Ask a Catholic

[Fiosh]

Okay, now that we have that out of the way...

My questions.

What does it mean to you when you consider "the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom" the moment Jesus yielded His spirit? [Matthew 27:51]

Hi Wayne, sorry for the delay in answering this one. I'm assuming this is a rhetorical question, as I'm sure you know what it means. The veil separated the people from the Holy of Holies---the Presence of God. Only the priest could pass thru the veil, and only on the Day of Atonement. Thru the Cross, Jesus atoned for our sins and made it possible for all people to have access to the Presence of God.( and yeah, I see where you're goin' with this) The veil was torn from the top, to indicate that it was torn by God Himself.

In the same context, the writer of Hebrews specifically mentioned a new High Priest according to the order of Melchizedek. Who is this? [Hebrews 7] Why wasn't Peter mentioned?

The new High Priest is Jesus. This chapter focuses on how Jesus fulfills the prophecy in Psalm 110:4 of a new priesthood.

Lastly, and still in the same context, why did Jesus never mention Peter as a source of knowledge and remembrance? He only mentioned the Holy Spirit when He spoke to His disciples and recorded for all believers. Why did he not mention Peter if Peter was the 1st of a long line of high priests?

Peter is not a "source of knowledge"---God is. A priest or pope is not the "source" of knowledge. The Pope is guided by the Holy Spirit to lead the Church to all truth. The Pope, as do priests, as do we all, shares in the one priesthood of Jesus.

EDIT:

One more question (all in context to the original)... What role does Paul, Timothy, the Ethiopean Eunuch, James, et.al. serve? Do they all come under Peter's authority? If so, what Scriptural reference reflects this?

I'm not sure I understand your first question, Wayne---"what role do they serve" ???

Do they come under Peter's authority? Interesting question.

I would say since Jesus gave Peter the "keys to the kingdom", and told him to "feed my lambs/sheep", and to "strengthen your brethren", than Yes.

And, I'm drifting into opinion here,(breaking my own rule) I believe that the full understanding of the role of "pope" developed over time as the Church grew. The Church is a living organism---it grows and develops, much like a mustard seed that grows into a tree. It doesn't change in essence, but rather blossoms forth.

I am sure that you folks see my real point here. Essentially I am asking you to clearly establish Peter's authority as the first leader of the Church and in context to the whole and not just one Scripture taken out of context.

See my last post before this one.

Thanks for your questions, Wayne.

Peace,

Fiosh

[Fiosh]

A few pages back, ErichH had a question about why we Catholics believe that the deposit of faith is contained in Sacred Scripture and Tradition. He asked for Scripture references.

Here ya go, Eric:

1Cor 11: 2

2Thess 2:15

2 Thess 3:6

John 21:25

Mk 13: 31

Acts 20:35 (Paul records a saying of Jesus not found in the Gospels)

2 Tim 1:13

2 Tim 2:2

2 Peter 1:20

2 Peter 3: 15-16

1 Peter 1:25

Rom 10:17

1 Cor 15: 1-2

Mk 16:15

Mt 23: 2-3

Peace,

Fiosh

[Elisabeth]

Pax,

Thank you. I'm sorry that you had to experience an annulment.

Grace and peace to you.

[Smalcald]

Thanks for the answers on the annulment.

I don't in general like the concept in how it is applied. However I see the wisdom of the general idea. What I mean by that is if you marry in the Church and ask God to bless that union, then it would seem important that if you want to drop that union and break that promise that you ask God and the Church, for the right to do that.

Now we may say well divorce is never acceptable except for adultery, and some even say no about that. Well fine, except that Evangelicals don't come close to following that. What do we do? We go off and re-marry in some different church and THEN ask forgiveness for our sin, it is called planned repentance and it is very spiritually dangerous. I think we do need to look at an annulment type process for divorce within our churches. It may be one of the reasons' that Catholics have lower divorce rates than Evangelical Protestants in general in the US.

The reason I have somewhat of a problem with annulments is that they seem inconsistently applied. Some get one, some don't, some seem to have to go through huge hassles others don't. I do think that Christ gave exceptions for granting a divorce, He didn't say we had to pretend the marriage never really existed, which is problematic in many ways and I think kind of hypocritical. It is like having a rule (no divorce) then this "out" which everyone knows is really just a divorce.

