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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 18, Number 2
 February 2007 
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Church of Pius X or John Paul II?
Q: How can the same Church that canonized St. Pius X consider canonizing John Paul II when John Paul stood for so many things that St. Pius warned against? If you honestly compare the Church of St. Pius X to the Church of John Paul II, you can’t help but wonder if they are indeed the same.
A: Without specific charges to examine, it is impossible to compare and contrast the pontificates of St. Pius X (reigned: 1903–1914) and John Paul II (reigned: 1978–2005).
There are, however, a couple of points that can be made:
St. Pius X was quite an innovator in his pontificate, as was John Paul II in his pontificate. As but one example, Pius X raised eyebrows when he opened Communion to children as young as seven and advocated frequent, even daily, reception of Communion by the laity. We take these gifts for granted now, but in the day and age in which Pius X reigned such innovations were rather shocking.
The Church’s pastoral practice, its liturgical discipline, and even its understanding of doctrine develop over time. Just as a man looks quite different from the child or the teenager he once was, so the Church today may appear different from what it was decades or centuries before. But just as the man substantially is the same person he was as a child or teenager, so the substance of the Church continues unchanged although different in appearance.
Analogously, John Paul II’s pontificate does not look identical to that of Pius X, but that doesn’t preclude them both from being holy popes dedicated to serving the Church.
I recommend that you study more closely the issues in which you have difficulties with the reign of John Paul II. It may be that there has been misunderstanding or that there is insufficient knowledge of what the Catholic faith allows.
—Michelle Arnold
Q: I am having serious issues with Marian doctrines. I feel the titles the Church gives to her, such as co-redemtptrix, mediatrix, and dispenser of all graces, really limit the power of Christ. I fear I am committing idolatry. Am I required to believe Mary is co-redeemer with Christ? Or can I simply not believe that doctrine at all because it isn’t dogma? I fear this issue will force me away from the Church for good.
A: It will help if you understand what the Church means by such doctrines and what it does not mean. First, the Church recognizes that Jesus in the ultimate sense is our only redeemer—plain and simple. Only God could make up for an offense against his divinity. When Jesus, the second Person of the Blessed Trinity, became man, he used the services of several human beings. he used prophets, the last of whom was his cousin, John the Baptist. He used St. Joseph as his foster father to protect him and to be a father to him in his formative years. Most of all, he used Mary as his mother who gave birth to him, nursed him, and nurtured him as a child. All of these people cooperated with him and his mission of salvation. He alone was the redeemer in the ultimate sense, but they cooperated with him in his work of redemption. In varying degrees they all could be called co-redeemers because of such cooperation. But because of her unique role and the degree of her cooperation, Mary is singled out. In all of humanity, God singled her out for a truly sublime role. Nursing Almighty God at her breast is beyond our ability to fully appreciate. Yet thousands of Christians since the Protestant reformation have completely ignored such sublimity.
What is said of co-redemptrix is also true of mediatrix. Because these terms can be highly misleading, the Church has not infallibly proclaimed them. (See article: www.ewtn.com/library/MARY/ORMARIA2.HTM) Nevertheless, God is the one who singled Mary out for the unique role in salvation that she has. She did not seek out such distinction. It is important to remember the high praise Jesus lavished on St. John the Baptist. Yet his mission was not nearly as exalted as Mary’s. Jesus worked his first miracle at her request. All she needed to say was: "They have no wine." He understood exactly what she wanted. He could have taken care of the matter on his own. But he chose to have his mother’s intercession be a part of the mix. The miracle wasn’t any less significant because of her part in it. On the contrary, she shows us how accessible he is to our needs. To truly appreciate Mary is to appreciate her Son all the more.
—Fr. Vincent Serpa
Q: Did the Church change the Mass so it would be more acceptable to Protestants?
A: The Church’s primary concern in the reform of the liturgy was not the sensitivities of Protestants but the active participation of Catholic laity:
This sacred council [Vatican II] has several aims in view: it desires to impart an ever increasing vigor to the Christian life of the faithful; to adapt more suitably to the needs of our own times those institutions which are subject to change; to foster whatever can promote union among all who believe in Christ; to strengthen whatever can help to call the whole of mankind into the household of the Church. The council therefore sees particularly cogent reasons for undertaking the reform and promotion of the liturgy. (Sacrosanctum Concilium 1)
Although the Second Vatican Council does include a concern for reunion among Christians within its reasons for liturgical reform, it does not give that as its first reason for the reform. Even so, the unity of Christians is a valid concern for the Council to have considered given the importance Jesus himself places upon it (John 17).
—Michelle Arnold
Q: How can I explain the Trinity to a "Oneness" Pentecostal who says that Jesus is the only God and that the Father and the Holy Spirit are manifestations and not different persons of the Divinity? And how can I explain baptism in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost when this person insists on Acts 2:38, repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus? He claims the name of the three persons, or manifestations in his view, is Jesus.
