Holy Cross Seminary

Frequently Asked Questions About Catholicism
Answered by Fr. Peter Scott

Catechism

Question: Why do Catholics not eat meat on Fridays?

Answer: The practice of Friday abstinence dates from the very beginning of the Church. The principle of the penitential practice abstinence, in order to achieve self-mastery, was already outlined by St. Paul himself: “Everyone striving for the mastery must abstain from all things” ( I Cor 9:25) and “Let us exhibit ourselves as the ministers of Christ in labours, watchings, and fastings” (2 Cor 6:5).

Explicit mention is made of the practice of abstaining on Fridays in a documents from the end of the first century (The Didache of the Apostles), as well as by St. Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian in the 3rd century. It was the universal custom from the very beginning, and Friday was chosen in memory of the Passion of Our Lord, as a day on which we should make a special effort to practice penance. It is in recognition of the fact that Christ suffered and died, and gave up his human flesh and life for our sins on a Friday that Catholics do not eat flesh meat on Fridays. Pope Nicholas I made this a law of the Church in the ninth century. In the Latin Church, from the early middle ages this one day of abstinence was not considered enough, and Saturday abstinence was added, in honor of the burial of Christ and the mourning of the Blessed Mother and the holy woman on Holy Saturday. This was made a law of the Church by St. Gregory VII in the 11th century, but has since fallen out of custom, except by those who desire to profess their devotion to Our Lady in a special way. The Eastern rite Church also had strict rules for abstinence, given that it was binding for them on Wednesdays and Fridays.

The rules for what can and what cannot be permitted on days of abstinence have also varied with time. St. Thomas Aquinas, for example, indicates that eggs, milk, butter, cheese and lard are forbidden on days of abstinence because they come from animals and have some identity of origin with flesh meat. Present days rules limit the abstinence to flesh meat only.

The abstinence from meat is an ecclesiastical law, but one which has long obliged under pain of mortal sin. Pope Innocent III made this very clear at the beginning of the 13th century, and in the 17th century Pope Alexander VII anathematized those who would minimize the character of this obligation and declared that transgressions against it were only venial sins.

It is certainly true that, as an ecclesiastical law, it can be changed by the Church’s sovereign authority. However, the way this important precept has been trivialized by the post-conciliar church is a great disgrace and shame for Catholics. It is clearly not taught to bind under pain of mortal sin, and the mention of the possibility of substituting any other kind of sacrifice by the 1983 Code of Canon Law has effectively destroyed this very ancient practice. The fundamental reason why the modernists detest the Friday abstinence is that they refuse the need for at least some small works of penance to satisfy for the temporal punishment due to our sins, and they do everything they can to empty out the mystery of the Passion, that is of the Cross, and to replace it by a Risen Christ with suffering and sacrifice. However, it was by suffering, and by offering up his own flesh and blood that Our Divine Savior deigned to redeem us, and consequently it is our duty to associate ourselves with Him by the Friday abstinence.

Traditional Catholics know full well that they have a grave obligation of maintaining this ancient penitential Tradition. They can and should confess it as a mortal sin, if they break the Friday abstinence without any excusing reason. It is not a mortal sin in virtue of the Church’s positive, ecclesiastical law, or at least not clearly so. However, it is a sin of disrespect and contempt for Our Lord’s passion and death, for the Church’s traditions, and for the necessity of doing penance, and a sign of grave indifference to the work of our Redemption. Consequently, the priest will not hesitate to give absolution to one who confesses this sin, being truly contrite for it.

Question: When in confession, should a Catholic mention that he is a member of a third order, or that he has made the total consecration to Our Lady?

Answer: When we confess our sins we are bound to mention the nature of the sin, nor are we bound to go into any other further details. However, frequently circumstances are involved that increase the gravity of the sin. Such circumstances must be mentioned if they seriously affect the morality of a mortal sin; e.g. stealing from a church, speaking badly against a priest, or sinning against the sixth commandment with a person who is consecrated to God.