But I do think that Christians who want to divorce should indeed have to go back to the church they were married in and ask for that divorce to be granted. If they were not married in a Christian Church they should seek guidance and approval from their current Church. I mean divorce is planned, it is not like other sins, we don't do it out of reflex or the heat of passion or slip up, it takes time and preparation and lawyers. So it would seem that if we want to bow and beg the government to grant us this divorce, we would certainly ask the very place that sanctified the marriage in the first place as Christians.

[Kansasdad]

You must understand that Catholics also believes that a valid Sacramental marriage cannot be seperated and the couple is married for life. If this couples seperates and subsequently remarries they have committed adultry. If one receives a declaration of nullity there never was a valid marriage in the first place. Like KansasDad has asked, how do you define marriage? Every person that stands in front of a judge, priest, minister, some Elvis look alike in Las Vegas, Buddist monk, and says "I do", are now in a valid marriage?

If you look back at some of what I previously asked about annulment, I wasn't asking about people who were married in Vegas. I think we all know that the RCC is not granting annulments in those situations.

I specifically asked about people who were both Catholic, who were married in the RCC, and who raised their children in the RCC -- and THEN got an annulment. I've seen that happen more than once, and I've seen adult children who are essentially estranged from one parent -- because that parent got an annulment, primarily so they could selfishly remarry in the Catholic Church. How is that Christ-like? One parent essentially sends a message to their children that their family was a sham. And also sends an incredibly confusing message about their Church.

I'm sorry, but asking for us to define marriage is like Bill Clinton asking for the definition of "is."

Many of us here are not trying to bash the RCC, we are trying to understand it. Fiosh has done an excellent job of providing real and honest answers. She is not defensive or patronizing. Those of us who are not Catholic may not necessarily agree, but at least we are learning from her.

Thank you and God bless you.

If I am the one who came off defensive or patronizing, then I owe you an apology. I am sorry, that was not my intention. I agree an annulment should not be taken lightly.

It is very difficult to respond to individual cases that you are aware of, for we do not have all the information. I would guess, although I don't know, that you don't know all the circumstances that led to these individuals marriages either. I am not trying to evade your question. In a case where a couple is married in a church, do you feel there is any circumstances that would have made it a non sacramental marriage?, In other words, a marriage where God was not a part of the union? I think the key element is that no man can separate that which God put together. The annulment process determines that God was never part of the union in the first place. You asked for scripture reference to this, I am not aware of any scripture that deals with this specifically, if there is please post it, I would like to see it. It would not be the first time I was not aware of a verse in scripture.

I think there would be some examples of a non-sacremental marriage that would be very obvious. But then people through the centuries have come to the Church and asked, what about this circumstance, and what about this, and that. Somewhere the Church had to set up some way to deal with it. If a woman was threatened with her life if she did not marry (This actually did happen in our past) was this a marriage brought together by God. Ok that is a obvious one, but now lets say a woman comes to the church and tells the Priest that she was 14 when she got pregnant, Her parents made her get married to the boy. She was scared, she didn't feel she had any choice. The pregnancy was created out of lust, the marriage happened out of fear. Was this a union brought together by God? Now this woman comes to the Priest and ask for guidance. What does he tell her? We can then look at examples that become more and more gray. Does the Church just leave these people on their own? The Church has on many many cases determined that the marriage was a union by God and that the couple cannot remarry. I know of a person who left the Catholic Church because they would not grant an annulment. She remarried, as did he and they and their kids lives has been a mess.

God Bless,

Kansas Dad

[Pax]

Thanks for the answers on the annulment.

I don't in general like the concept in how it is applied. However I see the wisdom of the general idea. What I mean by that is if you marry in the Church and ask God to bless that union, then it would seem important that if you want to drop that union and break that promise that you ask God and the Church, for the right to do that.

Now we may say well divorce is never acceptable except for adultery, and some even say no about that. Well fine, except that Evangelicals don't come close to following that. What do we do? We go off and re-marry in some different church and THEN ask forgiveness for our sin, it is called planned repentance and it is very spiritually dangerous. I think we do need to look at an annulment type process for divorce within our churches. It may be one of the reasons' that Catholics have lower divorce rates than Evangelical Protestants in general in the US.

The reason I have somewhat of a problem with annulments is that they seem inconsistently applied. Some get one, some don't, some seem to have to go through huge hassles others don't. I do think that Christ gave exceptions for granting a divorce, He didn't say we had to pretend the marriage never really existed, which is problematic in many ways and I think kind of hypocritical. It is like having a rule (no divorce) then this "out" which everyone knows is really just a divorce.

