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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 15, Number 6
 July-August 2004 
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The Body of Dad?
Q: I was told the story of a ten-year-old girl whose father had died and on her way to church, she told her mother she missed him, and the mother replied, "Don’t worry; he will be with you in church." The girl asked how. The mother answered, "When you receive the Eucharist, you will be receiving the body of your father." This sounded weird to me.
A: This is not what the Church teaches. We receive the body and blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ when we receive Holy Communion. But at no time are we closer to one another than when we are in sacramental union with him. This includes all those who have died in Christ as well. So in her Holy Communion with Jesus, if her father died in Christ, then she will be in communion with her father, but she will not be receiving her father.
Q: Did Paul see the risen Christ during the Damascus road incident? I thought he was simply knocked off his horse and heard a voice, but a book I read said he saw Christ.
A: As Paul’s conversion story is written in Acts 9, we don’t know if Paul saw the risen Christ (or if he was knocked off a horse, for that matter). The text simply doesn’t say. At that point, all he may have heard was the voice that said "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?" But in 1 Corinthians 15:8–11, he proves his credentials as an apostle by saying that Christ appeared also to him. We simply do not know when this post-Resurrection appearance occurred. It may have been at Paul’s conversion, or it may have been after he was baptized.
Q: We Catholics must believe in all of the teachings of the Church regarding faith and morals. What about disciplinary matters? How much liberty do we have in this regard?
A: We are bound to obey the Church’s disciplinary directives as expressed in her canon law and liturgy. We are free to not like them and even to disagree with them. But we are expected to obey them.
When the pope or bishops express their personal opinions on matters, Catholics are free to embrace contrary opinions. An example of this would be the current Pope’s statements on capital punishment or the war in Iraq.
Q: If the Church recognizes saints because of their lives of extraordinary virtue and miracles attributed to them after death, could the Church recognize non-Catholics as saints?
A: There is no doubt that many saints are in heaven that were not Catholics here on earth. But it is not likely that any non-Catholic Christian denomination would present one of its own to the Catholic Church for the scrutiny that is a part of the canonization process. To do so would be to acknowledge an authority present in the Catholic Church that other Christian denominations deny.
Q: If a person is unconscious and receives the Last Rites but is unable to confess, is he cleansed of his sins?
A: Yes, assuming his soul is properly disposed. In other words, assuming he has sorrow for his sins.
The Code of Canon Law says: "Individual and integral confession and absolution constitute the sole ordinary means by which a member of the faithful who is conscious of grave sin is reconciled with God and with the Church. Physical or moral impossibility alone excuses from such confession, in which case reconciliation may be attained by other means also" (CIC 960).
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states: "The special grace of the sacrament of the anointing of the sick has as its effects: the forgiveness of sins, if the sick person was not able to obtain it through the sacrament of penance (CCC 1532).
Q: My women’s Bible study group is working on the book of Ruth, and we are perplexed by the scene in chapter 3 in which Ruth effectively proposes to Boaz at Naomi’s bidding. For the time period, wouldn’t it have been presumptuous for a woman to ask a man to marry her?
A: In biblical times, women did have the right to claim the marital protection due to them. For example, in Deuteronomy 25:7–10, the remedy is explained for when a man did not want to do his duty and marry a widowed kinswoman. In the story of Ruth, Naomi merely suggests an expedient way of asking Boaz to stake his claim. He is not the closest kin, but he is the one whom Naomi knows that Ruth prefers (cf. Ruth 3:1).
In a time when people rarely married for romantic love alone, Naomi wanted to help Ruth make a match that was to her preference rather than the one that was required by the law. Boaz still had to agree to the match and both Ruth and Boaz had to hope that the kinsman with prior claim would renounce it (cf. 3:13). Interestingly enough, in chapter 4 Boaz—of his own initiative—maneuvers the kinsman to renounce his claim by pointing out the duties the kinsman will have to take on in addition to marrying Ruth (4:5).
Q: What is Quinquagesima Sunday?