Circumstances that modify the morality of a venial sin, or that do not greatly worsen the gravity of the sin, do not have to be mentioned. However, in confessing our venial sins, it is always helpful to confess any additional circumstances, that make the sin more culpable. It helps us to humble ourselves, and to know the wretchedness of our selfish wills. Consequently, we should mention such circumstances e.g. that it was a child that I mocked, or that it was my wife that I was verbally abusive towards. In this category also fall extra spiritual obligations that I have taken upon myself, and that make more clear to the confessor my refusal to respond to God’s graces. In this way, it is desirable to mention that I am a third order member or that I have made the total consecration to Jesus through Mary. This humble avowal will help our confessions to be more profitable for our soul, and to take seriously the obligations that we have bound ourselves to.

Question: Should I refuse to speak to my daughter, who is living in sin with her boyfriend?

Answer: Certainly it is your duty to avoid anything that would give the impression of supporting or helping her to commit this sin, whether you do it materially or emotionally, directly or indirectly. Any such encouragement is certainly matter for confession. It is furthermore your grave duty to inform her that she knows that you abhor such behavior, so offensive to God and scandalous to other souls, including siblings. You cannot allow the two of them to come to family gatherings, as if they were married. This would be to approve the scandalous situation. Alas, this is frequently not enough to force them to separate.

However, I am concerned that the approach of cutting off all conversation and contact until she ceases living in sin is not psychological and will not be the right approach to touch her soul. The best that could come from it would be that it would force her to get married. The worst is that it could turn her away from our holy religion. However, neither of these is what you desire. I have seen many situations like this. The young people involved are always blinded by passion and short sighted. They ought not to be forced or coerced into marriage. It does not work to approach the matter head-on and in a frontal manner. Such an approach is often counter-productive. It makes the sinner feel personally attacked and threatened.

My approach to this situation would be quite different. Firstly, I believe that it is very important that you maintain contact, and that you speak frequently to your daughter, and express your concern and affection for her. Secondly, there is no point belaboring the point of her sin, and pushing her further into her obstinacy, or of getting married without due preparation. Thirdly, you must take a positive tack. Speak about your own spiritual life, the graces that you receive and how God has taught you to carry your cross.

Speak about love, and how the roses and thorns are inseparable in your own marriage. Encourage her positively in the practice of virtue. Remember that all virtues are connected together, and by encouraging her to practice charity, meekness, humility, thoughtfulness etc., you are effectively encouraging her to practice chastity without saying so. Encourage her especially in her daily prayers. Talk about spiritual reading, and give her the very correct impression that she also can pray, even though she is not in the state of grace. Encourage her to recite her Rosary every day, or the Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary to know the will of God (but be very careful not to tell her what the will of God is, she has to figure this out for herself). Speak to her about Mass, and the spiritual high points in the year, and you can expect that when she starts reciting her Rosary every day, she will go to Mass.

All of these things will have a much more profound effect upon her soul than any reproach or harsh words. If you can get her to pray, you will not have to say anything about the horror and scandal of living in sin. She will see it for herself. This must be your goal. I have often given instructions to a couple living in sin (e.g. one would like to convert). I do not wait until they separate to start the classes. I simply teach them the catechism. If they follow through with their prayers, it does not take more than three months for them to ask what they need to do about their living situation.

Question: Is it true that a heretic, who does not believe in the Real Presence, can have the intention of doing what the Church does, and celebrate a valid Mass?

Answer: It is certainly true, as St. Thomas Aquinas explains, that Faith is not required of necessity in the minister for the sacraments he administers to be valid (IIIa, Q.64, a.9). In just the same way that a heretic can validly administer the sacrament of baptism (e.g. a protestant), and even the fact that he does not believe in original sin does not invalidate this sacrament, so also can a heretic celebrate a valid Mass. He does not have to intend what the Church intends, but only what the Church does, which latter is possible even when he has a gross misunderstanding of what the Church really does.

