Q: It is part of our culture to make Christmas about Santa instead of Christ’s birth and Easter about the Easter Bunny instead of Christ’s resurrection. Is it frowned upon to celebrate these other figures as well as Jesus?
In the month of December you can hardly enter any place of business without encountering a bell ringer in a Santa suit; in the spring, images of pastel-colored rabbits multiply like, well, rabbits. So the key to answering your question is what you really mean by “celebrating” these other figures. Santa Claus is derived from a Christian saint, the fourth century Nicholas of Myra; the Easter Bunny stems from ancient pagan use of the rabbit as a sign of fertility. Modern marketing wizardry…

Throughout human history, the act of sharing food together has suggested a level of bondedness between the people sharing the meal. Some of the significance has been lost in this day and age of American drive-throughs and eating on the run, but certainly in the Jewish culture of the Middle East at the time of Jesus, a shared meal connoted a level of intimacy between eaters. (For this reason Jesus was consistently criticized for sharing food and drink with tax collectors and sinners.) The Passover ritual that Jesus celebrated as his Last Supper included the practice of sharing food from common bowls, not unlike in various cultures and ethnic restaurants still today. In this sense, Judas can be accused of betraying…

It is not that modern books aren’t “good enough” to be in scripture, but that they aren’t “old enough.” Church leaders decided in the first several hundred years after Jesus’ lifetime which books should be included in the “canon” of the Bible and then they closed that canon. One of the criteria used to decide which books would make the cut was if the books were “ancient,” meaning written and handed down from our early Jewish heritage or in the first century after Christ’s life.
The teaching continues that since Jesus Christ was the invisible God made visible and the one who perfectly showed us who God is, we do not expect any new public revelation before his second coming. Since no one writing…

In the Old testament, Wisdom is often personified as a female figure who invites and leads others to righteousness. This female personification of Wisdom is widely regarded by theologians as a type – someone or something in the Old Testament that prefigures someone in the New Testament. There are various opinions about which New Testament figure Wisdom is prefiguring, but throughout the history of the Church many have made the case that Wisdom is a type of the Virgin Mary. So it’s not that Mary “is” the Wisdom figure; rather, it’s more accurate to say that many people find parallels between the two.…

The short answer is no. There are many people in the world who do not know Greek, but have a strong understanding of the Bible academically as well as spiritually. It is unlikely that any Christian you know, including your parish priest, is able to read the New Testament in its original Greek…

Church opposition to the death penalty stems from the fifth commandment: Thou shalt not kill. In recognizing society’s right to protect itself, the Catechism of the Catholic Church summarizes: “If bloodless means are sufficient to defend human lives against an aggressor and to protect public order and the safety of persons, public authority should limit itself to such means” (#605). Pope John Paul II further acknowledges in Evangelium Vitae (1995) that though capital punishment is permissible when there is no other way to defend society, “as a result of steady improvements in the organization of the penal system, such cases are very rare, if not practically nonexistent” today (#56). Did Osama…

The birthday of Mary has been celebrated by Christians since at least the sixth century. Though no one knows the real date of Mary’s birth, it has traditionally been celebrated on September 8th. It’s believed that September 8th was chosen because of its proximity to the Byzantine New Year on September 1st (the birth of the mother of the Savior represents the start of a new era, thus it made symbolic sense to have it close to the start of the New Year).…

Q: Soldiers in war are technically killing other sons and daughters of God in an effort to protect our country. Will this affect their fate on Judgment Day? Is it wrong to thank them upon their return home even though they’ve sinned?
Never hesitate to thank a returning soldier for his or her service to our country. (Thank you, veterans!) Military service cannot be reduced to any single act, and these returning veterans and their families need all the support they can get in response to their sacrifice and generosity. It is not your job to examine their consciences. Many of these men and women return home struggling with the psychological and spiritual consequences of their actions in the line of duty; they need to…

There are some extraordinary biblical scholars teaching, researching, and writing in the field of scripture studies. A few of the best known are Raymond Brown, S.S., Jospeh Fitzmeyer, and Roland Murphy, co-editors of the tome The New Jerome Biblical Commentary and past presidents of the Catholic Biblical Association and the Society of Biblical Literature. Raymond Brown also wrote a well-respected Introduction to the New Testament. Both are go-to references for homilists and students of the Bible.
A look at the editors and contributors of the two most commonly used Bibles in Catholic and mainline Protestant churches, the New American and the New Revised Standard Version, call to mind some other well-esteemed…

Question: I have always considered myself a good person. I tried to live by the golden rule. Six years ago I suffered a very traumatic event that destroyed my faith in God and people. I became very ill, lost my job, my apartment and my car. Lived on the streets for almost 3 years, began to drink and abuse drugs. I have been taking small steps to improve my life but I have not been able to regain my faith. I still question why God allowed so much to happen to me when I always put others before my own wants and needs and treated people right?
The fact that you are even thinking about restoring yourself to a healthy sense of faith betrays the fact that you would like a relationship with God despite all that has happened. That also shows…

