The word “fatwa” comes from the Arabic root “fata,” meaning newness, clarification or explanation. It refers to a scholarly opinion or ruling on matters of Islamic law, known as Sharia. The scholar who issues the fatwa, known as a “mufti,” draws on his own wisdom and knowledge of Islamic sources to interpret Sharia and address questions not specifically addressed in the law. These may include any aspect of individual life, social norms, financial affairs, moral decisions, politics, etc. Unfortunately in the west the term has become identified with a few highly publicized condemnations, but the vast majority of the millions of fatwas that have been issued in the history of Islam are non-controversial.…

The strange answer to this question is Clare of Assisi. Why is is strange? Well, there was no TV in Clare’s time for one and two, Clare was in a secluded community of women’s religious modeled after St. Francis’ teachings. In fact, Clare and Francis were quite close and she cared for Francis at the end of his life when he was ill. So the patron saint of TV never even watched one show or saw the invention itself.
So why television?
Pope Pius XII declared Claire the patron saint of TV because as was nearing the end of her life and was too ill to attend Mass, images of the Mass appeared on the wall of her cell much like a TV screen would look.…

Question: How do I get a Catholic hospital chaplain to visit my father in the hospital?  With the Hippa laws, they don’t send them over anymore.
Very easy. Every hospital I have ever been in has a pastoral care dept. or chaplains’ office. Ask your nurse for the number. Call them and tell them you would like your father to be visited by the priest or Eucharistic minister. Also, if you are near your home parish, call the rectory and inform them your father is in the hospital.
Know that priests and pastoral ministers cannot read peoples’ minds. Be ready and willing to share with them the level of involvement with the church that the ill person usually maintains. It is awkward to be asked to bring communion to “Dad”…

In the time of Jesus, a widow who had no close male relative to look after her faced a precarious existence. By entrusting Mary to the “beloved disciple” (commonly understood to be John), Jesus was showing love and concern for his mother, ensuring that she would be safe and cared for after his death.
Additionally, the Catholic Church has always seen this as a defining moment in the role of Mary in the Church. With the words, “Woman, behold, your son” and “Behold, your mother,” the Church teaches that Mary became the mother not just of John, but of all believers. Pope John Paul II reflected on this belief in his 1987 encyclical letter Redemptoris Mater:
“The words uttered by Jesus from the Cross signify…

The Transfiguration is a Gospel event from the life of Jesus that is reported in three of the four gospels (Matthew 17:1-9, Mark 9:2-8, Luke 9:28-36). Jesus went up a mountain with his disciples that overlooks Jerusalem and is seen with Elijah and Moses while he “transfigures”, meaning that the disciples see Jesus as He would appear after the resurrection. The gospels report that Jesus face and clothes became “dazzling white.”
The story is meant to not simply be a miracle but also has several other meanings to ponder. One is that Jesus is the fulfillment of the old law and the prophets (why He is seen with Moses (Giver of the law) and Elijah (greatest of all prophets). As they overlook Jerusalem…

The desert fathers (and mothers!) were the pioneers of monastic life in the Church. Beginning in the third century, some Christians began to flee the comforts and conflicts of pagan cities to seek a life of asceticism in the desert. They sought a simpler life, in imitation of Christ during his forty days in the wilderness, and dedicated themselves to solitude, labor, poverty, fasting, charity and prayer. Some of them lived in isolation; others developed rules for communal life that evolved into large monastic communities. Over time their reputation for holiness grew, and Christians from the surrounding areas sought them out for advice and spiritual direction.
Some of them became great spiritual giants and…

Indeed we have. From 1978 until 2001, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Southern Baptist Convention held a series of very candid theological conversations. The official dialogue produced two reports.
The first, “To Understand Each Other,” produced in 1989, covered a variety of topics including Sacred Scripture, salvation, spirituality, church and ministry, the roles of missionaries.
The second, “Report on Sacred Scripture” was an in-depth study on how each of our traditions approaches the Bible and how we use it in the life of our communities. The dialogue also produced several study guides on such diverse topics as the environment, poverty, racism, life issues, and one…

First, ask yourself who died and left you in charge of making such judgments of taste? Remember the old Latin phrase, “de gustibus non disputatem est” (there’s no accounting for taste). I would bet $100 that what you “don’t like” someone else in the congregation “does like.”
A story: One lady got mad at me once because I didn’t urge people to receive on the tongue. When I tried to point out to her the church’s clear teaching on the option of receiving in the hand, I had the distinct impression that she was one day going to be telling someone about this priest, i.e., me, who didn’t do what she “likes.” Most people like it when I play the guitar to emphasize a point in a homily at a college…

I don’t know about “hidden” symbols specifically, but there are many traditional symbols for the Mother of God. These include a heart pierced by a sword or swords (echoing the words of Simeon in Luke 2: 34-35) and the mirror, a symbol of her sinlessness. Mary has sometimes been represented by the image of an enclosed garden, symbolizing her purity (this comes from the description of the bride as “an enclosed garden, a fountain sealed” in Song of Songs 4:12). Speaking of gardens, throughout the centuries many flowers, plants, and herbs have come to be symbolic of Mary’s different attributes. It would take too long to list them all here, but they include the lily of the valley (said to represent Mary’s…

Today there are many resources available for Catholics to delve more deeply into the Word of God online. A good place to begin is simply by linking to the New American Bible online, provided by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Here you can read the translation that Catholics hear at Mass in the United States while accessing all of the footnotes and introductory resources that accompany it. Beginners may want to visit a site such as Daily Word of Life: Home Bible Study by Kay Murdy which provides some very nice basics for understanding God’s Word in Scripture. A good way to engage with Scripture online in a very Catholic manner is to focus on the Sunday Scripture readings. Weekly reflections and background…

