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Q u i c k Q u e s t i o n s
Why Would God Lead Us into Temptation?
Q: We pray to God that he "lead us not into temptation." If God loves us, why would he lead us into temptation?
A: God does not lead anyone into temptation. When we pray that he "lead us not into temptation," we are asking God to protect us from entering into or yielding to temptation. The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains: This petition goes to the root of the preceding one, for our sins result from our consenting to temptation; we therefore ask our Father not to "lead" us into temptation. It is difficult to translate the Greek verb used by a single English word: the Greek means both "do not allow us to enter into temptation" and "do not let us yield to temptation." . . . We are engaged in the battle "between flesh and spirit"; this petition implores the Spirit of discernment and strength (CCC 2846).
Q: What is the Catholic understanding of gambling and playing games of chance?
A: Gambling is not intrinsically immoral, but it can lead to immoral behavior if practiced without prudence and temperance. The Catechism explains: Games of chance (card games, etc.) or wagers are not in themselves contrary to justice. They become morally unacceptable when they deprive someone of what is necessary to provide for his needs and those of others. The passion for gambling risks becoming an enslavement. Unfair wagers and cheating at games constitute grave matter, unless the damage inflicted is so slight that the one who suffers it cannot reasonably consider it significant (CCC 2413).
Q: Is there a patron saint for fallen-away Catholics?
A: There is no official patron saint for fallen-away Catholics, but a good candidate—and one whose intercession may be sought even now—may be Blessed Bartholomew Longo (1841–1926). Bartholomew was raised in a devoutly Catholic family, fell away from the faith during his years in college, and became a satanic priest. After much prayer by his family, a Dominican friar helped him repent and return to the Church. Bartholomew became a third-order Dominican and a promoter of the rosary (he founded the Daughters of the Rosary of Pompeii). He is mentioned several times in John Paul II’s apostolic letter on the rosary, Rosarium Virginis Mariae.
Q: Suppose that it was God’s will for someone to have six children. Say this person instead practiced family planning (either natural or artificial), and these children were never born. Would God see to it that these children were born to different parents, or would they not be born at all?
A: Your question seems to presuppose that the six hypothetical children’s souls exist somewhere waiting for their bodies to be conceived by their parents. It doesn’t work that way. A child’s soul does not come into existence until conception, at which point it is created immediately by God (CCC 366). Therefore, if someone chooses not to conceive children, any children he might otherwise have had do not exist.
The question also presupposes that it is God’s will for a couple to have a particular number of children. It is not clear that this is the case. God has not revealed to mankind that he wishes one couple to have three children and another couple to have nine. Instead, he wishes couples to make responsible decisions regarding parenting through prayerful reflection on their situation and then acting in a way that conforms to the moral law (which precludes contraception).
Q: My adult education class recently read and discussed Genesis 19:1–11. The instructor praised Lot’s actions and no one disagreed with him. I don’t think Lot’s offer of his virgin daughters to be assaulted was right, despite his motivation to protect his visitors. What could I have said?
A: Lot chose to commit one evil in order to avoid another. The Church clearly teaches that this is morally problematic: "One may never do evil so that good may result from it" (CCC 1789).
The article "Lot" in the Catholic Encyclopedia explains: Lot interceded on behalf of his guests in accordance with his duties as host, which are most sacred in the East, but made the mistake of placing them above his duties as a father by offering his two daughters to the wicked designs of the Sodomites. A Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture agrees: "Lot cannot be praised. He chose what he considered the less of two evils."
Q: At confirmation the bishop used to slap each confirmand on the cheek. What did that mean?
A: Before the reform of the rubrics that govern the celebration of the sacraments, bishops routinely gave each confirmand a symbolic tap on the cheek. As confirmation strengthens the Christian to witness to Christ and spread and defend the Christian faith (Code of Canon Law 879), the tap was a symbol of the hardships the Christian would face in his Christian life. Confirmation gave him the grace he would need to overcome those hardships.
The symbolic tap is no longer part of the confirmation ritual (though some may insert it anyway), but the grace of confirmation still strengthens the confirmand and enables him to be faithful to Christ.
Q: I travel a lot. Is it okay to receive the sacrament of reconciliation outside of my diocese?
A: A person may receive reconciliation from any priest he wishes, whether he is in his own diocese or traveling elsewhere.
Q: If they are doing what they believe their religion requires of them, will suicide bombers be rewarded with eternal happiness for their actions?
