Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."

Son Planning Invalid Marriage

A reader writes:

My wife and I are lifelong Catholics and have brought our children up in the Church.   My son has just informed us that he is engaged to be married to a Protestant girl he has known for only 3 months.  We have discussed the local Catholic information course and suggested that they both attend this together so she can have a better understanding of his Faith.  We also requested they be married in the Church.  They have decided against this and have decided to get married in one month by her grandfather who is a minister.  I have discussed the importance of his decision and asked him to delay the marriage a few months.  I have made him aware that they need to consult with our Priest to find out what the Church requires (a dispensation).  He is not willing to wait and is determined to proceed with the wedding next month.

First, let me say that I really feel for your tragic and painful situation and will be praying for your family. What your son is doing is incredibly reckless by any standard. It is extraordinarily foolhardy, particularly in our culture today, to marry someone that you have known for a total of four months.

A few questions:

1. This marriage will not be valid which means he will in effect be "living in sin" and can no longer receive the Eucharist.  Will he still be able to attend Mass? 

Yes. People in states of sin can attend Mass. In fact, Catholics in a state of sin are still obligated to attend Mass.

What would be the point of going to Confession if he has every intent of continuing in the relationship?

None, as long as he’s unwilling to either live chastely or rectify his marital status.

2.  Is this a more serious sin because it is done with the full knowledge and intent to sin?

Increasing knowledge of the moral character of a sinful act does make it more sinful, though I don’t know enough to assess your son’s personal culpability. Only God sees the heart. Your son may be acting under passions so strong that diminish his culpability.

3.  Is it as simple to fix as having it later validated in The Church (after a good Confession)?

It is relatively simple to have a convalidation later, though there may be marriage preparation and other formalties that will be necessary first.

4.  What are our responsibilities as parents.  I know that we cannot "celebrate" the wedding in any way so as not to lend our presence to the ceremony and thereby indicate that it is "OK", but surely if we visit the couple at any time during their invalid marriage we would be implying that it is ok?  Does this mean we must no longer see our son?

The question of how to navigate social relationships without endorsing an invalid union is a very difficult question that many find themselves in. It is particularly painful and complex and depends in significant measures on how the parties are related to each other and how they would "read" different actions as messages saying things about the union.

Attending the wedding, celebrating anniversaries, letting two people share the same bed under your roof, etc., would all be actions that in our culture would be taken as an endorsement of the union. (And it is hard to see how they might be anything other than that, even in other cultures.)

However, social interactions not directly related to marriage may not be taken this way. For example, inviting people (who know that you don’t think that they are married) over to your house or going over to their house is often not read as an endorsement of a union in our culture. The act is remote enough from the marriage itself that in the opinion of many it is not necessary to refrain from these social interactions.

It most definitely is not necessary that you cut off all contact with your son. Indeed, maintaining contact with him may be essential to the future rectification of his situation. The difficult and painful thing is figuring out how to maintain contact in a way that does not send him false messages. Ultimately, one just has to do the best one can to muddle through that.

5.  If he rejects The Catholic Church and becomes a Protestant before the wedding, does this make it valid?

If he formally defects from the Church then yes, it would result in the marriage being valid. I would not his about this or even mention it to him, though, as formal defection from the Church is an intrinsically evil act. One cannot recommend an intrinsically evil act (defection from the true Church of Christ) in order that good may com of it (a valid marriage).

If, however, he learns of this on his own and asks about it then one would be at liberty to answer his questions honestly, pointing out that defecting from the Church is intrinsically evil and must not be done.

6.  If after the wedding he rejects The Church and becomes a Protestant would the wedding then be valid?

No, this has no bearing on whether the union was valid at the time it was contracted.

7.  If he continues in the invalid marriage with full knowledge, later gets divorced, returns to The Church, can the marriage be annulled?

Yes. In fact, it would be quite easy to annul it due to the facts of the case as outlined above. The Church has a special process for cases of this nature since invalidity is so easy to prove.