A: In Matthew 28:19 Jesus explicitly commands his apostles to baptize in the name of the Trinity. This is where the Church received the Trinitarian formula. It wasn’t some pope’s idea. In Acts 2:38 the author is not presenting a liturgical formula. He is concerned with distinguishing Christ’s baptism from John the Baptist’s. The practice of the early Church was thoroughly Trinitarian. For further information, go to www.catholic.com/library/Trinitarian_Baptism.asp.
—Fr. Vincent Serpa
Q: What was Ham’s sin against his father, Noah, which caused Noah to curse Ham and his offspring? Noah didn’t punish Ham simply because Ham saw Noah’s naked body, did he?
A: It appears that Ham’s sin was disrespect for his father. Not only did he see his father drunk and passed out naked, but he told his brothers about his father’s state and did nothing to correct the situation (Gen. 9:21–22). It was his brothers who covered their father and did so while avoiding looking at him in his undignified state (Gen. 9:23). In the culture in which they lived, Ham’s decision to publicize Noah’s indiscretion with alcohol and his undignified sprawl would have been mortifying to his father and would have been considered extremely disrespectful.
—Michelle Arnold
Q: Why is a fee required for an annulment?
A: The fee helps cover the costs associated with processing the case, including the salaries of the experts who are kept on staff to examine such cases. In his book Annulments and the Catholic Church (p. 7-8), canon lawyer Edward Peters states, "First and most commonly, there are the basic petition fees payable to the tribunal. This is what most people refer to when they talk about the cost of an annulment. In the U.S. most tribunals charge anywhere from $200 to $1,000 for adjudicating a standard nullity case… These fees are typically payable over time, and there are means for having fees reduced or eliminated in cases of financial hardship (canon 1464)."
—Jim Blackburn
Q: My Catholic diocese donated money and a stations of the cross set to Anglicans in our community when their church burned down. Do you think that Catholics donating money and gifts for the rebuilding of a Protestant church was inappropriate?
A: If there was danger that the rebuilt church would attract Catholics to leave the faith, yes. For several centuries following the Protestant Reformation, the Church discouraged cooperative religious projects with non-Catholics so as to protect Catholics from Protestant proselytism. In recent decades, however, that danger has died down considerably, particularly in mainstream Protestantism. If helping an Anglican church rebuild poses no apparent danger to the faith of local Catholics, it can be an act of Christian compassion to donate money and gifts to fellow Christians facing the tragedy of a destroyed church.
There are, though, non-Catholic groups out there who do continue to pose a danger to the faith of Catholics due to their combination of aggressive proselytism and anti-Catholicism. For this reason, it appears to be imprudent to help those groups (e.g., Seventh-Day Adventists, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses) to rebuild and furnish their churches. Even so, there would be nothing wrong with Catholics offering crisis funds to individual families within those groups who are in need of emergency assistance.
—Michelle Arnold
Q: Why doesn’t the Catholic Church emphasize reading the Bible?
A: Yours is a common misconception. Catholics meditate on Scripture at every Mass. The readings and responsorial Psalm during the Liturgy of the Word are taken directly from the Bible.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states:
The Church forcefully and specifically exhorts all the Christian faithful . . . to learn the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ, by frequent reading of the divine Scriptures. Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ. (CCC 133)
The Church even grants indulgences for reading the Bible. The Handbook of Indulgences explains, "A partial indulgence is granted the Christian faithful who read Sacred Scripture with the veneration due God’s word and as a form of spiritual reading. The indulgence will be a plenary one when such reading is for at least one-half hour" (p. 80).
—Jim Blackburn
Q: Why did the Church ban the Divine Mercy devotion from 1959 to 1978?
A: Because of faulty translations from the original Polish, St. Faustina Kowalska’s writings were considered doctrinally suspect, and so the Holy See suppressed the Divine Mercy devotion arising from those writings for about twenty years. Once the translations were corrected, the ban was lifted. The reversal of the suppression depended heavily upon the work of the Cardinal Archbishop of Krakow (Poland); the same year that the suppression was lifted (1978), that cardinal was elected pope and took the name John Paul II.
—Michelle Arnold
Q: Catholics say homosexuality is against natural law because God created the sexual faculty for procreation between male and female. Perhaps most interesting is the fact that many animals have the choice of both sexes but prefer the same sex. In fact animals with high status are among the most rampant. With this plethora of evidence how can some Catholics still insist that homosexuality is evil and against natural law?
A: Natural law pertains to creatures who can reason. The Old Catholic Encyclopedia quotes St. Thomas Aquinas when defining natural law: "According to St. Thomas, the natural law is ‘nothing else than the rational creature’s participation in the eternal law’ (I-II, Q. xciv)." Remember, many animals also eat their young. Better not to go there!
—Fr. Vincent Serpa
Q: My pastor says that after Vatican II we now believe that Christ’s presence in the Eucharist is equal to his presence in the Word, in the sacraments, and most of all in the assembly. Is this true?
