Catholic Insights

My Catholic Study Bible (The New Catholic Answer Bible -- NAB) has a series of inserts which help explain the Catholic faith. One of these inserts is a response to whether or not Catholics preach the Gospel. The answer, of course, is that they do. Acts 2:22 and the verses following present St. Peter preaching what Catholics preach -- the Gospel. The Good News St. Peter preaches is Christ's "life, death, resurrection and ascension... [as well as] our response of repentance, baptism and obedience to God".

Now, there are some more things I've discovered that are good to know about the Catholic faith. The first is that Salvation is by grace-a free gift from God. That means God can give it to us under whatever conditions he sees fit. No matter what we do we cannot be good enough to deserve the death of His Son on our behalf, and the consequent life which flows from His actions; but God can infuse that grace in any way he sees fit. If He says you must normally be baptized in order to receive it, then so be it. Of course, then the charge naturally arises that babies do not assent to the gift (though neither did the circumcised babies of the Old Covenant). However, it's perfectly in keeping with the idea that we can lose our faith - a proposition with which even Protestants disagree amongst themselves -- to say we must maintain the gift given to us at birth (once we've hit the age of reason) by continually assenting in perseverance (starting with confirmation), and growing through devotion. In other words, we must choose to keep the gift of grace in perseverance. What does perseverance mean? It means staying out of mortal sin (grave sins like sexual sins, habitual pride, severe anger, greed, theft, denying God, among others), and sincerely repenting and being faithful to confess such sins to Jesus through a priest if and when we do commit them. It is all so very simple when we consider that that's all we have to do to stay out of hell!

In addition there are three more profound insights that I've gleaned about Catholic practice - by, incidentally, both Protestants and Catholics. The first is that our relationship with God has progressive stages and can culminate in mystical union even here and now. The second is that (and I'm borrowing heavily from N.T. Wright here) God's dimension interlocks with our world in various places and ways (Sacramental-ism), so that the primary focus of Christianity is to continue where early Judaism left off and bring Heaven's transformative energy to Earth in every dimension of our lives in order to begin the process of new creation "even here and now." The last is what I call a vital principle in defending Catholicism, which is an answer to all charges that the truth of Catholicism is nullified by the horrible sins of some of her children - it is a three-pronged principle: 1.) moral knowledge must progress from an "unchanging element", 2.) that unchanging element is the idea that man is a "rational animal" -- from which stems the logic that "all men are created equal with inalienable rights". 3.) The Catholic Church has this specific element at it's core and, by virtue of it's creeds, sacraments and saints, has fostered it's growth and unpacked it's implications -- though often slowly and in spite of it's members, even lending it to others outside it's fold -- up to the present. The Church's moral theology, from abortion to contraception to solidarity, delicately balances the vital conception of the dignity of man against the varied and continuous onslaught of man's disordered passions, especially as they materialize in the socio/political dimension.