But I do think that Christians who want to divorce should indeed have to go back to the church they were married in and ask for that divorce to be granted. If they were not married in a Christian Church they should seek guidance and approval from their current Church. I mean divorce is planned, it is not like other sins, we don't do it out of reflex or the heat of passion or slip up, it takes time and preparation and lawyers. So it would seem that if we want to bow and beg the government to grant us this divorce, we would certainly ask the very place that sanctified the marriage in the first place as Christians.

Great post Smalcald. I am going to get somewhat personal with all of you, something I really haven't ever done. In 1997 I married a Catholic women. I was Baptist and had no intention of ever becoming Catholic (or becoming a mackerel snapper as I liked to say). Within a year and a half my wife was leaving me and moving in with another man. This incident totally brought me to my knees and was by far the most difficult thing I have ever gone through in my life. Something that really brought me closer to Christ and a better understanding of the Catholic faith was the fact that we had to go through an annulment process. I went back to my home town and talked with my former Baptist preacher. I asked him about divorce in his Baptist Church. I specifically asked him if he would remarry a divorced person, "he said yes, unfortuantly this is quite common." I said under what circumstances, only if one member committed adultry? His answer, "It all depends, but bascially its up to me to decide." I then asked him how many times do you allow people to remarry in the Baptist church? He said, "well there really isn't a set number, some people remarry several times, which I hate to see but this is allowed." I then asked do you do any type of marriage prep to see if the couple is ready for marriage? He said, "no not really, I might meet with them once or twice before the marriage, but it isn't something formal." He then went on to tell that this is one area that he appreciated about the Catholic church. The fact that it has formal marriage prep, as well as an engaged encounter weekend retreat.

I then talked to my local Parish priest, I wasn't a Catholic at the time, but did attend Catholic Church. I asked him the same questions. He then went on to tell me about the annulment process. Even though I wasn't Catholic this impressed me. The Church was taking marriage serious enough to have a tribunal review how the marriage was handeled to decide whether or not it qualified as a valid marriage. This process would help the person, such as myself to understand what went wrong in the marriage and not to make the same mistake again if I received a declaration of nullity. From the time my wife left it was one year until the divorce was final by the state. I dragged my heals in the process hoping for a reconciliation. The Church then makes the couple wait one more year after the state officially declares the marriage to be civially over. Then the annulment process takes at a minimum one year from then. So it took over three years from the time my wife left to see whether or not my marriage was valid. During this time I converted to Catholicism, and was instructed by the priest not to date other women. He said, "even though the state has civially ended your marriage, you are still married to your wife in the eyes of God." You cannot even think about dating another women until the annulment process is over and your marriage is found to be invalid. If the tribunal finds your marriage valid, you are married for life even if your wife is living with another man you cannot date or remarry. To do so will be adultry. I was completely impressed with seriousness of the matter. It wasn't like, hey your wife has left you for another man, go out and find another women. After three years I received a letter in the mail that said that after review from one diocese, and double checked by another, this marriage was invalid.

The letter I recieved from the tribunal said:

"As you are aware, an investigation has been in process concerning the validity of your marriage to ______. After a complete investigation, it is the decision of the Tribunal that the marriage was ecclesiastically null and void. This has been confirmed by our Diocesan Tribunal of the Second Instance. This decision is for religious purpose only and has no civil or legal effects. There is a Vetitum (prohibition) attached to the above decision. Therefore, you must receive special counseling (in addition to the normal premaritial counseling) before you may attempt a marriage in the Catholic Church. If you have any questions regarding the Vetitum counseling, please contact Deacon _______ at the above address and phone number."

I fill so blessed that the Church made me go through this process. It helped me in many ways, one in paticular is that I had to wait to date or remarry. I see many people who are going through a divorce jump right back into a relationship and marriage. They are hurting so bad they need the support. Unfortunantly they ususally haven't had a chance to heal from the emotional trauma and are a laying a foundation for another divorce. Secondly the Church stepped in and said, hey you need to go to couseling as did my x-wife. This was to help us not make the same mistakes we did in the past. I have sinced remarried to a wonderful women and we are expecting our first child in April.

[Kansasdad]

If you guys aren't going to answer my questions...please be kind enough to say so.

I assume you are talking about Images?