A: No, it is not true. While the Church acknowledges Christ’s presence through the Word, the sacraments, and the assembly, the Church emphasizes his presence in the Eucharist in "a way that surpasses all the others." It is his presence in the Sacrament of the Eucharist, which is, for this reason, "a more consoling source of devotion, a lovelier object of contemplation and holier in what it contains" than all the other sacraments because it contains Christ himself and it is "a kind of consummation of the spiritual life, and in a sense the goal of all the sacraments. This presence is called ‘real’ not to exclude the idea that the others are ‘real’ too, but rather to indicate presence par excellence, because it is substantial and through it Christ becomes present whole and entire, God and man" (Mysterium Fidei, 38, 39).
—Peggy Frye
Q: I was baptized and confirmed 7 years ago. Before my conversion, I committed a mortal sin which I have never confessed to a priest. Do I need to mention this sin at confession?
A: Through baptism all of your prior sins were forgiven, so it is not necessary to confess those sins. The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains:
By baptism all sins are forgiven, original sin and all personal sins, as well as all punishment for sin. In those who have been reborn nothing remains that would impede their entry into the Kingdom of God, neither Adam’s sin, nor personal sin, nor the consequences of sin, the gravest of which is separation from God. (CCC 1263)
Confession is for sins committed after baptism:
Christ instituted the sacrament of penance…above all for those who, since baptism, have fallen into grave sin, and have thus lost their baptismal grace and wounded ecclesial communion. It is to them that the sacrament of penance offers a new possibility to convert and to recover the grace of justification. (CCC 1446, emphasis added)
—Jim Blackburn
Q: In John 10:16 Jesus says "I have other sheep that are not of this fold; I must lead them too, and they will heed my voice. So there shall be one flock, one shepherd." Does that one flock mean the One Holy Apostolic Catholic Church or does that include all the other Protestant churches in the world? What does the Church teach?
A: The Church teaches that the "one flock, one shepherd" in John 10:16 subsists in the Catholic Church, governed by the successor of Peter and by the bishops in communion with him (Dominus Iesus 17).
While the Church acknowledges that many truths are found in other ecclesial communities, the complete fullness of Christ’s teaching and grace is only found in the Catholic Church:
This is why Jesus himself prayed at the hour of his Passion, and does not cease praying to his Father, for the unity of his disciples: "That they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be one in us, . . . so that the world may know that you have sent me." (John 17:21, CCC 820)
To work ceaselessly and efficaciously for the return of all humanity and all its goods, under Christ the Head in the unity of his Spirit is the mission of the Church (CCC 831).
With Pope Benedict VXI, "Let us remember it in our prayer to the Lord, as we plead with him: yes, Lord, remember your promise. Grant that we may be one flock and one shepherd! Do not allow your net to be torn, help us to be servants of unity!" (Homily of His Holiness Benedict XVI, St. Peter’s Square, April 24, 2005)
Further reading: Catechism of the Catholic Church, 11-870; One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic: The Early Church Was the Catholic Church by Kenneth D. Whitehead
—Peggy Frye
Q: When is it appropriate to applaud at Mass? To do so appears to reduce the Mass to the level of entertainment, but so many people do it nowadays that I’d like to know if the Church has any teaching about it.
A: There is no Church document specifying applause as an appropriate liturgical response to music, singing, homilies, or announcements of gratitude by the presider.
Although the Church does not explicitly state that applause is inappropriate at Mass, that may be because such a stricture used to be enforced by Western society. As a matter of traditional Western etiquette, it used to be severely frowned upon to applaud in church because church services are worship offered up to God and not entertainment to be critiqued by the assembly.
Now that society has generally lost the sense that applause is inappropriate in church, I suspect that the Church may soon have to speak on the matter before people take the idea to its logical conclusion and begin to boo when they are insufficiently entertained at Mass.
—Michelle Arnold
Q: In his book God’s Debris, Scott Adams says that if God knows the future, then we don’t have free will because our free choices would change how the future unfolds. If we do really have free will, then God cannot know the future. How does Church teaching reconcile this?
A: There is nothing to reconcile. Because you know that the sun will be in the sky tomorrow doesn’t mean that you will have caused it to be there! Even though God already knows what our free choices will be in the future, our choices are still ours and are still free. If our free choices change how the future will be, God already knows that and has known it for all eternity.
—Fr. Vincent Serpa
Q: My wife and I have been married since 1996. At that time the priest told us that, according to the Pope’s teachings, under certain circumstances (economic if I remember correctly) the use of birth control was allowable. Is what the priest said correct?
A: If by "birth control" the priest meant contraception, then he was incorrect. Contraception is morally unacceptable. The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains:
[E]very action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible is intrinsically evil. (CCC 2370)
On the other hand, regulation of births through moral means may be a necessary aspect of responsible parenthood:
For just reasons, spouses may wish to space the births of their children. It is their duty to make certain that their desire is not motivated by selfishness but is in conformity with the generosity appropriate to responsible parenthood. Moreover, they should conform their behavior to the objective criteria of morality: "When it is a question of harmonizing married love with the responsible transmission of life, the morality of the behavior does not depend on sincere intention and evaluation of motives alone; but it must be determined by objective criteria, criteria drawn from the nature of the person and his acts, criteria that respect the total meaning of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love; this is possible only if the virtue of married chastity is practiced with sincerity of heart." (CCC 2368)
—Jim Blackburn
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