8.  With the limited information I have given you, what would you do if it was your son?

If it were me? I’d do the following:

  • Pray really hard.
  • Perform penitential acts on behalf of my son and his fiancee. (NOTE! It is important that any pentiential acts of a significant nature be undertaken under the guidance of a spiritual director in order to keep you from biting off more than you can chew or that might pose long-term harm to you.)
  • Stress to my son that the course he is undertaking involves sin.
  • Stress to him that it will complicate his future and make things harder for him in the long term.
  • Point out to him that marrying someone you have known for only four months at the time of the weddig is incredibly foolhardy and that the success rates for such marriages is extraordinarily low. The odds are that he will go through a lot of pain and end up divorced, with all the complications that entails (including possibly having a kid or kids whose mother you are no longer married to).
  • Point out to him that if he really loves this girl and that if the two of them really can make a go of it as husband and wife then the most loving thing he can do for the two of them is SLOW DOWN and give them a chance to get to know each other better and let their relationship mature. The breakneck speed he’s doing this at has far more likelihood of HARMING their marriage than helping it. There are issues they need to work out BEFORE they get married. Trying to work them out afterwards will only harm the two.
  • Ask him to contemplate the magnitude of the decision he is making. Does he really understand what it means to make a LIFE-LONG commitment to this person based on having known her for this short space of time.
  • I’d also go to the girl’s family and talk to them about the situation. The idea that her grandfather is willing to marry them in this circumstances is incredible, and her family may be able to be enlisted in talking some sense into these young people.
  • I’d also try to live in hope. Something like a third of all marriage licenses that are taken out are never used. There is a significant chance that one or the other of these two young people will have a change of heart before the ceremony.

God bless, and I invite all blog readers to be praying for y’all!

20

Vampire Squid From Hell!

Vampire_squid_from_hellThat’s what this here critter is called.

No kidding! It’s Latin name is Vampyroteuthis infernalis.

And it really exists! Here on Earth and all!

It lives (as you might guess) deep in the ocean. In fact, it lives really deep, down at a level where the oxygen content in the water is so low that most creatures can’t survive there.

We’ve only known about them for about a century. There’s still a lot about them that we don’t know, but here are some interesting facts about the vampire squid from hell:

  • Unlike other squids, it can’t expel ink in order to create a distraction while it jets away.
  • Instead (this is sooooo cool) it expels glowing snot filled with blue balls of light in order to distract its opponent!
  • It only grows to a foot long, but it has the biggest eyes of any creature proportionate to the size of its body (it needs big eyes, living at the depths it does).
  • Unlike other squids, it normally doesn’t move by jet action but by flapping the two fins on its head.
  • During a certain stage of its growth from infant to adult, it has four fins on its head, which led people to think that the different body forms represented more than one species.
  • It’s covered with little dots that it can cause to glow and flash in order to confuse opponents.
  • It uses its light-generating ability to obscure its outline so predators can’t spot it.
  • It can’t change color as well as similar critters, but its skin and eyes look different colors depending on the circumstances.
  • It has blue blood!
  • (We think that) the females guard their eggs for like 400 days before they hatch.
  • They have a defensive move they do called "pumpkin posture" in which they turn themselves inside out (sort of) so that their head is down inside the bell-shaped part of their body. When they assume this position they stick their legs way up away from their heads and make the ends glow to distract the opponent from where their vital organs (their head) are. If a predator bites one of the ends of their legs off, they regenerate it!

Cool!

If only we could tell H. P. Lovecraft about these things!

LEARN MORE.

PICTURE OF A VAMPIRE SQUID IN "PUMPKIN POSTURE."

Blessed Vs. Blessed

A reader writes:

Is there a difference between using Blessed (Bless-Ed), or Blessed (Bles-t) outside of a grammatical preference or usage?

