Origen’s Origin
You have contradicted yourselves. If Origen’s teaching was condemned during and after his lifetime, why is he revered as a Church Father? The Bible alone is our teaching authority — why listen to the words of uninspired men?
Carol Hoberg
Douglasville, Georgia
Editor’s reply: Indeed, or to uninspired women? Should no one pay attention to what you have to say, no matter how thoroughly you may have thought through a subject? Are you not able to bring out the words of Scripture, after study and prayer? It is true that Origen had a few doctrinal problems, the greatest being that he believed in what is known as the apokatastasis, the notion that even the damned eventually will be reconciled to God and that everyone will end up in heaven, with hell eternally empty.
Because he held this and a few other skewed ideas, Origen never has been numbered among the Fathers of the Church, as that term is properly understood. But he has been revered as one of the greatest ancient writers — and perhaps the most prolific, being said to have composed about five hundred books, nearly all of which are lost to us. He is a valuable source for us in that his words show what early Christians believed, and many of his arguments are worthy of emulation today.
We regularly quote him in our “Fathers Know Best” department, even though he technically is not numbered among the Fathers. Likewise, we also quote from Tertullian, who in fact ended his life as a heretic. But even those who are not without blemish in the faith can have much to teach us, and for that reason Catholics know they can learn things even from today’s Bible-only Christians, even though the Bible-only position itself is untenable
A Parental End-Run
I would like to make a comment about parishes in which children are not prepared for first confession before First Holy Communion. My parish is doing just that. I spoke to the priest, who refused to reconsider the position. After Vatican II there was “experimentation” that involved just what’s happening now at such parishes. In the early seventies these experiments were to have ceased.
I was in a quandary. What could I do? Well, I decided to prepare my daughter myself. Parents are the primary educators of their children. The grace we receive in the sacrament of matrimony equips us for that job. The experience was very positive. We wrote a respectful letter to the priest, informing him of what we were doing. He was cooperative.
This is an option that more and more families are choosing as a way of conforming to the Church’s teaching while remaining active in their parishes
Diana Kendrick
Spring Hill, Tennessee
Death Penalty Contradiction?
Through our readings in apologetics we learn that the Church does not invent new doctrines. We can show the consistency of Church dogma, doctrine, and teaching, from apostolic times to the present. In light of this I ask if the Holy Father’s teaching against capital punishment is a new doctrine. I understand his position against the death penalty because of his pro-life stand and the Church’s need to be compassionate. However, it is the terminology that confuses me. The Catechism of the Catholic Church recognizes the right of the state to take a life and to carry out the death penalty (2266). Yet we are told in the newest revision that this has been altered. We now are told that the continuation of capital punishment is no longer morally justifiable. I don’t understand how we can teach that something was once morally justifiable and now is not.
Leonard Pelletier
Lowell, Massachusetts
Editor’s reply: You have misconstrued the matter. The modification in the newest edition of the catechism does not say that capital punishment is morally unjustifiable. The Church’s teaching remains unaltered: The state may take the life of a criminal, if that is necessary to protect the public. The question today, as always, is: Given present conditions, in this culture and at this time, is it necessary to apply the death penalty to protect the public? The Holy Father says that the application of the death penalty should be rare today because there are workable alternative means to keep the public safe from vicious criminals. Perpetual imprisonment would be one way. Keep in mind that until the last century or so, prisons were used mainly for the short-term holding of those awaiting trial and not for long-term incarceration. There was no “penal system” as we know it. Those who committed serious crimes forfeited their lives, since the only practical alternative was to free them. In short, the Church has not changed its teaching, but, through the teaching office of the papacy, it is coming to see that in each age a consistent teaching should be applied in a manner appropriate for that age.
Nourishing New Catholics
In reading of the RCIA process in my diocesan paper, I wondered if a yearly mailing could be sent after Easter to all the new Catholics, inviting them to subscribe to This Rock. The dioceses where you have connections could ask all their parishes to submit the names so a list could be developed. In working with the candidates I find that they are very interested in reading more about their faith. Reading This Rock would fill this hunger and would help them see the wider Church in action.
