Rev. Kenneth Brighenti - Catholicism For Dummies

This icon points out cautionary areas of Catholicism, such as the obligation to attend Mass on Sunday or Saturday evening. (Not doing so without a legitimate excuse, such as illness or severe weather, is a grave sin.)

In addition to what you’re reading right now, this product also comes with a free access-anywhere Cheat Sheet. To get this Cheat Sheet, simply go to www.dummies.com and search for “Catholicism For Dummies Cheat Sheet” in the search box.

Catholicism For Dummies, 4th Edition, is sort of like Sunday dinner at an Italian grandmother’s home. Nonna brings everything to the table: bread, antipasto, cheese, olives, prosciutto and melon, tomatoes and mozzarella; then comes the pasta or macaroni in marinara or meat sauce with sausage and peppers, meatballs, and veal; then comes the chicken, the pork, or the beef; followed by salad; and topped off with fruit and cheese, spumoni, gelato, ricotta pie, zabaglione, and an espresso with a splash of sambucca.

Likewise, in this book, we’ve brought out a little bit of everything on Catholicism: doctrine, morality, history, theology, canon law, spirituality, and liturgy. You can go to any section to discover Catholicism. You can pick and choose what interests you the most, get answers to specific questions on your mind, or just randomly open this book anywhere and begin reading. On the other hand, you may want to start at the beginning and work your way to the end, going through each chapter one by one. We don’t guarantee that you’ll be full when you’re finished, but we hope that you’ll get a good taste of what Catholicism is really about.

Part 1

IN THIS PART …

Find out what Catholics learn in religion class and what the Church teaches all its members. You’ll look at the doctrines and beliefs every Catholic is expected to know and accept. The first pillar of faith of the Catechism is the creed, which is explained in this part.

Discover the revealed Word of God, including the Bible.

Explore Catholic beliefs about God as the Creator of everything.

Examine fundamental Christian teachings, such as the divinity of Christ and Jesus as Lord and Savior.

Understand the Church, its mission, and the means by which it fulfills that mission.

Get the rundown of the key figures in the Catholic hierarchy — the many, many people who make up the Church as an organization.

Chapter 1

IN THIS CHAPTER

Getting a sense of the Catholic perspective

Introducing Church teachings

Participating in Catholic worship

Behaving and praying like a Catholic

Being Catholic means more than attending parochial school or going to religion class once a week, owning some Rosary beads, and going to Mass every Saturday night or Sunday morning. It means more than getting ashes smeared on your forehead once a year, eating fish on Fridays, and giving up chocolate for Lent. Being Catholic means living a totally Christian life and having a Catholic perspective.

What is the Catholic perspective? In this chapter, you get a peek at what Catholicism is all about — the common buzzwords and beliefs — a big picture of the whole shebang. (The rest of this book gets into the nitty-gritty details.)

The cut-to-the-chase answer is that Catholicism is a Christian religion (just as are Protestantism and Eastern Orthodoxy). Catholics are members of the Roman Catholic Church (which means they follow the authority of the bishop of Rome, otherwise known as the pope), and they share various beliefs and ways of worship, as well as a distinct outlook on life. Catholics can be either Latin (Western) or Eastern (Oriental) Catholic; both are equally in union with the bishop of Rome (the pope), but they retain their respective customs and traditions.

Catholics believe that all people are basically good, but sin is a spiritual disease that wounded humankind initially and can kill humankind spiritually if left unchecked. Divine grace is the only remedy for sin, and the best source of divine grace is from the sacraments, which are various rites that Catholics believe have been created by Jesus and entrusted by Him to His Church.

From the Catholic perspective, here are some of the bottom-line beliefs:

More than an intellectual assent to an idea, Catholicism involves a daily commitment to embrace the will of God — whatever it is and wherever it leads.

Catholicism means cooperation with God on the part of the believer. God offers His divine grace (His gift of unconditional love), and the Catholic must accept it and then cooperate with it.

Free will is sacred. God never forces you to do anything against your free will. Yet doing evil not only hurts you but also hurts others because a Catholic is never alone. Catholics are always part of a spiritual family called the Church.

More than a place to go on the weekend to worship, the Church is a mother who feeds spiritually, shares doctrine, heals and comforts, and disciplines when needed. Catholicism considers the Church as important to salvation as the sacraments because both were instituted by Christ.

The Catholic perspective sees everything as being intrinsically created good but with the potential of turning to darkness. It honors the individual intellect and well-formed conscience and encourages members to use their minds to think things through. In other words, instead of just giving a list of do’s and don’ts, the Catholic Church educates its members to use their ability to reason and to apply laws of ethics and a natural moral law in many situations.

Catholicism doesn’t see science or reason as enemies of faith but as cooperators in seeking the truth. Although Catholicism has an elaborate hierarchy to provide leadership in the Church (see Chapter 6), Catholicism also teaches individual responsibility and accountability. Education and the secular and sacred sciences are high priorities. Using logical and coherent arguments to explain and defend the Catholic faith is important.

Catholicism isn’t a one-day-a-week enterprise. It doesn’t segregate religious and moral dimensions of life from political, economic, personal, and familial dimensions. Catholicism tries to integrate faith into everything.

The general Catholic perspective is that because God created everything, nothing is outside God’s jurisdiction, including your every thought, word, and deed — morning, noon, and night, 24/7.

The Catholic religion is built (by Christ) on four pillars of faith: the creed (teachings), the sacraments (liturgical worship), the Ten Commandments (moral code), and the Lord’s Prayer or Our Father (prayer and spirituality). Church doctrine and dogma can be very sophisticated, which may intimidate some people. But the fundamentals are rooted in the Church’s creed: the first pillar of faith. Either the Nicene Creed or the Apostles’ Creed (which we introduce in Chapter 2) is said every Sunday and holy day to reaffirm what the Church actually teaches and expects her members to believe and profess. Catholics read the Bible and the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the definitive book explaining the official teachings of the Catholic Church on faith and morals.