If I understand you correctly, the answer is that the adjective "blessed" originally had a single meaning  but that it has come to be pronounced differently in different situations. It also has related noun and verb forms. There isn’t much of a difference in meaning much of the time (besides the obvious shifts caused by using the word as a verb or a noun), but there are rules on how it is pronounced.

We say /bless-ed/ when:

  1. We use it as a title (not an adjective), as in "Blessed John of Wherever."
  2. We are using it as an adjective in front of a noun, as in "What a
    blessed fool you are!"
  3. It comes immediately
    before the verb, as in "Blessed be the beasts and the children" or "Blessed are the peacemakers."

On the other hand, we say /blest/ when:

  1. We use it as a past tense
    verb ("The pope blessed the people"), and
  2. We use it
    as an adjective following the verb ("He felt very blessed").

At least that’s how it sounds to my English-speaking American Catholic ear.

Your mileage may vary.

And it may vary in particular if you are a member of a different religious community. The above are the way Catholics do it, I’ve heard converts who haven’t absorbed these usages yet do it differently.

Male Angel Names?

A reader writes:

Listening to one of the Catholic Answers Q&A sessions, you mention no gender in angels.  Would the fact that Angels are named, Michael, Raphael, Gabriel be named for our sake to show male strength in earlier times?

Okay, I’m not sure I understand the question, but if I read you correctly, you are wondering whether the fact that angels in the Bible have masculine names means that God is accomodating their names to ancient Hebrew culture, which identified strength with masculinity (angels being stronger than us).

Maybe.

To tell you the truth, I’ve never dug into Hebrew naming practices thoroughly enough to know whether the angels in question have names that sound distinctly male in Hebrew. Hypothetically, they could be bi-gendered names, like "Chris" or "Terry" or "Kelly" are in English, which can be either male or female. My suspicion, though, is that you’re correct and that these are male-sounding names in Hebrew.

However that may be, the angels are certainly pictured as males, and this is no doubt an accomodation to Hebrew culture in some way. It could be the strength of the angels that is the determining factor (Michael and Gabriel are depicted as engaging in heavenly warfare–a male occupation), or it could be something else. Raphael serves as a travelling companion for Tobias, and a woman would not be a fit travelling companion for an unmarried male in their day.

On the other hand, it seems that whenever angels are mentioned they are depicted (if they are depicted as humans) as male, even when they aren’t named. It may be that strength is the cause, or it might be the role they play: They’re God’s messengers. That’s what the word "angel" means in the biblical languages: messenger. Since kings used male messengers in that day, this could be why.

It also could be that they are in some way priestly, serving in the heavenly Temple, and in ancient Israel only males served as officials in the Temple.

So . . . it’s kinda hard to say for sure. My guess would be the messenger idea, though.

"No One Has Ascended To Heaven"

A reader writes:

On the Old testament i read that Elijah was ascend unto Heaven and on the Epistle of Jude 1:9 indicates that Moses was ascend too.

But Jesus said that he no one was came into heaven except himself which came from Heaven…

I’m confused enough with that, could you explain.

Off the top of my head, I can see three possibilities here:

  1. Elijah and others didn’t ascend to the same heaven that Jesus came from but to somewhere else.
  2. Jesus doesn’t mean for his comment to apply to all humans of all periods, so it allows for at least a handful of exceptions like Enoch and Elijah.
  3. Jesus is talking about his own particular kind of ascension, which is different than those of others. For example, he ascends under his own power (in cooperation with the Father and the Spirit), but others could not ascend under their own power. They had to be carried up to heaven by divine power, so they were "assumed" rather than "ascended."
  4. Jesus is talking about people who would be in a position to tell Nicodemus (who he is talking to) about heavenly things. He thus is thinking of people who are now on earth that could tell Nicodemus about heavenly things. Since Enoch, Elijah, and Moses were not at that moment on earth, they could not tell Nicodemus about heaven.