Marian theology (or mariology) is theology that considers Mary in relation to God, to Jesus Christ, and to the Church as a whole. Marian theology is shaped by many things, primarily the Scriptural texts involving Mary, the Marian dogmas of the Church, papal writings relating to Mary, and by the way that Mary is experienced by ordinary Catholics. If you are interested in a sample of Marian theology, a good place to start is with the final chapter of Vatican II’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (1964).…

In 2011 Pope Benedict XVI proclaimed that October 11, 2012, would begin “The Year of Faith.” Longer than a calendar year, The Year of Faith is set to end November 24, 2013, the Feast of Christ the King, which ends the Church liturgical year. During this time, the Pope is calling upon the faithful to renew their commitment to the Lord in the face of growing faithlessness. The Pope chose this particular date because it marks two historical moments in the Church. First — the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II), the historic assembly when the Church took a look at its engagement with the modern world and changing society. Second — the 20th anniversary of…

Q: Swearing is a part of everyday life for many people. How wrong is swearing in the eyes of the Church?
If you read through all the moral instruction in the bible, you’ll never find anything like, “Thou shalt not say #%$&.” Why? Because language changes over the centuries and across cultures. Words considered deeply offensive in one time and place might be perfectly respectable in another. The commandments do say, beautifully summarized by Jesus himself in Matthew 22:39, to love your neighbor as yourself. How do you feel when someone speaks abusively to you or in your presence? Coarseness tends to devalue the listener and impede rather than enhance communication. Is it a serious sin? As in all things,…

The Latin Vulgate, or simply “Vulgate” as it is more commonly known, is a Latin translation of the Bible done in the late fourth century A.D. St. Jerome is credited with being the primary translator. By the Middle Ages, his translation had become the most commonly used translation, and it was declared the official Latin translation of the Catholic Church for centuries to come.
The Vulgate was notable because it was perhaps the first translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Latin from the original Hebrew (others were translated from Hebrew to Greek and then to Latin). Similarly, the New Testament was translated directly from the Greek into Latin. Later, many translators used the Vulgate as their source for…

Catholics believe that Mary’s body is not buried in the earth but, rather, is in Heaven. This belief, referred to as the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is a long-standing tradition that was formalized into a dogma of faith by Pope Pius XII.
In the apostolic constitution Munificentissimus Deus, he wrote that Mary, “having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.” In other words, if you are looking to find the place where Mary’s body is laid to rest, you won’t find one.
As a mom, I’ve come to understand the Assumption in a new way. When you are a parent, you spend hours looking after the needs of your child’s body: feeding, clothing, bathing, bandaging…

Of course they can! The name Halloween comes from All Hallow’s Eve, meaning the day before All Saints Day — those we call hallowed or holy as we hear in the Our Father…

I didn’t manage to convince the editors that it would be a legitimate research expense, so I admit I haven’t laid hands on a copy myself! But all the news about this racy bestseller emphasizes that it contains lots and lots of unconventional sex. As you decide about reading it, here are a few things to consider. First, some basics from Church teaching: sexual intimacy is a beautiful gift meant to unite a married couple and help them express their love for one another; it should also be life giving, open to the gift of a child and to a greater sharing of their love with the world. The relationship depicted in 50 Shades of Grey doesn’t live up to this standard.
But it’s fiction, just a harmless escape, right? To the…

The theological bases for approaching followers of other religions with respect and esteem are found dispersed throughout the various documents of the Second Vatican Council. For example:
God wills the salvation of all.
The whole human race is united in its origin and destiny.
God is active in the hearts of human beings, drawing them to God’s self.
God is active in the different religious rites which give corporate expression to the human response to God.
Human beings have been created with free will and must respond freely to God according to the dictates of their conscience, while always searching for the truth.
These teachings form the basis for interreligious/interfaith dialogue founded on mutual…

Many people ask their family and friends to pray for them during difficult times. Catholics believe that Mary will pray for us, too, if we ask. In the Hail Mary prayer, when we say, “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death,” we are asking Mary to intercede for us not just throughout our lives but also at the time of our death. The deathbed prayers are important because that’s our last chance to make our peace with God in this life. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church states, “Death is the end of man’s earthly pilgrimage, of the time of grace and mercy which God offers him so as to work out his earthly life in keeping with the divine plan, and to decide his ultimate destiny.”…

There are a number of ways to answer this extremely difficult question. First, the Church will never say it is OK to “aim at the death” of either your wife our your prenatal child — both are always going to be wrong. Life is of irreducible value and it is never acceptable to choose that an innocent person should die in order to bring about some other thing — even the very good thing of saving the life of someone else. This is the “Peaceable Kingdom” of non-violence into which Jesus calls all of his followers.
However, there may be times where one can choose to save one person while also “foreseeing but not intending” that one will therefore not be able to save someone…