Having concluded the discussion of the sacraments in Lesson Twenty-Sixth, the Baltimore Catechism No. 2 now takes up the discussion of sacramentals in Lesson Twenty-Seventh.

The word sacramentals is not much used today, but those things which it signifies still are. Sacramentals are religious objects that the Church gives us to increase our devotion. Unlike the sacraments, sacramentals do not provide grace in themselves, but through our use of them to draw our minds and hearts toward God. Read more...

There have been a number of interesting discussions in the Catholicism Forum this week. Two that I've found quite fruitful were both started by new forum member "jayd808." "The Entwined Love of God and Neighbor" examines the way in which the love of our fellow man is a reflection of our love of Christ. And in "The Best Argument Against Atheism," "jayd808" and our moderator, Steven Hepburn, discuss ways to appeal to those who do not believe in God.

But the forum thread I most want to draw your attention to this week was started by another new forum member, "bunnydrop," a recent Catholic convert who asks, "Is Smoking a Sin?" Steven answers her well, but I think there are still elements of this question to explore. What is the relationship between caring for our health and sin? Does a puritanical avoidance of things we see as unhealthy have its own problems? Join the conversation, and let us know what you think!

Last week's reader question was perhaps the most frequently asked question regarding the fulfilling of our Sunday Duty. But our question this week is a close second:

I understand that the intent of Sunday Mass is to worship in a community. When one cannot attend Sunday Mass due to work, transportation, illness, etc., does going to Mass and actively participating via the TV or radio count? The theory being something is better than nothing . . . If not, then why have them?

When I was young, the Mass broadcast every Sunday was referred to by our diocese as "the Mass for shut-ins." That description is a good place to start in answering the reader's question. Read more...

On July 8, 2009, Pope Benedict XVI released a motu proprio entitled Ecclesiae unitatem. The short document concerns the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, which was established on July 2, 1988, to help bring about the full reunion of the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) with the Catholic Church. The four bishops of the SSPX had incurred automatic excommunication when Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, the founder of SSPX, ordained them without the necessary approval from Pope John Paul II.

Those excommunications were lifted on January 21, 2009, and the Congregation for Bishops announced at the time that "It is hoped that this step be followed by the prompt accomplishment of full communion with the Church of the entire Fraternity of Saint Pius X, thus testifying true fidelity and true recognition of the Magisterium and of the authority of the Pope with the proof of visible unity."

Unfortunately, the road toward full communion had some rather nasty bumps. Read more...

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Father John Zuhlsdorf at What Does the Prayer Really Say? has joined me on the road less traveled by and held off on posting too much on Pope Benedict's new encyclical, Caritas in veritate, until he has a chance to digest it. He has, however, called our attention to paragraph 56, in which the Holy Father discusses the role that faith plays in purifying reason (a lesson that secularists in the West need to learn) and that reason plays in purifying religion (an understanding sorely missing in much of Islam today).

Coming to the proper understanding of the relationship between faith and reason allows us to navigate between these two poles and "bring the truths of faith to bear upon public life." This, Father Zuhlsdorf argues, shows that "This encyclical is part of Benedict’s plan to rebuild our Catholic identity in the face of secularism, relativism, and a fundamentalist religious view which doesn’t admit of the proper role of reason."

In that sense, we might even say that this social encyclical, while clearly in the tradition of Rerum novarum and Quadragesimo anno, is more encompassing than those early documents. Leo XIII and Pius XI, despite the challenges that the Church faced in their times, still could take for granted that the Church had a "privileged voice in the public square precisely because of her relationship to Christ and who man is, who man’s ultimate goal is."

We cannot say the same today, and so Pope Benedict has to make this explicit. In that sense, Caritas in veritate may very well mark a turning point in the life of the Church in the world.

When Rerum novarum was released in 1891, no one expected immediate commentary on Pope Leo XIII's rich (and dense) instruction on the "Rights and Duties of Capital and Labor." The same was true in 1931, when Pope Pius XI released Quadragesimo anno. Even as late as 1967, when Pope Paul VI issued Populorum progressio, in-depth commentary had to wait two weeks or more, depending on Catholic weekly newspapers and magazines production cycles.

Today, in the age of the internet, however, people expect immediate reaction to Pope Benedict's latest encyclical, Caritas in veritate, a 28,000-word document with 159 footnotes that took as much as three years to write. And so, of course, Catholic commentators and news organizations have been scrambling to provide it on the day of the encyclical's release. Indeed, some publications even tried to summarize the encyclical before the text was released (or rather, to spin the expected contents).

Such reaction may be immediate, but by its nature it can be neither in-depth nor considered. So I will not claim to do what others say they have done. Instead, after my first quick skimming of the encyclical this morning, and my more leisurely consideration of a few passages this afternoon, I would like to offer some initial thoughts for your consideration. Read more...

The prayer I have chosen as the Novena of the Week this week may look familiar, because I featured it as the Novena of the Week back in April, in honor of Pope Benedict's 82nd birthday and the fourth anniversary of his election. This week, I have chosen A Prayer for the Pope for two (related) reasons: first, to celebrate the release today of Pope Benedict's third encyclical, Caritas in veritate. Papal encyclicals are often the subject of great debate, and that is all the more true of social encyclicals such as this one. Having looked over the text quickly this morning, I can see passages that are going to upset both "progressives" who hoped that the Holy Father would denounce capitalism (and not simply its excesses) and those "conservatives" who, for all intents and purposes, are actually economic materialists. In the wake of the encyclical's release, therefore, Pope Benedict could certainly use our prayers.

The second reason is that A Prayer for the Pope was written by Pope Leo XIII, whose Rerum novarum was the first of the great modern social encyclicals, in which tradition Caritas in veritate stands. In praying for our current Holy Father, we should keep in mind all those who have gone before, and thank God for providing us with faithful shepherds.

Longtime readers of this weblog know that I have great admiration for Fr. John Zuhlsdorf, whose What Does the Prayer Really Say? weblog is a must-read for all faithful Catholics. The weblog is an outgrowth of Father Zuhlsdorf's column by the same name in the Wanderer, the longest-running Catholic weekly newspaper in the United States, for which I too write almost every week.

Therefore, it should come as no surprise that I agree almost entirely with a post on Father Zuhlsdorf's weblog yesterday entitled "The Problem With Toning Down the Rhetoric—And Why We Probably Won’t Do It." In a nutshell, Father Zuhlsdorf offers a typically well-reasoned response to those who say that criticism of President Obama or Notre Dame or even of abortion is "negative" and "counter-productive."

Along the way, he makes some of the same points that I have made in discussing the Notre Dame scandal—for instance, how calls for "dialogue" are often just attempts to silence pro-lifers and how President Obama's call for "common ground" is really just an attempt to get us to acquiesce to the idea that (as Father Zuhldorf characterizes it) "it’s all right that we agree to disagree about this issue."

Still, despite my near-total agreement with both Father Zuhlsdorf's intent in writing this post and his execution, there are two salient points that I think he does not fully address. I'll discuss one in this post, and another later this week. Read more...

Lesson Twenty-Sixth concludes the discussion of the sacraments in Baltimore Catechism No. 2. Last week, we examined Holy Orders; this week, we take a look at the Sacrament of Matrimony.

Between two Christians, marriage is not only a lifelong bond; it is a sacrament. This is true for all Christians, not just Catholics, which is why any marriage between a baptized man and a baptized woman is assumed to be valid unless determined by the Church not to be. Read more...