A: Even those who do not have access to the fullness of Christian revelation nevertheless have awareness of what Catholics call natural law (CCC 1956). An injunction against murder, both of oneself and of others, is part of the natural law (CCC 2070). However imperfectly individuals understand the requirements of natural law (CCC 1960), each human being is born with an intuitive understanding that murder is a great evil. Those who choose to commit murder anyway, even if they attribute their actions to what they believe their religion requires, will be held accountable to natural law.
Does this mean that suicide bombers will go to hell? Suicide bombing certainly constitutes grave matter. Only God can determine if those who commit such heinous actions have the requisite full knowledge and full and free consent of the will required for a sin to be mortal (CCC 1859, 1857, 2282). Christians are called to hope for the salvation even of suicide bombers and others who have committed horrible atrocities (CCC 2283).
Q: A nun told me that even though it has been the longstanding practice of the Church to baptize infants, the norm is to baptize adults. As a lifelong Catholic, I have never heard of delaying baptism until adulthood, which is what she seemed to suggest.
A: It is true that the first Christians baptized were adults, but that is because adults were the first able to hear Christ’s message and act upon it. Those adults who were baptized by the apostles often brought their families with them into the faith (Acts 16:15; 16:33; 1 Cor. 1:16), implying that the apostles did not limit baptism to adults.
Some early Christian converts (such as Constantine the Great, the Roman emperor who legalized Christianity) waited until they were on their deathbeds to be baptized, because baptism is a one-time-only sacrament that washes away not just sin but all punishment due to sin. This was not mandated by Catholic dogma, though. In fact, as the Church recognized the importance of baptism even for babies, one of the earliest Christian arguments was about the age at which babies could be baptized. To this day, the Church strongly encourages Catholic parents to have their children baptized as babies (CCC 1252, 1261).
Q: What is the Malleus Maleficarum, and how is it related to witch hunting?
A: Written by two Dominican theologians and inquisitors, Jacob Sprenger and Heinrich Kraemer, the Malleus Maleficarum (Latin: "Hammer of the Witches") was a fifteenth-century book intended to aid inquisitors in identifying and prosecuting accused witches. While it did not itself incite witch hunts at the time of its publication, it was influential in shaping later Catholic and Protestant thinking on witches. Although Sprenger had a deep personal Marian devotion, the book he co-authored with his Dominican brother Kraemer was searingly misogynistic.
For more information on the witch hunts, see "Who Burned the Witches?" (Crisis, October 2001) by Catholic journalist and medieval historian Sandra Miesel.
Q: I know Jesus didn’t have original sin, but was he subject to concupiscence in his earthly life?
A: Concupiscence is that impulse in humans that fights against right reason and inclines them toward sin. Jesus did not have concupiscence because he was free from every stain of original sin. As the Catechism states, "Concupiscence stems from the disobedience of the first sin. It unsettles man’s moral faculties and, without being in itself an offense, inclines man to commit sins" (CCC 2515).
Q: What is an apologist?
A: The word apologist derives from the word apologia, meaning a defense of a proposition or viewpoint. Broadly speaking, an apologist is someone who explains or defends a particular position. A person who explains and defends the Catholic faith is a Catholic apologist. Apologetics as a Christian discipline is a subset of theology that seeks to explain and defend doctrine through appeals to natural reason.
Q: What happens to us between death and judgment day?
A: Although human bodies die, human souls never die. The Catechism teaches that every spiritual soul is immortal: "It does not perish when it separates from the body at death, and it will be reunited with the body at the final Resurrection" (CCC 366).
At the moment of death, the soul separates from the body. The soul is judged immediately and enters either heaven (immediately or by way of purgatory) or hell. Each man receives his eternal retribution in his immortal soul at the very moment of his death, in a particular judgment that refers his life to Christ: either entrance into the blessedness of heaven—through a purification or immediately—or immediate and everlasting damnation (CCC 1022; cf. Luke 16:22; 23:43; 2 Cor. 5:8; Phil. 1:23). Just prior to the Last Judgment (i.e., "Judgment Day") when Christ returns, every soul will unite with its resurrected body:In the presence of Christ, who is truth itself, the truth of each man’s relationship with God will be laid bare. The Last Judgment will reveal even to its furthest consequences the good each person has done or failed to do during his earthly life (CCC 1039).
Q: Could the Holy Spirit be a woman?
A: God is spirit (John 4:24) and as such is neither male nor female because he does not have a gender. At a certain point in time (Gal. 4:4), the Son took on a human nature and became the God-Man Jesus Christ. The Father and the Holy Spirit remain pure spirit only.
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