question corner
Question Corner: On Limbo and on silent prayer
Limbo is not included in our Creeds and is never mentioned in our current Catechism of the Catholic Church.
Questions: Holy days of obligation, vegetarians in Lent
It can be a beautiful practice to go to Mass on a feast that isn’t strictly obligatory simply to enter more deeply into the spirituality of our liturgical year.
Purgatory and the good thief/ Weddings during Lent
It has been a clear and consistent belief of the church, “All who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven”
Remain a Catholic?/ Holy Communion with Alzheimer’s disease?
Would it be a mortal sin if I left the church? I believe in Jesus as my savior, and I look forward to receiving the Eucharist. Am I a hypocrite in staying?
Will Sister Ita Ford be a saint?/ Refusing Communion
Sister Ita Ford was a Catholic Maryknoll Sister who grew up in Brooklyn. She served as a missionary in Bolivia, Chile and El Salvador, working primarily with the poor.
Why is cremation OK now?/ Bowing to a priest
Cremation is now permitted for Catholics, so long as it is not chosen in denial of the Christian teaching on resurrection and the sacredness of the human body.
Duty of fraternal correction/ Why did Jesus say ‘tell no one’?
Is it not our duty to point out when a friend is committing a sin? Otherwise, if we don’t try to save the soul of a sinner, then we too can be found guilty.
Does Jesus free us from sin and death?/ Donating gambling winnings
We do sin, and we do die; but Jesus, by his own suffering and death, offers us the path to ultimate happiness.
Are silent prayers heard by God?/ Shouldn’t we ‘fast before a feast’?
Q. I am an 88-year-old Korean War veteran with a question that is not earth-shattering but one that bothers me almost every day. I talk and pray to God, to Jesus and to the Blessed Virgin Mary out loud — every morning and at night before I go to bed. But there are also times when I pray silently — just in my head — especially if I wake up during the night. So what I need to know is whether those prayers — the silent ones — are heard.
Hosting unmarried couple/ Call no man ‘father’
When grandchildren who have been living together for years without being married come to visit, do I put them in separate bedrooms? People laugh at me for this, but I have a real problem: Is living together no longer a sin? (Sorry — I can’t move on from my upbringing.) (City and state withheld)