What are hermits?  And do they have anything to do with Catholicism?
A hermit is someone who has withdrawn to a solitary place for a life of religious seclusion. The word comes from the Greek “eremos,” meaning desert – hence a hermit is a person who lives in the desert. The idea of pursuing a reclusive lifestyle for religious reasons exists in many spiritual traditions.
In Catholicism, the hermit’s life recalls the biblical examples of the prophet Elijah, John the Baptist, and of course Jesus, during his forty days in the desert. As early Christian monastic life developed in the third century, many people were drawn to this lifestyle, inspired by the example of St. Anthony and the other desert fathers…

That depends on the denomination. The general rule in ecumenical circles is to let people define themselves. Thus, most Protestant denominations will consider each other as well as non-denominational congregations as “churches” in the broader sense of the word. We Catholics take our lead from the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (Lumen Gentium) of the Second Vatican Council which proclaimed in Paragraph 8 that “while the Church of Christ constituted and organized in the world as a society, subsists in the Catholic Church…many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside of its visible structure.” Depending on how many of these elements are present, we make a distinction…

There’s an old Latin phrase, de gustibus non disputatem est (“there’s no accounting for taste”). Personally, I think visiting Cathedrals is always interesting. From The National Shrine in Washington, DC, to the Western flavor of the Cathedral in Salt Lake City to the flow of humanity I’ve observed in Cathedrals from Philadelphia to Seattle, I always am amazed at the reality of the church on display in these buildings and human meeting spaces.

Jesus makes the analogy so that people will understand that God cares for us as a parent cares for a child. Some might say that he knew what He was doing when he opted for using “Father” as opposed to “Mother.”
God is genderless, but there is a great absence felt by those who do not have the love of a Father, especially men, who have lost or never known a Father. A horrifying statistic is that about 70% of prisoners in the United States do not have a father in their lives. He may have realized that people lacked this bond and would need to seek God in order to fill that absence.…

St. Mary Magdalene was a close follower of Jesus and a supporter of his ministry. The gospel of Luke mentions Mary Magdalene, “from whom seven devils had gone out,” in a list of women disciples who followed Jesus and assisted him out of their means (Luke 8:1-3). According to the gospels, she remained with Jesus at the foot of the cross and witnessed his burial. Then she became the first witness to the resurrection – in the gospel of John, the risen Jesus sends her to the other disciples to proclaim the good news (John 20:11-18). Unfortunately, her memory has been distorted throughout history and she has erroneously been identified as a prostitute or as the sinful woman in Luke 7:36-50. This has allowed the popular…

Welcome home. That sounds like quite a spiritual adventure. The quick answer to your questions is that no, you do not need to get “re-baptized” to come home to your Catholic faith. Usually all that is required is a good general confession. Depending on how long you have been away, I would highly encourage you to engage in a slow deliberative process of re-acquainting yourself with the Church. Many parishes have programs for those who are returning to the active practice of their Catholic faith (often called Reconciliation Ministry), such as “Landings” (run by the Paulists), “Catholics Coming Home” or “Re-Membering Church.” Such programs provide the opportunity to ease back into…

The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius are the methods of prayer and ways of relating to God that Ignatius of Loyola developed in the years after his conversion to Christ. Ignatius realized God loves us and wants to deal personally with each of us. One way to let God be God in our lives is to pull back from the hustle of daily life and go on retreat.
The full Exercises usually entail 30 days of silent retreat divided into four “Weeks” (roughly seven days). Each day the retreatant spends four or five hours of prayer a day and attends daily Eucharist. Daily, she or he will meet with a Director of the Exercises, one trained to guide and coach a person through the experience.
The First Week, the person making the Exercises…

A few thoughts come to mind with regards to your question (which, by the way, is a great one to address). First off, let’s reflect on what the Catholic Church teaches about Mary and prayer. Mary is not seen as the source of grace herself; that is reserved to God. The Church instead teaches that she’s a very powerful intercessor on our behalf. So it’s useful for us to make sure that our prayers reflect her role as intercessor, and that we aren’t investing her with power that really belongs to God.
That said, there are plenty of reasons why Catholics ask for Mary’s intercession. I’ve talked to women who love praying to Mary because they know that she understands them as moms, or as wives, or simply as women, period.…

Although the story of the sacrifice of Isaac is great inspiration about the faith of Abraham, it often leaves us feeling troubled about God! What kind of God would ask someone to sacrifice his own son?
In order for us to wrap our heads around this story, we need to do some time travel – oh, perhaps about 4000 years or so! The story of Abraham is among the oldest pieces of literature in the Bible, taking us back to a time and place in which human sacrifice was not unheard of. Abraham is disappointed with God’s request but, within his historical context, recognizes it as something that is not out of the question when it comes to worship of the gods. Recall that, throughout the Old Testament, God is gradually revealing himself…

St. Bonaventure (1221-1274), bishop and doctor of the Church, was a medieval scholastic theologian and philosopher. According to legend, he became gravely ill as an infant and his mother took him to St. Francis to pray for his recovery. St. Francis had a vision of the child’s future greatness and exclaimed, “O buona ventura!” – O, good fortune! – and he was thenceforth known as Bonaventure.
St. Bonaventure entered the Franciscans at age 22, studied in Paris alongside St. Thomas Aquinas, and became general of his order of Franciscans at age 35. Pope Gregory X made him a cardinal and bishop of Albano (today part of Italy) and insisted on his presence at the Council of Lyon in 1274, where he contributed to…