never completely abandoned the realm of Christianity. Instead, it has always existed side by side with Christianity, sometimes taking the shape of a philosophical movement, but more often assuming the characteristics of a religion or a para-religion in distinct, if not declared, conflict with all that is essentially Christian.’ An example of this can be seen in the enneagram, the nine-type tool for character analysis, which, when used as a means of spiritual growth, introduces an ambiguity in the doctrine and the life of the Christian faith" (emphasis added).
Q: Why was the term Holy Ghost replaced by Holy Spirit? Have all rites observed this change or just the Latin rite?
A: The term has nothing to do with rites. It was replaced only in the English language. Due to its unique history, English is a language that has multiple synonyms for almost everything. In this case, we had the words ghost (derived from German) and spirit (derived from Latin). In recent years, the latter has become the more common term even though originally they were synonyms. Thus, in the last few decades Catholic English translators have preferred spirit to ghost, whether referring to the Holy Spirit or other spirits.
Q: My dad, a Catholic convert who stopped going to church years ago, is interested now in attending Mass and receiving the Eucharist. But he refuses to go back to church if he has to go confession first. I feel my father has a better chance of growing in his faith if he starts attending Mass, but I also agree with my mother that his receiving Communion without confession first is wrong. What do we do?
A: Your father may not receive the Eucharist before receiving absolution from a priest in the sacrament of penance. This doesn’t mean he can’t attend Mass; he can and should attend Mass, even if he isn’t disposed to receive Communion.
The Church sets out specific guidelines regarding how we should prepare ourselves to receive the Lord’s body and blood in Communion. To receive Communion worthily, one must be in a state of grace, have made a good confession since one’s last mortal sin, believe in transubstantiation, observe the eucharistic fast, and, finally, not be under an ecclesiastical censure such as excommunication. For someone to receive the Eucharist without sanctifying grace in his soul profanes the Eucharist in a most grievous manner.
The 1983 Code of Canon Law stipulates: "A person who is conscious of a grave sin is not to . . . receive the body of the Lord without prior sacramental confession unless a grave reason is present and there is no opportunity of confessing; in this case the person is to be mindful of the obligation to make an act of perfect contrition, including the intention of confessing as soon as possible" (CIC 916).
What should your dad do? Here are the possibilities, starting with the best and most desirable:
1. He should go to confession, attend Mass, and receive the Eucharist worthily. In this case, your father would have returned to full communion with the Church and would be free to participate in the sacraments, having the benefit of sanctifying grace once again in his soul.
2. If he refuses to go to confession, he should still go to Mass, but not receive the Eucharist. While he would not be in the state of grace, he would avoid committing further grave offenses either by ignoring his Sunday obligation or by unworthy reception of Communion. Additionally, he would be opening himself up at least to hearing God’s word and would be fulfilling his Sunday obligation.
3. If he is unwilling to use option one or two, he should not go to Mass. In this case, he would continue not to fulfill his Sunday obligation, but at least he would avoid the graver offense of profaning the body and blood of the Lord, which would be the worst outcome.
Q: Is it appropriate to kneel when the tabernacle is opened? While we are saying the Lamb of God during Mass the tabernacle is opened, and we wait until the end of the prayer before kneeling. Also, where does it say we must kneel for the consecration?
A: Since liturgical law says that we should kneel after the Agnus Dei (Lamb of God), unless the local bishop has determined otherwise, that is what we should do. "The faithful kneel after the Agnus Dei unless the diocesan bishop determines otherwise" (General Instruction of the Roman Missal Including Adaptations for the Dioceses of the United States of America 43).
Regarding the posture during the consecration or Eucharistic Prayer, the GIRM says, "In the dioceses of the United States of America, they should kneel beginning after the singing or recitation of the Sanctus until after the Amen of the Eucharistic Prayer, except when prevented on occasion by reasons of health, lack of space, the large number of people present, or some other good reason. Those who do not kneel ought to make a profound bow when the priest genuflects after the consecration" (43).
Q: Was the Trinity ever contemplated, expected, imagined, prophesied, or talked about before the time of Christ?
A: Looking at the Old Testament with our knowledge of the New, we can see that the Trinity was foreshadowed, but it was not taught in terms of one God in three Persons. Christ revealed the doctrine of the Trinity to his disciples; it is a doctrine that would have remained unknown to us unless God had revealed it.
The Old Testament suggests that the Holy Spirit is God. There are passages that show that the Spirit is a Person—for example, when the Spirit speaks (cf. 2 Sam. 23:2; Ezek. 2:2, 3:24, 11:5). Also, there are passages that show the Spirit has divine attributes such as omnipresence (Ps. 139:7).
One of the most commonly cited intimations of the doctrine of the Trinity is that God speaks to himself in Genesis by using a plural: "Let us make man in our image," and then we read "in the image of God he created him" (Gen. 1:26–27).
The triple cry of the seraphim in Isaiah—"Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts" (Is. 6:3)—is thought to reflect the Trinity.
Some have seen the appearance of the three men to Abraham in Genesis 18 as a manifestation of the Trinity, though this in unclear. Genesis 19:1 seems to refer to two of the three men as angels.
It seems that there may have been some idea of plurality within the Godhead before the time of Christ, but the doctrine of the Trinity had not yet been made fully clear.
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