The Old Testament contains a vast amount of material about giving a portion of one’s harvest, properties, or ownings back to God. Many commandments in the Old Testament mandate giving of one’s “first fruits” i.e. the first of the fruit or grain harvest, or the first of the newborn livestock. The Hebrew word for this offering is translated as “tithe” or “a tenth-part” with the emphasis being that the first fruits are intentionally offered.
The New Testament doesn’t adopt the language of tithing or mandate that a particular percent be given for the support of a religious institution. That said, in Mark 12:41-44, Jesus praised a woman who put the equivalent of a penny into the Temple treasury (similar…

Secular Humanism is a particular worldview based on the principles of the Enlightenment. Typically, it dismisses religious affiliation or faith as beneath the dignity of the human person, who by reason and intellect alone, is capable of self actualization. Two of the most quoted phrases in this regard come from the 1973 Humanist Manifesto: “No deity will save us; we must save ourselves,” and “We are responsible for what we are and for what we will be,”
The principles of Secular Humanism can be found in the three “Humanist Manifestoes.” The first was published in 1933 by its principle authors, Roy Wood Sellars and Raymond Bragg, with 34 original signatories. It had fifteen principles…

St. Peter Canisius, a Dutchman known as the second apostle of Germany, was a 16th century Jesuit in the forefront of the effort to respond to the critiques of the Catholic church being made by protestant reformers in Germany, Switzerland and other parts of Europe. His pastoral strategies were built on the Jesuit idea of trying to see the good in the ideas and opinions of one’s interlocutor. He felt clarification of the church’s teaching was more helpful than decrying the ideas of the Lutherans and others. The three catechisms he published left a lasting imprint on the religious formation of many, many people of his times. He was one of the most respected and influential churchmen of his age, advising Emperors…

Your question goes right to the heart of a crucial point about Mary: she was human, not divine. Being human, she did not have knowledge of the future in the way that God does. The message given by the angel during the Annunciation lets Mary know that her child will be the Son of God, so she knew that much, certainly. But there’s no evidence that she knew the details of how her life and her son’s life would unfold. She went on faith – a pretty astonishing faith, actually.
In his encyclical letter Redemptoris Mater, Pope John Paul II commented on the level of Mary’s faith and the extent to which she embraced the unknown:
“To believe means ‘to abandon oneself’ to the truth of the word of the living God, knowing and…

The Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God is a liturgical celebration observed on January 1st.  It is a holy day of obligation for Catholics, meaning that Mass attendance is required (though the Mass obligation is sometimes waived by the bishop for various reasons; when in doubt, check with your parish.)
The use of the word “Solemnity” here is not a statement about Mary’s personality.  It is a designation used for certain days within the liturgical (church-based) calendar of the Church.  Solemnities are the highest rank of liturgical celebration, higher than feast days or memorials.   By celebrating a solemnity dedicated to Mary’s motherhood, the Church highlights the significance of…

Why not?  There’s nothing that requires us to make resolutions at the start of the new year as Catholics, however, we do seem to be a religion that holds this practice in high regard.
Each time we go to confession we “firmly resolve with the help of God’s grace” not to sin again.  We renew the promises we made at baptism during the Easter Vigil and at other times.   We make a public display of making some kind of resolution at Lent as well.
So my advice is that while we don’t HAVE to do this at New Year’s perhaps we use this period of time as a warm-up for Lent.  We should think about something that we might want to give up for Lent that is seriously unhealthy for us and begin to make…

Historically the most significant religious violence in India has involved its two largest religious groups, Hindus and Muslims. Christians in India (the majority of whom are Catholic) make up scarcely 2% of the population, and thus for many years they have remained largely on the sidelines of the conflict between these larger groups. However, high-profile murders of priests and Christian religious workers have occurred in recent years, and devastating violence broke out against Christians in Orissa state in 2008 after the murder of a local Hindu guru. As in many parts of the world, issues of class and socioeconomic status conflate with religious identification, and the caste system, though officially…

“The Joy of All Who Sorrow” is an Orthodox icon which depicts Mary standing below Jesus, who is in heaven. Mary is shown in the center of the icon, holding out her arms to the many suffering people around her, who are asking for her intercession. There are different variations of the icon, but all feature the same general subject and depict Mary’s loving prayers. Various miracles have been attributed to the icon, including one in St. Petersburg, Russia in 1888, when the chapel holding the icon was struck by lightning. Though everything else was burned, the icon remained unsinged.…

The stole is a scarf that was used as a symbol of authority for Roman officials. It would be something like the badge that a police or fire official wears today. The Catholic Church, when part of the Roman Empire, adopted the stole to indicate when a priest is engaged in his role as presider during the celebration of a Sacrament.
The colors for the vestments used in the celebration of sacraments and other liturgical events were selected by Pope Innocent III, a 12th century bishop of Rome, for their symbolism (white for Christmas and Easter, red for the feasts of martyrs and the Holy Spirit, green for ordinary time, and purple for Advent and Lent). They also evoke a particular mood. The color purple has a cool, calming effect…

The custom of eating fish for Christmas is more a practice in certain ethnic communities rather than a mandate by the Catholic Church. The roots for the particular instance you mention lie in southern Italy-some say Sicily, others say Naples, and yet others say it goes from Rome on down, especially in the coastal towns.
Early Christians used to fast all day Christmas Eve, not eating until after they received communion at Christmas Mass. This practice evolved into a vigilia di magro, a day of fasting, and abstinence like those of Lent, when the faithful are asked to forgo meat as a penitential gesture. Eating that seven-fish feast, the cena della vigilia (“vigil meal”), was to break that fast at the end…

