When we confess our sins to a priest in the sacrament of penance, we can know with confidence that our sins are forgiven, because of Jesus’ own words.

Rather than demanding a specific percentage of our income, the church leaves the dollar amount of our charitable giving up to our own good-faith discernment of what we can realistically afford.

Even in the heavenly life of the world to come, we retain our human nature.

The time of Lent is not meant so much to provide us with a literal 40 forty days of penance, but rather to recall Jesus’ 40 days of fasting in the desert.

Our obligation to do some form of penance on Friday is identified in Canon 1250 in the Code of Canon Law, which tells us that “The penitential days and times in the universal church are every Friday of the whole year and the season of Lent.”

Calling something like an unlikely sports comeback a “miracle” is using quite a bit of poetic license, since there is a readily discernible natural explanation for the victory (namely, the skill of the athletes, which the athletes acquired through their own human efforts).

Even in an emergency, non-ordained laypeople are not able to confer absolution; nor can Catholic deacons, even though they are ordained.

The difference in customs regarding the Christian initiation of infants amounts to a difference in emphasis between the broad liturgical traditions of Christian East and West.

No Catholic is obligated to follow any of the devotional “rules” accompanying a particular private revelation or to take on any of the prayers urged by the seers of an apparition.

The final blessing is the official conclusion of the Mass, so — in that sense — once the final blessing is said, Mass is over and you may leave without technically missing any of the Mass.