The Episcopal Church belongs to the Anglican Communion, a world-wide family of Churches. The Catholic Church and the Episcopal Church both follow the Bible and the traditional Christian creeds, celebrate the seven sacraments, and have bishops, priests, and deacons. In its Decree on Ecumenism, The Second Vatican Council (1962-5) said that “among those (churches separated from it in the Reformation)in which some Catholic traditions and institutions continue to exist, the Anglican Communion occupies a special place” (par.13). The main differences still needing resolution are 1)the role of the bishop of Rome (pope) in a reunited church, and 2)the ordination of women as deacons, priests,…

In the most idealistic sense, a reporter investigates and writes stories that are in the public interest.  But what is that interest, really?  Does it foster civic engagement and bolster the common good, or is it for idle entertainment?

Ethicists distinguish between goodness and rightness in making moral decisions, and the Church emphasizes the importance of having a well-formed conscience to guide you.

In having your faith inform your work, 1) consider what you value most.  Is it the pursuit and presentation of truth and fact?  If so, toward what end?  2) Consider the potential outcomes.  Who will be affected by this outing of information?  Is it about a grave, systemic wrong or—instead—about…

Quetsion:  How can we be sure that heaven exists?  In the whole history of the world how come no one has ever crossed over or communicated from heaven? It seems that we were created from nothing, then it makes sense that we would go back to nothing. Thanks very much busted halo for answering.

How can we be sure anything exists beyond our immediate, personal experience?  I’ve never been to China, but I am sure it exists.  I’ve never seen my DNA, but I know it’s there.  Consideration of epistemological methods (“How do we know?”) is one of the hallmarks of the Catholic intellectual tradition from St. Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas to Thomas Merton, Karl Rahner, S.J., and Bernard Lonergan, S.J., in the…

The answer, simply put, is “yes,” but it is also not merely up to the priest to decide.  If by your question you mean that the priest sits before the eucharist is reserved by the deacon to the tabernacle than yes, that is OK.  There is no prescription that states that he cannot sit and the faithful also do not have to take their lead from him. They can remain kneeling even while he is sitting.
If you are saying that the priest simply left the Eucharist on the altar and didn’t return it to the tabernacle before mass finished, than that is actually against the rubrics.
However, it doesn’t sound like that is your question:
Cardinal Arinze who is the prefect for worship at the Holy See stated that…

Poor Job really gets a raw deal, doesn’t he? And it seems that God is the instigator of all this cruelty. Upon closer examination, however, we find that Satan – the one who accuses those whom God favors – is in fact responsible for Job’s suffering. In Job 1:6-12, we find that God is conducting a dialogue in his heavenly court with his angels and that Satan is present. This seems strange until we understand that in a king’s court, the role of the accuser was known as the satan. This story creates a scene of God in his “court” surrounded by his angels, one of whom is the satan (not to be equated with later notions of the devil) who accuses Job of being faithful to God only because things are going well. He wagers that…

There’s lots of debate around this one.   After the Fall, in Genesis 3:16, God tells Eve, “I will intensify the pangs of your childbearing; in pain shall you bring forth children.”    The Genesis author thus portrays labor pains as the consequence of original sin.
Catholics, however, believe that Mary was conceived without original sin: “[Mary] was preserved from all stain of original sin and by a special grace of God committed no sin of any kind during her whole earthly life.” (CCC 411).  Given that, many conclude that she would not have suffered labor pains.  This view was held by many early Church Fathers, and was mentioned in the Catechism of the Council of Trent.
That said, other theologians…

Question: I am wondering about Jewish people, my son is marrying a Jewish girl soon, If Jews don’t believe that Jesus is the Son of God In the second person of the trinity, how will they get to Heaven?  I was taught that one must believe In Jesus as the mediator between God and us.
There is a lot of discussion and debate in the church today about the question you raise. On September 1, 2002, a Christian Scholars Group published the following consensus statement:
“For centuries, Christians claimed that their covenant with God replaced or superseded the Jewish covenant. We renounce this claim. We believe that God does not revoke divine promises. We affirm that God is in covenant with both Jews and Christians.…

Question:  What is known about the use of Angel and Saints Oracle Cards? There appears to be “readers” who offer this as a spiritual guide. The cards suggest the use of saints like St. Francis, Mother Teresa and Padre Pio as spiritual guides. I doubt the Church would endorse such practices and a reader being paid to provide this service seems to mimic psychic or tarot card reading practices. Is a Catholic in “harms way” to seek or receive and be influenced by such card readings for oneself? Thank you!

Many people think religion is about pleasing God or getting God to do something we want done.  Religion at its best is all about living in loving relationship with God.  The manipulative…

Over the past 200 years, the Catholic church has consistently held a favorable attitude toward labor unions and the rights of workers to organize. A key step in attaining this position was the action of an American Cardinal, James Gibbons of Baltimore, in pursuading Pope Leo XIII not to condemn the Knights of Labor in 1887. The Knights were an American attempt to organize workers and some bishops argued that the group possessed the characteristics of a secret society. But Cardinal Gibbons saw that it was important to support the recent immigrants to American shores, many of them Catholic, whose work conditions were hard and often unjust.
Pope Leo XIII agreed, and in 1891 wrote a groundbreaking encyclical, Rerum…

Question: What is the difference in belief between Roman Catholics and Episcopalians? I was once told, “All the ceremony and half the guilt” but there must be more to it than that.
Indeed, there is more to it than that, though your pithy line has some validity to it as far as it goes. A large part of the Episcopal Church (its styles vary from the simple to the elaborate, from Evangelical to Catholic) has retained rich and reverent ceremony as part of its catholic heritage. And since the locus of authoritative teaching authority is less clear in the Episcopal Church than in the Roman Catholic Church, there may well be less guilt around not following church teachings.
Belief-wise, Episcopalians (Anglicans)…