Even if we grant that God forbade the making of all images to the Jews, such a law would not bind Christians, as the positive Jewish law was abrogated by the Gospel (Rom. 8: 1, 2; Gal. 3: 23-25). There is certainly no inherent wickedness in making an image. The eternal law can never be abrogated; it will always be sinful "to adore them and serve them/" We know that the Jews did not understand the command as an absolute prohibition of images, for we find a number of them in the Temple. There were, for example, the brazen serpent (Num. 21: 9), the golden cherubim (Exod. 25: 13; Ezech. 1: 5; 10: 20; 3 Kings 6: 23), the carved garlands of flowers, fruit and trees (Num. 8: 4; 3 Kings 6:. 18; 6: 36), the carved lions which supported the basins and the King's throne (3 Kings 6: 24; 10: 19, 20), and the ephod (Judges 8: 27; 1 Kings 19: 13). The Jews of the dispersion, despite their bitter hatred of idolatry, decorated their cemeteries with paintings of birds, beasts, fishes, men and women.

The early Christians adorned their Catacombs with many frescoes of Christ, the Blessed Virgin and the Saints, which recalled incidents in the Sacred Scriptures. The most common paintings were Moses striking the rock, Noe in the ark, Daniel in the lion's den, the Nativity, the Coming of the Wise Men, the marriage feast of Cana, the raising of Lazarus, and Christ the Good Shepherd. Statues were rare only because they were costly and difficult to make. When the Church came up from the Catacombs, she began to decorate her churches with costly mosaics, carvings, paintings and statues. No one can honestly accuse these early Christians of idolatry, for they died in protest against it by the thousands, and wrote treatise after treatise condemning it.

God Bless,

Kansas Dad

[Smalcald]

Thanks for the answers on the annulment.

I don't in general like the concept in how it is applied. However I see the wisdom of the general idea. What I mean by that is if you marry in the Church and ask God to bless that union, then it would seem important that if you want to drop that union and break that promise that you ask God and the Church, for the right to do that.

Now we may say well divorce is never acceptable except for adultery, and some even say no about that. Well fine, except that Evangelicals don't come close to following that. What do we do? We go off and re-marry in some different church and THEN ask forgiveness for our sin, it is called planned repentance and it is very spiritually dangerous. I think we do need to look at an annulment type process for divorce within our churches. It may be one of the reasons' that Catholics have lower divorce rates than Evangelical Protestants in general in the US.

The reason I have somewhat of a problem with annulments is that they seem inconsistently applied. Some get one, some don't, some seem to have to go through huge hassles others don't. I do think that Christ gave exceptions for granting a divorce, He didn't say we had to pretend the marriage never really existed, which is problematic in many ways and I think kind of hypocritical. It is like having a rule (no divorce) then this "out" which everyone knows is really just a divorce.

But I do think that Christians who want to divorce should indeed have to go back to the church they were married in and ask for that divorce to be granted. If they were not married in a Christian Church they should seek guidance and approval from their current Church. I mean divorce is planned, it is not like other sins, we don't do it out of reflex or the heat of passion or slip up, it takes time and preparation and lawyers. So it would seem that if we want to bow and beg the government to grant us this divorce, we would certainly ask the very place that sanctified the marriage in the first place as Christians.

Great post Smalcald. I am going to get somewhat personal with all of you, something I really haven't ever done. In 1997 I married a Catholic women. I was Baptist and had no intention of ever becoming Catholic (or becoming a mackerel snapper as I liked to say). Within a year and a half my wife was leaving me and moving in with another man. This incident totally brought me to my knees and was by far the most difficult thing I have ever gone through in my life. Something that really brought me closer to Christ and a better understanding of the Catholic faith was the fact that we had to go through an annulment process. I went back to my home town and talked with my former Baptist preacher. I asked him about divorce in his Baptist Church. I specifically asked him if he would remarry a divorced person, "he said yes, unfortuantly this is quite common." I said under what circumstances, only if one member committed adultry? His answer, "It all depends, but bascially its up to me to decide." I then asked him how many times do you allow people to remarry in the Baptist church? He said, "well there really isn't a set number, some people remarry several times, which I hate to see but this is allowed." I then asked do you do any type of marriage prep to see if the couple is ready for marriage? He said, "no not really, I might meet with them once or twice before the marriage, but it isn't something formal." He then went on to tell that this is one area that he appreciated about the Catholic church. The fact that it has formal marriage prep, as well as an engaged encounter weekend retreat.