However, this being the case, the existence of heresy can certainly place a shadow of doubt over the intention of the minister giving a sacrament. Before Vatican II it was always the practice to baptize under condition any adult converts from Protestantism. There were several reasons to doubt to some degree Protestant baptisms, one of which is a defective intention of the minister. If the minister had an explicitly contrary intention, namely if he had explicitly formulated the intention of not doing what the Catholic Church has always done, then the sacrament would be invalid. It is not the fact that he does not believe in original sin that could makes the sacrament of baptism invalid, but the fact that his explicit intention is just to give an outward sign, and not to administer a sacrament that removes original sin and infuses sanctifying grace.

The same can be the case with the New Mass, and this even if the priest still believes in the Real Presence. He could have a contrary intention to that of the Church. This would be the case if his intention explicitly refuses offering a true sacrifice, the unbloody renewal of Calvary, and explicitly considers that it is to be only a meal and a commemoration of the Last Supper. Such an intention would be directly contrary to the intention of doing what the Church does. We do not know how often this happens, but it is very reasonable to believe that it is a common occurrence. Consequently, there are probably many celebrations of the New Mass, by priests who are convinced of modernist theories, that are invalid.

This is one reason that we cannot have anything to do with the New Mass. However, the more universal reason is that it is insulting and injurious to Almighty God and to Our Lord Jesus Christ, even if it happens to be valid.

Question: Can St. Teresa of Avila, St. Catherine of Sienna and St. Therese of the Child Jesus be considered Doctors of the Church?

Answer: The term “Doctor of the Church” is a title of honor that was first attributed to those of the Fathers who were most eminent in the wisdom of their writings and the holiness of their lives. They were consequently extraordinary teachers of the Faith. The original or great doctors were the four western doctors, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, St. Jerome and St. Gregory the Great, and the four eastern doctors, St. Athanasius, St. Basil the Great, St. Gregory of Nazianzen and St. John Chrysostom.

Additional doctors have been declared over the centuries, and it was Pope Benedict XIV who laid down the three conditions for such a proclamation: eminens doctrina, insignis vitae sanctitas, Ecclesiae declaratio, that is eminent learning, a high degree of sanctity and the express declaration of the Church, as Pope Pius XI reiterated at the time of the proclamation of St. John of the Cross as Doctor of the Universal Church in 1926 (Die vicesima septima). The theologians add that there is a fourth and presumed condition, namely the orthodoxy of Faith (Cf. Zubizarreta, Vol I, No. 692).

The Catholic Encyclopedia has this to say about the conferring of the title Doctor of the Church before Vatican II: “In practice the procedure consists in extending to the Universal Church in extending to the Universal Church the use of the Office and Mass of a saint in which the title of Doctor is applied to him. The decree is issued by the Congregation of Sacred Rites and approved by the pope, after a careful examination, if necessary, of the saint’s writings. It is not in any way an ex cathedra decision, nor does it even amount to a declaration that no error is to be found in the teaching of the Doctor. It is, indeed, well known that the very greatest of them are not wholly immune from error. No martyr has ever been included in the list, since the Office and Mass are for Confessors.” (Vol. V, p. 75)

It is not surprising that most of the early Doctors were bishops, since the bishops make up the Ecclesia docens, the teaching Church, whereas the rest of us make up the Ecclesia discens, the Church inasmuch as it is taught or instructed. The reason for this distinction is that the bishops alone have the official function to teach the deposit of the Faith, whereas the rest of us have the duty to learn and keep it. It is certainly understandable that the concept of Doctor would be enlarged to also include priests who were saints, for priests participate in the bishops’ teaching role. Thus St. Jerome, a Father of the Church is included, and also other priests such as St. John of the Cross, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Bernard and St. Anthony of Padua. It is also reasonable that St. Ephraem, who was a deacon, would also be included. All are Confessors, and the liturgical privileges of Doctors can be applied even to those who are not Pontiffs.