“For freedom Christ has set us free” (Gal 5:1).  God loves us and God’s grace frees us.  That’s the foundational truth of our faith.  All else is understood in relation to that overwhelming reality: God loves us.  We can trust God to forgive us and wipe out all our past transgressions, sins, and failures (cf. Mk 2:5; Lk 7:47; Lk 15:11-32; Col 1:14; Jas 5:15; 1 Jn 1:19).  Let go of the past and let God be God in your life.  The unknown author of the 14th century spiritual classic, The Cloud of Unknowing said it best: “It is not what you are, nor what you have been, that God sees with his all merciful eyes, but what you desire to be” (chap 75).  Better than agonizing over past indiscretions, spouses might…

We know that God chose Mary to be Christ’s mother.  We also know, however, that Mary was free to reject this call.  As the Catechism of the Catholic Church says, “’God sent forth his Son,’ but to prepare a body for him, he wanted the free cooperation of a creature.  For this, from all eternity God chose for the mother of his Son a daughter of Israel, a young Jewish woman …” (CCC 488).
Emphasizing the “free cooperation” idea, the Catechism then says, “The Father of mercies willed that the Incarnation should be preceded by assent on the part of the predestined mother.”   So we believe that God intended Mary to be the mother of Christ, and that he knew that she would accept – but we also believe that…

Your question is an interesting one and one we’ve talked about before.  While you have good intentions in trying to keep your Sunday obligation to God by listening to the podcast of mass, you’re missing one of the main elements that we have at mass which is the community.
Mass is not just about our own relationship between God and oursleves but also it’s about our relationship to the community that we live in as well–it’s about coming together as a community and praying with one another.  We remember that not one of the disciples shared the last supper with Jesus alone, rather they ate the first Eucharist together.
So the question here is not merely about punching your mass attendance…

Dan Brown created quite a stir with his book The Da Vinci Code and the resulting movie in which he purports that the Church has been covering up the marriage of Jesus and Mary Magdalene (as well as their offspring) in order to crush the “feminine divine.” Brown proposes that the basis for all of this is found in what he refers to as “numerous references” to Jesus and Mary Magdalene in apocryphal writings, particularly the apocryphal Gospel of Mary (Magdalene), which he claims the Church has been suppressing for centuries. In reality, there are very few references to Jesus and Mary Magdalene in these writings, all of which can easily be found on the Internet and in libraries. More importantly, none of the references…

Dreams are simply manifestations of one’s UNCONSCIOUS mind.  For sin to be considered sin we have to CONSCIOUSLY choose them.  So no, your sin in your dream is not something you need to confess.
However…(there’s always a however) you may be pushing down some of your innate desires and they are manifesting themselves in your dreams.  Dreams indeed do tell us a bit about ourselves and what we truly wish we could do, or perhaps they invent solutions to things that are troubling us that we work out in our subconscious.
So as an example, if we dream about having a liaison with someone we’re not married to, we might want to address what our dream is telling us and to try to have more chaste…

As the question does not specify what kind of a non-Catholic wedding (e.g. Protestant or Orthodox Christian, or Hindu?), the answer must of necessity be broad as well.
Be a respectful observer. Participate to the extent your own faith tradition allows. Pray well for the couple being married. Do what Jesus did at the wedding feast of Cana: add joy to the occasion.
Fr. Thomas Ryan, CSP is the Director of Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations for the Paulist Fathers.…

Consult professionals who deal with people who experience your condition.  It is only relatively recently in human history that we have discovered so much about our world (think of the advances in physics and biology these past 100 years) and ourselves (sexuality wasn’t even spoken about in very recent eras).  The reality of transgender people may be as old as humanity but the ability to do something to transform a person’s gender on both the physical and psychological levels is only a few decades old.  One who feels trapped in the “wrong” body should consult widely.  Most importantly, take your feelings to God in prayer and listen long and lovingly to what God desires of you in this life.
The Church’s…

Unfortunately, there’s no tidy answer to this.  The Protoevangelium of James, an apocryphal text written around A.D. 150, tells an elaborate backstory of Mary’s childhood, portraying her as destined for holiness.  Of course, this text is not part of sacred Scripture, so it doesn’t offer a reliable answer.  It does, however, show that early Christians were interested in this very question.
Perhaps it’s best to focus on what we do know: first of all, that God made Mary free of original sin at the time of her own conception (the Immaculate Conception) in readiness for her role as Christ’s mother.  That said, we also believe that Mary was free to reject this role.   To quote the Vatican II document…

Burying the statue of St Joseph in your backyard offers no guarantee of the house actually being sold.  What it does offer is that St Joseph will pray for a successful sale of your home.
That sale may just take some time.  Perhaps he is looking for the right buyer, or the right time, or when the economy is better?  Who knows?  But suffice it to say that burying the second statue certainly can’t hurt your chances of it being sold–nor is it something that you shouldn’t do.  Burying the statue upside down is simply an old ritual that people developed themselves and that some have found success with.  But it’s not a magical formula that guarantees a sale–that would mean…

Miracles require faith and faith has no proof. Catholic tradition holds that Jesus’ multiplication of the loaves and fishes (the only miracle told by all four Gospels: Mt 14:13-21; Mk 6:32-44; Lk 9:10-17; Jn 6:1-13) was indeed a supernatural event, revealing Jesus as the Bread of Life. In the Old Testament, God fed the Israelites in the desert with “bread from heaven” – manna (Exodus 16). It was believed that this miracle would be repeated by the Messiah (the anointed one) when he came. By multiplying the loaves (and fish), Jesus provides for the needs of the people as the Father once did. It is no surprise, then, that the people want to anoint Jesus as their king following this miracle. It is natural for us…