A: According to the 1914 Catholic Encyclopedia, it marks the start of the fifty days before Easter, starting the Sunday before Ash Wednesday. Quinquagesima means "fiftieth" in Latin. The holy day was part of a pre-Lenten "countdown" to Easter that also included Septuagesima ("Seventieth") Sunday and Sexagesima ("Sixtieth") Sunday. When the liturgical calendar was revised after Vatican II, this pre-Lenten season was eliminated in order to focus more on the Lenten season itself.
Q: I have been told that the Catholic Church teaches that anyone who commits suicide goes to hell. Is this true?
A: No. What the Church teaches is that anyone who commits a mortal sin and does not repent before death goes to hell. Mortal sin requires three conditions: grave matter, full knowledge of the gravity of the action, and full and free consent to the action. If any of those three conditions are missing, there is not mortal sin. All we can say for certain is that suicide constitutes grave matter. Given the fact that people who take their own lives often are very ill or under psychological stress, those factors can impede their knowledge and consent, making their actions tragic but not mortally sinful. Only someone who freely chooses to commit suicide with full knowledge of the gravity of the sinfulness would commit mortal sin by his suicide. Even then, between unconsciousness and final death, God might offer the person one final chance to repent, even if such an opportunity is not apparent to us.
The Church says this about the eternal destiny of those who have taken their own lives: "We should not despair of the eternal salvation of persons who have taken their own lives. By ways known to him alone, God can provide the opportunity for salutary repentance. The Church prays for persons who have taken their own lives" (CCC 2283).
Q: A Protestant told me that our eucharistic ritual is invalid because Catholics don’t use real bread. How can I respond to this allegation?
A: The dictionary defines bread as "a baked food made of dough or batter, containing flour or meal, milk or water, and often yeast or another leavening agent." In the Eastern Church leavened bread is used. In the Western Church we use unleavened bread. In both cases what is used fulfills the definition of bread.
Q: One Protestant objection I hear quite often has to do with "our cross." The objection usually goes something like this: "Jesus died once and for all, for everyone. Any problems or difficulties we may encounter stem from our human nature or condition. To say that God gives us a cross that we must bear is not only unbiblical but minimizes Jesus’ ultimate sacrifice at Calvary." In other words, we’re carrying a cross Jesus already died on!
A: Unbiblical? What about the words of Christ himself: "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me" (Luke 9:23)?
While it is true that problems and difficulties stem from our human condition, they are permitted by God because they have the ability to conform us more perfectly to him. Taking up our cross is not in opposition to his cross, but our feeble attempt to be one with him in the love he has shown us in carrying his. We express love most sublimely through sacrifice, as Scripture abundantly shows us.
Q: Are the graces given at baptism (or any other sacrament) made dormant when mortal sin is committed?
A: Before baptism, the soul is void of sanctifying grace and is unable to receive it, because it is baptism that makes the soul receptive to that grace.
Here is an analogy: If you try to capture water on a round surface, like a ball, the water will roll off. But if you put a dent into the top of the ball, it can hold water. Our soul before baptism is like the ball, and grace is like the water. The soul cannot capture the grace, just as the ball cannot capture the water. After baptism, the soul is like the ball with a dent on top. It can capture the grace it receives. Continuing the analogy, if the soul turns away from God, it is like the ball turning itself upside down, away from God. The water (grace) is lost and the dent cannot capture any more until it is turned upright, toward God again. Confession is the normal way we turn the soul back toward God.
Baptism permanently changes one’s soul to make it capable of receiving grace. Each sacrament imparts sanctifying grace to the properly disposed soul. If mortal sin occurs, the grace is lost. The soul can receive it again once reconciled to God, because the special character that baptism bestowed remained even when the grace was lost.
Q: I am an advocate of in vitro fertilization. You may think that it is wrong because it promotes unnatural birth, but have you ever wanted to get pregnant and couldn’t? How can you oppose the right of a woman to have her baby? I would rather women adopt the orphans of this world, but I would never say that because a woman’s "conjugal" love cannot produce a child, she can never have children.