However, the post-Vatican II idea of including these very great women saints in the list of Doctors, is a novelty. Liturgically they are not Confessors but Virgins, nor can they be treated as Confessors, for the public teaching of the Faith is not something that can be delegated to women, according to St. Paul: “Let women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted them to speak, but to be subject, as also the law saith. But if they would learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is a shame for a woman to speak in the church” (I Cor 14:34 & 35).

This being said, it is nevertheless manifestly obvious that the lives of these three great women fulfil all four conditions laid down for the proclamation of a Doctor of the Church, and that they played no less of a leadership rôle for the Universal Church than St. Joan of Arc did for France. No Catholic can doubt their orthodoxy nor their sanctity. Moreover if they did not have the eminent book learning of Sacred Theology that is generally associated with a Doctor of the Church, they most assuredly did have infused knowledge from God, allowing their words and writings to make a profound impact on the history and development of the Church.

Moreover, it must be remembered that there was nothing feminist about these great saints, whose every action defending the Church’s magisterial teaching authority, whether it be St. Catherine of Sienna, encouraging Pope Gregory XI to return to Rome, St. Teresa of Avila laying down the principles of the mystical life and the Carmelite reform for both men and women, or St. Therese of the Child Jesus, opening up to all souls the little way of childlike abandonment by the incredible story of her soul, thus becoming the patron of the missions.

We could legitimately ask the question why clergymen would feel the need to expand the notion of a Doctor to include women, and whether there is in this desire a deep-seated influence from the feminist egalitarianism that is one aspect of the post-conciliar revolution in the Church. It certainly seems that this is the real motivation. However, the right of the Church to extend the concept of “Doctor” in an analogical sense, to those who share the necessary qualities, but who are not actually Confessors, that is public teachers, but Virgins, cannot be denied. The term “Doctor” still retains a very real meaning, even if the differences, as in every analogy, are greater than the similarity.

This is what is meant by John Paul II in his Apostolic Letter of October 19, 1997 Divini Amoris Scientia, which admits that “in the writings of Thérèse of Lisieux we do not find, perhaps, as in other Doctors, a scholarly presentation of the things of God” (§7), but nevertheless declares that the eminence of her teaching concerning the spiritual life is the basis for this honor: “From careful study of the writings of St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus and from the resonance they have had in the Church, salient aspects can be noted of her ‘eminent doctrine’, which is the fundamental element for conferring the title of Doctor of the Church” (Ib.) He makes a comparison with the proclamation of St. Catherine of Sienna as Doctor of the Church by Paul VI in 1970: “We can apply to Thérèse of Lisieux what my Predecessor, Paul VI, said of another young Saint and Doctor of the Church, Catherine of Sienna: ‘What strikes us most about the Saint is her infused wisdom, that is to say, her lucid, profound and inebriating absorption of the divine truths and mysteries of faith…’” (Ib.)

In conclusion, we can certainly accept the proclamation of these great saints as Doctors, for as John Paul II says of St. Thérèse, she “appears as an authentic teacher of faith and the Christian life” (Op. Cit. §8). However, we must be aware that we are not using this term in the same way as it is used to indicate Doctors who are Confessors, whether Pontiffs or not. When applied to a Doctor who is a Virgin it takes on an analogical and quite different sense to that which it has for a Doctor who is a Confessor. These holy Virgins taught despite themselves, moved by divine inspiration, without having any pretense of having the public function of doing so. Furthermore, these Doctor Virgins can clearly not be assimilated to Doctor Confessors in the texts of the Liturgy. However, it is in the liturgical offices that the practical consequences of the title of “Doctor” are most felt. Hence the bizarreness of Doctor Virgins, for whom there is no place in the traditional Mass.

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