Some of Mary’s apparitions have involved messages or visions that have a prophetic character. In 1982, the visionaries of Our Lady of Kibeho in Rwanda saw a frightening image of rivers of blood and massacred bodies. This is commonly interpreted to be a prophecy of the Rwandan genocide (many people were massacred in Kibeho in the 1990s). In La Salette, France in 1846, Mary warned the two visionaries of the impending failure of several crops, and of crushing famine; within a few years’ time, Europe suffered significant crop failure and many went hungry. Another example is found in Fatima, Portugal, in 1917. Among other warnings, Mary indicated that there would be the outbreak of a new war during the pontificate…

The lyrics of “Mary, Did You Know?”, a popular Christmas carol, were written by Protestant songwriter Mark Lowry. It’s a beautiful song that wonders whether Mary knew in advance about the way that her son’s life would unfold. The only part that could possibly be construed as “un-Catholic” is the verse that asks Mary:
“Did you know that your baby boy/Has come to make you new?/The Child that you delivered will soon deliver you.”
Catholics, of course, believe in the Immaculate Conception – that Mary was conceived without sin and remained sinless her entire life. In light of that, some might look at the above verse and think that it goes against Catholic teaching. After all, if Mary is sinless, she…

Once a couple has been properly prepared for a Catholic marriage, the actual celebration of the sacrament is extremely simple: all that is required is the presence of the couple, a priest or deacon who is the official witness of the Church, and two other witnesses. The couple express consent in the exchange their vows and then the priest or deacon gives them a nuptial blessing. All of the other trappings, from the white dress to the flower petals to the exchange of rings, are cultural. These expressions are important; they help to place the sacrament of marriage in the cultural context of the couple and their community and thus give meaning and joy to the celebration. Because the cultural symbols surrounding marriage…

St. Edmund Campion was born in 1540 and rose to great political, ecclesiastical and academic prominence in Elizabethan England. The Queen (the daughter of Henry VIII) and others recognized Campion’s talents and many spoke of him as a future Archbishop of Canterbury in the young Anglican church. To be a Roman Catholic in Elizabethan England was a crime punishable by death. In his early 30s, Campion chucked it all and went to Rome where he entered the Society of Jesus, the Jesuits. At the age of 40, he returned to England to preach the faith. Soon imprisoned for his work, the Queen offered him honors and influential offices if he would renounce the Catholic faith of Rome. Campion refused. He suffered torture on the…

In 1981, at a high school in Kibeho, Rwanda, a teenager named Alphonsine Mumureke had a vision of the Virgin Mary. Mary identified herself to Alphonsine as “the Mother of the Word.” When Alphonsine’s story was mocked by other students, she asked Mary to appear to others, so that they might believe. In January of 1982, Mary appeared to a girl named Anathalie Mukamazimpaka, and, two months later, to Marie-Claire Mukangango, who had previously been one of Alphonsine’s strongest detractors. The three women continued to receive public apparitions, many of which took place before large crowds. Mary’s messages often exhorted people to prayer and conversion. In 1982, the visionaries saw terrifying visions…

Exact statistics are elusive, but according to a survey by Forbes.com, an estimated 20 million pilgrims visit the shrine to Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City every year. (By comparison, visitors to the Vatican number approximately 18 million.) The shrine houses the cloak of St. Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, to whom Mary appeared on the hill of Tepeyac in 1531. She brought a message of hope and consolation to the indigenous peoples of the Americas, who had been brutally colonized by the Spaniards only a few years before. According to legend, she sent Juan Diego to the bishop with the request that a church be built in her honor on the site. When the unbelieving bishop asked for a sign, she sent Juan Diego to gather roses…

The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains that the state known as original sin began with Adam and Eve, and has defined human nature ever since. “By his sin Adam, as the first man, lost the original holiness and justice he had received from God, not only for himself but for all human beings.” (CCC 416) The Church isn’t saying that original sin is genetic, rather that it’s an inevitable part of being human.
Jesus, of course, was an exception, and the Catholic Church teaches that Mary was as well. Knowing that she would consent to be the mother of Christ, God gave her the honor of being exempt from original sin. “The Most Blessed Virgin Mary was, from the first moment of her conception, by a singular grace and…

“The mandatum is fundamentally an acknowledgment by Church authority that a Catholic professor of a theological discipline is a teacher within the full communion of the Catholic Church” (http://www.usccb.org/bishops/guidelines.shtml ). The mandatum is a relational reality between a Bishop and a Catholic person teaching Catholic theology within the diocese. A Catholic teaching Buddhism, or a non-Catholic teaching church history are not given mandatums. The Bishop is expected to give the mandatum to the theologian (“If all the conditions for granting the mandatum are fulfilled, the teacher has a right to receive it and ecclesiastical authority has an obligation in justice to grant it. (Cf. http://www.usccb.org/bishops/guidelines.shtml…

St. Nicholas, upon whom the figure of Santa Claus is based, was the bishop of Myra (today called Demre), on the Mediterranean coast of modern-day Turkey. He lived from 270-346. Nicholas was renowned for his generosity and also revered as a miracle worker, although little is known about his life. According to legend, Nicholas secretly tossed bags of gold into the window of the home of a poor family whose three daughters had no dowry; by providing them the means to marry he saved them from a life of destitution. Nicholas was also said to have left coins in shoes left out for him as he passed by. Out of this legend grows the tradition in which children set out their shoes on the eve of his feast day, December 6, in the hopes of…

Catholics liked him…a lot. And rightfully so since, even though he was a Hindu and not a Christian, he embodied much about what the Church stands for in her moral teaching. As the Second Vatican Council said in Nostra Aetate, the Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions:
“The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions. She regards with sincere reverence those ways of conduct and of life, those precepts and teachings which, though differing in many aspects from the ones she holds and sets forth, nonetheless often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all men.”
Ghandi’s use of non-violent civic disobedience was especially revered. Ghandi…