Option #1 does not seem that likely to me because Scripture says they went to heaven (Hebrew, shmayim) and because prior to the Incarnation Jesus did not have a physical form and so, as the Second Person of the Trinity, it would be equally present in all heavenly realms since he is everywhere. He is still everywhere in his divinity, of course, but at least today he has a body, so if he is in "third heaven" (let’s say) then we could say that he’s present everywhere but also present in third heaven in a special way since he is present there both in his divinity and his humanity.  But before the Incarnation he had no humanity and so it would not be as easy to say he was specially in one heaven rather than another.

Option #2 is possible since Jesus may have been speaking of a restricted group of people, such as those of his current day. Of those living in the third century when Jesus said this (John 3:13), none of them had ascended to heaven. Jesus thus might have meant, "Of everyone you have ever met and of everyone alive today, none of them has ascended to heaven."

Option #3 is also possible, though I think it’s less likely than #2 or #4.

Option #4 seems more probable to me. If you look at verse 12, Jesus sets up his statement by saying:

12 If I have told you earthly things and you do   not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?
13: No one has ascended into heaven but he who descended   from heaven, the Son of man.

That question "how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?" sets up "No one has ascended to heaven." If we try to relate these two, the logic might be: "How could you believe if I told you about heavenly things? Nobody here on earth right now has ascended to heaven, therefore you’d have no way of knowing about heaven and whether what I was saying was true. If you don’t trust me when I tell you about earthly things, therefore, why would you believe if I told you about heavenly things? It’s not like you could consult Shlomo down the street and ask him what he saw last time he was in heaven and thus confirm what I said. So far, I’m the only one who’s come from there and only I can tell you about it. You’ll either have to trust me or not."

The fact that Elijah and some others had gone there wouldn’t affect this logic since they didn’t come back to tell people what they saw.

It is understandable that you’d be confused, though. This is a confusing passage. Taken on its face, it makes it sound like Jesus has already ascended to heaven, when we know from elsewhere in the New Testament that he hasn’t.

Hope this helps!

“No One Has Ascended To Heaven”

A reader writes:

On the Old testament i read that Elijah was ascend unto Heaven and on the Epistle of Jude 1:9 indicates that Moses was ascend too.
But Jesus said that he no one was came into heaven except himself which came from Heaven…

I’m confused enough with that, could you explain.

Off the top of my head, I can see three possibilities here:

  1. Elijah and others didn’t ascend to the same heaven that Jesus came from but to somewhere else.
  2. Jesus doesn’t mean for his comment to apply to all humans of all periods, so it allows for at least a handful of exceptions like Enoch and Elijah.
  3. Jesus is talking about his own particular kind of ascension, which is different than those of others. For example, he ascends under his own power (in cooperation with the Father and the Spirit), but others could not ascend under their own power. They had to be carried up to heaven by divine power, so they were "assumed" rather than "ascended."
  4. Jesus is talking about people who would be in a position to tell Nicodemus (who he is talking to) about heavenly things. He thus is thinking of people who are now on earth that could tell Nicodemus about heavenly things. Since Enoch, Elijah, and Moses were not at that moment on earth, they could not tell Nicodemus about heaven.

Option #1 does not seem that likely to me because Scripture says they went to heaven (Hebrew, shmayim) and because prior to the Incarnation Jesus did not have a physical form and so, as the Second Person of the Trinity, it would be equally present in all heavenly realms since he is everywhere. He is still everywhere in his divinity, of course, but at least today he has a body, so if he is in "third heaven" (let’s say) then we could say that he’s present everywhere but also present in third heaven in a special way since he is present there both in his divinity and his humanity.  But before the Incarnation he had no humanity and so it would not be as easy to say he was specially in one heaven rather than another.

Option #2 is possible since Jesus may have been speaking of a restricted group of people, such as those of his current day. Of those living in the third century when Jesus said this (John 3:13), none of them had ascended to heaven. Jesus thus might have meant, "Of everyone you have ever met and of everyone alive today, none of them has ascended to heaven."