I then talked to my local Parish priest, I wasn't a Catholic at the time, but did attend Catholic Church. I asked him the same questions. He then went on to tell me about the annulment process. Even though I wasn't Catholic this impressed me. The Church was taking marriage serious enough to have a tribunal review how the marriage was handeled to decide whether or not it qualified as a valid marriage. This process would help the person, such as myself to understand what went wrong in the marriage and not to make the same mistake again if I received a declaration of nullity. From the time my wife left it was one year until the divorce was final by the state. I dragged my heals in the process hoping for a reconciliation. The Church then makes the couple wait one more year after the state officially declares the marriage to be civially over. Then the annulment process takes at a minimum one year from then. So it took over three years from the time my wife left to see whether or not my marriage was valid. During this time I converted to Catholicism, and was instructed by the priest not to date other women. He said, "even though the state has civially ended your marriage, you are still married to your wife in the eyes of God." You cannot even think about dating another women until the annulment process is over and your marriage is found to be invalid. If the tribunal finds your marriage valid, you are married for life even if your wife is living with another man you cannot date or remarry. To do so will be adultry. I was completely impressed with seriousness of the matter. It wasn't like, hey your wife has left you for another man, go out and find another women. After three years I received a letter in the mail that said that after review from one diocese, and double checked by another, this marriage was invalid.

The letter I recieved from the tribunal said:

"As you are aware, an investigation has been in process concerning the validity of your marriage to ______. After a complete investigation, it is the decision of the Tribunal that the marriage was ecclesiastically null and void. This has been confirmed by our Diocesan Tribunal of the Second Instance. This decision is for religious purpose only and has no civil or legal effects. There is a Vetitum (prohibition) attached to the above decision. Therefore, you must receive special counseling (in addition to the normal premaritial counseling) before you may attempt a marriage in the Catholic Church. If you have any questions regarding the Vetitum counseling, please contact Deacon _______ at the above address and phone number."

I fill so blessed that the Church made me go through this process. It helped me in many ways, one in paticular is that I had to wait to date or remarry. I see many people who are going through a divorce jump right back into a relationship and marriage. They are hurting so bad they need the support. Unfortunantly they ususally haven't had a chance to heal from the emotional trauma and are a laying a foundation for another divorce. Secondly the Church stepped in and said, hey you need to go to couseling as did my x-wife. This was to help us not make the same mistakes we did in the past. I have sinced remarried to a wonderful women and we are expecting our first child in April.

Thanks for sharing that Pax I had not thought of the process in that light before.

In some ways it sounds as if this annulment process actually played a part in your eventual conversion to the Catholic Church? I guess we never know when or how God will speak to us

[Bread_of_Life]

Hi there Fiosh,

I was wondering about the doctrine of baptism in voto. I am a member of the Church of Scotland, a reformed church that claims to be the (Scottish) branch of the Holy Catholic Church (although it protests against Rome). I know that our churches cannot celebrate communion together, because of our differences, but if I truly believe that my church is correct and the Holy Catholic Church, and through no fault of my own remain part of it and do not join the Roman Catholic Church - do I still recieve the sacrament of communion, and can I still be a member of the church in voto?

Many thanks,

Nikolai

[Fiosh]

Hi there Fiosh,

I was wondering about the doctrine of baptism in voto. I am a member of the Church of Scotland, a reformed church that claims to be the (Scottish) branch of the Holy Catholic Church (although it protests against Rome). I know that our churches cannot celebrate communion together, because of our differences, but if I truly believe that my church is correct and the Holy Catholic Church, and through no fault of my own remain part of it and do not join the Roman Catholic Church - do I still recieve the sacrament of communion, and can I still be a member of the church in voto?

Many thanks,

Nikolai

Hi Nik,

I'm a little confused by your questions.

To the best of my knowledge...

Baptism in voto is baptism of desire, which refers to one who had intended to be baptized, but died before receiving the sacrament.

The Church of Scotland is Presbyterian, so I'm not sure what you mean when you say they "claim to be a branch of the Holy Catholic Church".

If you believe your church is the "one true church" established by Jesus Christ, than you cannot also believe that Jesus is really, physically Present in the Holy Eucharist. (as that is not a Presbyterian doctrine)

Therefore, no, you could not validly receive communion in the Catholic Church.

And since you protest against the doctrines of the Catholic Church, why would you want to be a member?

Peace,

Fiosh