Q: We’ve been wondering about the wording in the prayer used for those who attend Sunday Mass virtually. The phrases: “Come AT LEAST spiritually into my heart” and “I love You AS IF You were already there” don’t reflect good theology. Don’t we believe that the Bible and our faith assure us of God’s constant…
Jenna Marie Cooper Q: My new parish priest’s wife died before he became a priest. He sometimes even talks about his grandchildren during the homily. Why is this allowed? He obviously wasn’t always celibate, and I thought priests had to be celibate? A: Latin (a.k.a. “Roman”) Catholic priests are indeed expected to be celibate.…
Jenna Marie Cooper Q: I’m reading the Catechism of the Catholic Church and have a question about ccc 460. Can you please fully explain the lines: “For the son of God became man so that we might become God” and “… might make men gods.” I am to become God? That doesn’t seem right.…
Jenna Marie Cooper Q: How do we reconcile the story of Adam and Eve and original sin with evolution? A: We can say the creation story in the Book of Genesis – while being true – was not meant as a literal or technical scientific account of how the material world was formed. Although…
Jenna Marie Cooper Q: When I was an Evangelical I was told there was no such thing as ghosts and that paranormal phenomena were likely demons. What does the Church say about this? Doesn’t the Church teach that there are no such things as ‘apparitions’? A: The word ‘ghost’ can refer to several different concepts.…
Jenna Marie Cooper Q: Since the Church teaches that God is a forgiving God, how could he banish a person to Hell? It is very difficult for me to believe that God would make that an eternal habitat for anyone. A: According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “Hell’s principal punishment consists of eternal…
Questions of Faith There is an enormous gap between the public perception of sainthood and the reality of it. The vast majority of people believe that saints are born rather than made, titanic figures of myth and legend that we devote art to and tell stories about, nearly like Hercules or Prometheus, except that their…
Spend any time around Protestant denominations as a Catholic and you’re likely to be asked: “What’s the deal with Mary?” Or depending on who you’re chatting with, you might be more aggressively accused of “worshipping” Mary. Our initial reaction might be something along the lines of laughing it off, insisting that of course we don’t…
A common line of thought these days among critics of religion, and Christianity in particular, is that God must be a major narcissist, creating a world full of people, animals and more, to sing his praises from now through to eternity. Commandments from throughout the Bible to love and worship God, a ‘jealous’ God, have…
The Church has a long history of celebrating martyrs – those who died “in a supreme act of love, witnessing to their faithfulness to Christ, to the Gospel and to the Church” (Pope Benedict XVI, apostolic letter to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints). That logic is somewhat incomprehensible today, though. A certain amount…