Option #3 is also possible, though I think it’s less likely than #2 or #4.

Option #4 seems more probable to me. If you look at verse 12, Jesus sets up his statement by saying:

12 If I have told you earthly things and you do   not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?
13: No one has ascended into heaven but he who descended   from heaven, the Son of man.

That question "how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?" sets up "No one has ascended to heaven." If we try to relate these two, the logic might be: "How could you believe if I told you about heavenly things? Nobody here on earth right now has ascended to heaven, therefore you’d have no way of knowing about heaven and whether what I was saying was true. If you don’t trust me when I tell you about earthly things, therefore, why would you believe if I told you about heavenly things? It’s not like you could consult Shlomo down the street and ask him what he saw last time he was in heaven and thus confirm what I said. So far, I’m the only one who’s come from there and only I can tell you about it. You’ll either have to trust me or not."

The fact that Elijah and some others had gone there wouldn’t affect this logic since they didn’t come back to tell people what they saw.

It is understandable that you’d be confused, though. This is a confusing passage. Taken on its face, it makes it sound like Jesus has already ascended to heaven, when we know from elsewhere in the New Testament that he hasn’t.

Hope this helps!

Marriage Counselling

A reader writes:

My wife and I are Catholic. We have been married for several years. As of late, we have been going through some rough times. So much so, that we feel we need to see a Marriage Counselor. Unfortunately, our parish has not been as helpful as I would like. I called the Rectory and asked for a referral to a Catholic Counselor but they did not have one. They could only refer me to a secular counselor. Is this standard practice? What would you do? My wife and I love each other and want to resolve our conflict and grow in God’s Grace and Peace.

I can’t really say whether this is standard practice. I don’t have the breadth of knowledge of what parishes do in this situation to speak to that. I can, however, try to offer some practical suggestions:

  1. Ask if there are any psychologists, psychiatrists, therapists, or other counsellors or mental health workers in the congregation. If so, call them and ask who they could recommend. (They might know who to call better than the parish staff.)
  2. Call a neighboring parish and ask them.
  3. Call the diocese and ask them.
  4. Try seeing a priest for counselling. If there is a solid monastery nearby, one of the priests there might be able to help (and might be able to make his time more available than a parish priest).
  5. Call some marital therapists and say, "My wife and I are both Catholics and think that we’d be more comfortable with a Catholic counsellor. Are you Catholic or could you recommend a Catholic marriage counsellor?"

If all else fails, brace up and go to a non-Catholic counsellor. Just be clear up front that you both care about your religion, which might prevent you from following certain kinds of advice (e.g., about sexual practices), and you want to make sure that the counsellor knows that.

Most counsellors will (or should) understand. It’s unprofessional not to respect the religious convictions of the patients.

Hope this helps, and good luck!

Vows To Protestant Church Authorities

A reader writes:

1) A protestant believer is convinced that the Catholic Church is the
Body of Christ and that the "authority" claimed within protestantism
is illegitimate. However, he has vowed submission to the session of
elders at his local congregation, who will not release him from that
vow unless he is transferring to an "acceptable" congregation.

2) A protestant congregation has vowed submission to a presbytery but
the leadership of the congregation becomes convinced that the Catholic
Church is the Body of Christ and that the "authority" claimed within
protestantism is illegitimate.

Does the Catholic Church have a position on whether or not such vows
should be honoured? Or how they should be broken or regarded?

The Catholic Church would hold that any vow or promise is null insofar as it requires one to do something immoral.

Those who have recognized the truth of the Catholic faith have a moral obligation to join it. (Indeed, a duty so grave that salvation hinges on it.)

While the timing of joining the Catholic faith may be affected by various considerations (e.g., will it help one’s family come closer to the truth or even join the Church themselves if one waits a bit to give them more time to adjust), the basic obligation to join remains.