Perhaps a program could be initiated with the parishes for them to buy a one-year subscription for new Catholics, as a gift of support from the Christian community. If the cost is prohibitive, perhaps a half-yearly rate could be tried, or pastors could encourage individual people to buy subscriptions for the new Catholics
Dale Nieberding
Dayton, Ohio
Editor’s reply: An inspired suggestion — one we hope our readers will follow up on without further prompting from us. Most parishes welcome several new Catholics at the Easter Vigil, and perhaps it would not be too much for us to ask that our present readers make inquiries at their rectories, obtaining the names of the newcomers and arranging for gift subscriptions. (Hint: Use the yellow card bound in each issue of the magazine.) Not only would this do much good for those received into the Church, it also would expand the Catholic Answers outreach.
Majors and Minors
Shall it be said that I major in minor things when I challenge the use of “B.C.E.” — that is, “before the common era” — or “C.E.” — “the common era” — to date time in professed Catholic schools and religious textbooks? I must say that if addressing the symptom of a disease rather than the disease itself is majoring in minor things, then I must agree with the critics.
Why are we encouraged to embrace a secular view of time in professed Catholic schools? Just what is meant by the “common era”? And what was “before” it? Why are we encouraged to embrace a secular calendar reform movement that removes the Incarnate Christ? Shall we remove Christ from all things? Shall we put him away except on Sunday, for an hour or less? Perhaps “Fellowship Brothers High School” instead of “Christian Brothers High School” is less offensive to a society that wishes to keep God bottled up like a genie.
But back to the original question. Why should we now replace our current dating of time, “Anno Domini” (“the year of the Lord”) with “C.E.”? So as not to offend those who do not share our belief in Christ Jesus? If this be so, it is a cowardly attempt at compromise with the spirit of the times. Jesus says we are to be the light of the world. Why should we Christians put a bushel basket over the way we view the most important event in all history?
I wish to mention another effort to remove Christ’s presence in time, the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution. The abolition of the Christian era occurred on October 24, 1793. No longer were years to be dated from the Incarnation. The revolutionaries dated their time beginning with the overthrow of the monarchy. The seven-day week was altered to ten days. The God of the Catholic faith was replaced. The “Temple of Reason” satanically took possession of the Cathedral of Notre Dame. The dating of time as the “common era” is merely a symptom of a culture and society abandoning the God who is revealed for gods made in our fallen image. Let’s not fall for this deceit.
Hank Williamson
Chesterfield, Missouri
Just a Sham
I read with interest the letters in the December 1997 issue regarding an earlier article on divorce. I am no Greek scholar and cannot comment on the proper or improper translation of the verses discussed, but I have never had any real trouble understanding what our Lord was talking about. In the Douay-Rheims, the word used is “fornication.” This word has obvious implications. If a person who has ever been married engages in sexual activity with someone not the person’s spouse (and the person’s spouse is still alive), that is adultery. Fornication is the act of engaging in sexual activity where the participants are not married — neither of them. So, if the word “fornication” is to apply, it must refer to something that happened out of wedlock.
The Church has always defined a marriage as complete when it has been both ratified (“ratum“), that is, the marriage vows have been validly taken in front of an ordained Catholic clergyman, and consummated (“consummatum“), that is, the couple have engaged in sexual activity with one another. If the latter, consummation, has not taken place, the marriage is not yet complete. Indeed, this is one of the possible reasons for granting an annulment.
For centuries, even before Christ’s time, it was customary for the family of the bride to offer proof that the bride was a virgin. If she was not, the marriage could be called off. Even on the wedding night, when the consummation was about to take place, if the husband was to learn that the bride was not a virgin — say what you will about the barbarity and propriety of the methods used for the determination of this fact — he could reject the new bride, and the marriage would be declared null.
This, it seems to me, is what Christ was talking about. If a husband finds that his new bride was not a virgin, he could still “divorce” her (the Douay-Rheims says “put her away”). If the bride had not been previously married but was found not to be a virgin, the only explanation was that she had been involved in fornication.
Am I totally off track here?
James Blum
Appleton, Minnesota
Editor’s reply: No, you’re not off track, but there is a more obvious and likely track that you could have taken. The Greek word behind “fornication” is “porneia,” and, yes, it can refer to the situation to which you refer — the bridegroom learning, at the last minute, that his bride is not a virgin — but it also can refer to those situations in which the “husband” knows very well that his “wife” is no virgin, precisely because they are unmarried but have been “living together” as though married. What they are engaged in, mutually, is fornication; it isn’t just that the “wife” had fornicated with someone else. The relationship envisioned here is the one we find commonly today, a sham marriage, but today there usually isn’t the pretense that it is a marriage at all.