A: So often these days we deal with the argument that a woman has a right to choose to not have a baby—regardless of the fact that it is already in her womb. Now you are suggesting that a woman has a right to have a baby regardless of how the baby is conceived.
The Catholic Church is not attempting to define anyone’s feelings. It is concerned about what God allows and what he doesn’t. Our rights do not originate in how we feel. They come to us from God.
IVF carries with it a host of moral violations. Msgr. Daniel F. Hoye, the general secretary of the United States Catholic Conference and National Conference of Catholic Bishops in 1988, expressed grave concern over the decision by the secretary of health and human services to appoint an Ethics Advisory Board which would approve in vitro fertilization experiments in humans. In a letter he said, in part, "Recent studies suggest that over 95 percent of the embryos outside the mother’s body has made possible the deliberate discarding, freezing and experimental manipulation of human beings at their earliest state of development."
Beyond the horrendous acts that accompany the IVF process, one should recognize that the human person, from the moment of conception, has a dignity that is to be respected. It is not to be used, manipulated, and destroyed so that a woman can have her "right to have a baby." IVF is also destructive to marriage in ways less obvious but just as real (see Instruction on Respect for Human Life in its Origin and on the Dignity of Procreation).
Simply because we want something does not mean that we have a right to it. If we simply acted on our feelings and pursued whatever we felt like having, there would be utter chaos everywhere. We are not the center of creation; God is. It is God who decides what our rights are. God himself designed our sexuality. It is he who has the right to determine how we are to use it, and he has. He designed the context in which children are to be born, nurtured, and challenged on their way to adulthood.
Therefore, each child has a right to be the result of God’s design: the product of the love of father and mother as expressed in the mutual self-gift of sexual union, which fulfills the "I do" of their wedding vows. The design is God’s. No one has the right to counter his design by pulling conception out of its context and de-personalizing it.
For those having difficulty conceiving, it can be a tremendous hardship and sorrow. But skirting the moral law is not the answer. There are licit means to enhance fertility or overcome obstacles that inhibit conception. And as you mentioned, there are many children in the world looking for parents to love them through adoption. Trusting God and working within his laws is the way to approach any challenge we are presented with in life.
Q: Do Jesus’ words from the cross "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" mean that God the Father abandoned his Son even though, as God, he could have helped him?
A: If someone were to say, "I pledge allegiance to the flag" or "Our Father who art in heaven," most people could either finish the quotation or prayer or at least understand the ideas being expressed. That is because certain quotations in our culture, whether secular or religious, are known and even memorized because of their importance.
This was true of the psalms in Jesus time. He needed only to say the first line, and most Jews would have known the rest, or at least the message.
Jesus was quoting Psalm 22, a messianic psalm that vividly describes the agony the suffering servant would endure. God the Father did not abandon his Son in his Son’s suffering but allowed him in his humanity to experience the sense of divine abandonment that humans often feel during times of need, and especially when in sin. Just as we often feel that God has abandoned us when we are suffering (even though this isn’t the case), so the Son of God in his humanity experienced that aspect of human suffering as well. He died for our sins, and the weight of those sins—and thus the feeling of abandonment—must have been exceedingly heavy at that point.
By quoting this psalm, Jesus shows that he is the fulfillment of that prophecy and that he will be vindicated, which is evident in the psalm’s triumphant ending.
Q: I read what one theologian says, then what another theologian says, then what another says. I don’t understand any of them, and it just ends up confusing my faith. What’s wrong?
A: It might be that you’re reading things a bit over your head, but more likely the theologians you are encountering are not doing a good job of explaining things. If you are getting confused, changed the books you are reading. Theology should elucidate and strengthen your faith. Stick with reading what is authentically Catholic and gives you a solid and clear understanding of the faith. Start with Frank Sheed’s Theology for Beginners and Theology and Sanity, classic works both available from Catholic Answers.
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