Therefore, it would be immoral for those who recognize the truth of the Catholic faith to permanently remain apart from it.

If the promises made to the session or the presbytery would require one to permanently remain apart from the Catholic faith then they require one to do something immoral and so are null. They have no binding force.

If there is a realistic chance that the session would regard the Catholic Church as an "acceptable" church then one might apply to the session for release to the Catholic Church. If there is no realistic chance that the session would do this then one need not apply to them.

That should deal with the first question sufficiently, I hope.

The answer to the second question would be built on similar principles, but I’d need to know more about what exactly the leadership of the congregation is proposing to do before I’d be able to give a concrete answer. If you e-mail me privately on this I may be able to be of more help in this regard.

Hope this helps!

Reason and Faith

A reader writes:

Can reason lead us to faith in Christ or is it by the Grace of God and faith alone?  I ask this because of the big debate going on now with Intelligent Design.

Reason can allow us to know certain truths about God and his nature–the fact that he exists and that he has certain attributes, for example.

Reason alone cannot teach us the doctrine of the Trinity or that Christ is the Second Person of the Trinity or that we are to have faith in him.

Instead, reason can offer evidences or "motives of credibility" that make it rational for us to place our faith in Christ, but these do not compel or force us to place our faith in Christ. This is where the grace of God comes in.

God’s grace elevates will and allows it to respond to the call to place our faith in Christ. It is then that we either cooperate with or reject God’s grace as we make the decision to put our faith in Christ or not.

Thus one might be able to construct Intelligent Design arguments sufficient to show the existence of God and certain things about him (e.g., he is intelligent, he is a designer). These arguments (with others) then can make it rational to embrace faith in Christ, but they do not prove the Christian faith in the same way that the existence and certain attributes of God can be proved.

MORE INFO HERE.

AND HERE.

Br. Roger Has Been Killed

Brother_rogerBr. Roger (left), foundre of the Taize community, has been murdered.

For those who may not know, the Taize community is an ecumenical monastic community. It has both Protestant monks and Catholic monks. Br. Roger was its founder and its prior. He was very supportive of Benedict XVI, who has already condemned his murder.

EXCERPTS:

A Romanian woman slipped into a choir of singing monks during an
evening prayer service and fatally slit the throat of the 90-year-old
founder of an ecumenical Christian community in the presence of 2,500
horrified pilgrims in Burgundy, authorities said Wednesday.

"It happened very fast. There were some screams. We turned around.
He was wounded," said Brother Emile, who witnessed the killing. "We
carried him out of the church so people didn’t see the terrible part.
… She slit his throat."

Brother Roger was stabbed at least twice in the neck. Bleeding
profusely, he died 15 minutes later in the community house, Brother
Emile said.

The 36-year-old intruder had visited Taize for a week in June and was
considered psychologically fragile. Brother Emile said they had learned
from colleagues that she was "a very sick woman in Romania" who
screamed in churches.

"We asked her not to stay," Brother Emile said in a telephone
interview. She returned about two days ago, bypassing the reception
area.

Romanian media identified the woman as Luminita Solcan, from the northeast city of Iasi.

GET THE (HORRIFFIC) STORY.
(CHT to the reader who e-mailed.)

STATEMENT FROM THE TAIZE COMMUNITY.

STATEMENT FROM POPE BENEDICT.

Incidentally, perhaps I should mention something else that people have asked recently. During the funeral of John Paul II, Br. Roger (a Protestant) received Communion from Cardinal Ratzinger, which has prompted many questions. As far as I can tell, this is the straight story on what happened:

Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro Valls declared in July 2005 that Roger had been in the queue for Communion by accident. Navarro Valls further stressed that Roger Schutz was against intercommunion, but that he shared the Catholic teachings about the Eucharist (transubstantiation).

SOURCE, WITH BIOGRAPHY OF BR. ROGER.