“Worth Thinking About”
A letter that appeared some months ago regarding the Real Presence induces me to send you a bulletin from a parish in Tampa. It includes a short article, signed by Fr. George J. Dyer, that says Christ in the Eucharist “is not present to be adored or worshiped. He is there to join us to himself as he offers himself to his Father in a consummate act of love. This offering is what makes the Eucharist a sacrifice, and it is worth thinking about.” This sounds like heresy to me! I spoke to the new pastor, and he defended the article, saying I didn’t “understand.”
Rose T. Massari
Tampa, Florida
Editor’s reply: The misunderstanding seems to be on the other side. I can’t see how a priest could think such an article accurately reflects Church teaching. Fr. Dyer is simply wrong when he says Jesus “is not present to be adored or worshiped.” That’s precisely an intelligent creature’s top duty, to adore and worship God. Yes, Jesus is present on our altars “to join us to himself as he offers himself to his Father,” but that is not incompatible with his being there so we can worship him. (Why do even non-Catholics call their Sunday gathering a “worship service”?)
Answering Anti-Catholic Radio
I thoroughly enjoy This Rock and think you are strongly needed in today’s society. I want to share some of the ways I try to spread the truth about our faith. I travel a lot and so have time to listen to the radio. I mostly listen to Christian stations, most of them, unfortunately, Protestant. I became so frustrated at the errors they spread about Catholics and the outright distortions of our Church that I started to respond. Any radio program that bashes Catholics I send a letter to. In addition, I send a copy of Pillar of Fire, Pillar of Truth and some tracts. I get very little response, but I feel I’m getting the information where it needs to go. I also leave tracts in the Gideon Bibles in the hotels I stay in.
Patrick Dorsey
Lebanon, Pennsylvania
More Mormonism, Please
I am a new subscriber and was about to write to you about considering a large article on Mormonism, its practices today, its food collection (which it distributes free to the needy in Utah), its slick ads on television, and the recent outcropping of books on the Mormons. I was happy, instead, to learn that Catholic Answers will publish this spring a comprehensive overview by Isaiah Bennett. The Mormons have the richest and fastest-growing church, and they remain a mystery to me. Reading, a few years ago, a book about how one of its members defrauded the church through the purchase of faked ancient documents doesn’t do it for me. I can’t wait for your book.
Brother Joseph, S.M
San Jose, California
Feeneyite Cooing
Enclosed is an article from Catholic Family News. Karl Keating comes across, in the view of this Feeneyite, as a first-class [expletive]. He seems to have few conservative Catholic friends, so this sobriquet can be applied to them as well.
It so happens that a notice was received asking me to renew my subscription to This Rock. I’ve made many mistakes in my lifetime (like subscribing in the first place), but a repetition of those mistakes was not one of them.
So I hope Friar Keating will continue to burn to the point of disappearing in a mound of ashes as he fiddles on about “extreme Traditionalists,””illicit” Latin Masses, “rigorists,” and “Feeneyites”.
Ina word, kiss my royal Irish[expletive], all of you!
Thomas F. O’Connor M.D.
Sudbury, Massachuetts
Editor’s reply: Dr. O’Connor invites readers’ comments at 250 Morse Rd., Sudbury, MA 01776.
Shea’s “Crackpot” Comments
I am a former zoologist. I must take exception to some of the comments made by Mark Shea in “Brother Darwin’s Gospel Hour” (January 1998). I ask him not to be so hasty is dismissing any science that opposes Darwinian evolution as “crackpot” or “bad science”. In doing so, he dismisses some works by serious scientists, for example, Michael Denton and Michael Behe (author of Darwin’s Black Box and a professed Catholic).
There are serious objections to the theory of evolution, such as the fossil record (or lack of it). It is my hope that Mr. Shea will take it upon himself to write another article to clarify the issue, because my observation has been that evolution has done enormous damage to Christianity and even committed evolutionists such as Stephen Jay Gould admit that the fossil record is disappointing to Darwinists.
I am sorry to write to disagree with one of your articles, but I find it a little strange to see a Catholic writer so summarily dismiss all science opposed to evolution with two comments: “crackpot” and “bad”.This is unfortunate, and he should remember that there are several serious scientists with great scientific education that he dismissed unfairly.
Juan A. Alvarez
Surfside, Florida
Editor’s reply: You have misread the article. Mark P. Shea denigrated not science as practiced by men such as Denton and Behe but as practiced by some Fundamentalists. The fact is that there is good science as opposed to evolution and crank science opposed to it. It is the latter kind of science that allows evolutionists to pooh-pooh opposition to evolution.