Catholic Replies
Q. I have often wondered why in John 20:6-7 he writes about the burial cloths plural. When Simon Peter arrived at the tomb, he found the cloth that covered Jesus’ head rolled up separately from the other cloth. Have the experts ever explained why the Shroud of Turin is one big cloth? This conflicts with what John wrote. Please spread some light on this. — D.H., Iowa.
A. Actually, there is no conflict. John says that there were two cloths in the tomb — the large burial cloth that we know as the Shroud of Turin and a small cloth that had covered our Lord’s head and was found rolled up to one side. This latter cloth, which is known as the Sudarium of Oviedo and measures about 52 inches by 20 inches, is kept today in the Cathedral of Oviedo in Spain. The Shroud, which is kept at the Turin Cathedral in Italy, is about 14 feet long and 3.5 feet wide, large enough to wrap around a person’s body. For information about both cloths, see Joan Carroll Cruz’s book Relics.
Another cloth associated with the Passion of Christ is “Veronica’s Veil,” which can be seen at the Shrine of the Holy Face in Manoppello, Italy. There is no mention in the Gospels of a woman wiping Jesus’ bloody face with a cloth, but tradition has handed down this incident (it is one of the stations of the cross) and given the woman the name Veronica from the Latin words vera icona or true icon.
Q. We cannot look into the mind or motives of God, but wonder about the extremely vast length of the time between Adam and Eve and the prophets (e.g., Moses, Elijah, Elisha) and, more particularly, the arrival of Christ to open the doors of Heaven. Your thoughts, please. — R.B.K., Virginia.
A. We don’t know why there was such a long time between Adam and Eve and the prophets, or even how long a period it was. All we know is that the first eleven chapters of Genesis cover Creation, Adam and Eve, the Fall, the Flood at the time of Noah, and the Tower of Babel.
The next major event in salvation history, an unknown number of years later, is the calling of Abraham about 1,850 years before Christ. So we have a Bible timeline from this patriarch until just after the middle of the first century AD, when Peter and Paul were martyred.
Why didn’t God give us more details about the time from Noah to Abraham? Perhaps, like the 30 hidden years of Jesus’ life, those details were not necessary for us to achieve salvation. As for why God sent His Son to earth when He did, all we know is that it was in “the fullness of time,” as St. Paul said (Gal. 4:4), the time when God was to fulfill all the promises He had made in the Old Testament by sending His Son to ransom us from our sins.
Q. A friend trying to convince me that all religions are the same used the analogy of water. He said there can be well water and salt water, cold water and hot water, but all of them are water. What would you say? — P.D., Washington State.
A. Ask your friend which he would prefer on a hot summer day — a glass of cold well water or a glass of salt water. If some analogies can be said to limp, this one falls flat on its face. And so does the statement that all religions are the same, that it doesn’t matter which one you practice. Ask your friend if he would rather live under Christianity, which preaches love of neighbor, or under Islam, which preaches death to those who do not worship Allah. Would it be better to follow Jesus, who advocated love of one’s enemies, or Mohammed, who advocated the destruction of one’s enemies?
But the whole idea of one religion being as good as another is absurd. Substitute another word for “religion” and see if your friend agrees. For example, one football team is as good as another. Or one spouse is as good as another. Or one presidential candidate is as good as another. Bet he won’t agree with those statements. So why is he so cavalier about the most important subject of all, the relationship with God that we call religion?
How can all religions be the same when they disagree on fundamental issues? Some say Jesus is God, some say He isn’t. Some say there is a Hell, some say there isn’t. Some say abortion is okay, some say it isn’t. How can religions teaching contradictory things be equally true? They can’t be, anymore than one and one can be two to one person, or three to another. Since many religions today teach contradictory things, they cannot all be right. There may be good and sincere people in all religions, but their subjective sincerity cannot change what is objectively false.
Another consideration is whether the God who has revealed the truth to us will be pleased with those who say there is no such thing as truth, that it doesn’t matter what a person believes. In his 1959 encyclical Ad Petri Cathedram, St. John XXIII rejected the “absurd proposition” that one religion is as good as another because it makes “no distinction between truth and falsehood.”
Associating himself with his Predecessor Pope Leo XIII, Pope John said:
“ ‘This attitude,’ to quote Pope Leo again, ‘is directed to the destruction of all religions, but particularly the Catholic Faith, which cannot be placed on a level with other religions without serious injustice, since it alone is true.’ Moreover, to contend that there is nothing to choose between contradictories and among contraries can lead only to this fatal conclusion: a reluctance to accept any religion either in theory or practice.
“How can God, who is truth, approve or tolerate the indifference, neglect, and sloth of those who attach no importance to matters on which our eternal salvation depends, who attach no importance to pursuit and attainment of necessary truths, or to the offering of that proper worship which is owed to God alone?” (nn. 17-18).
Q. Can I go to the funeral of a relative who left the Catholic Church and will be buried from a Protestant church? Also, I have a very poor relative who lives next door and often borrows my car. He is also a former Catholic. May I loan him my car to go to the funeral? — J.S., Ohio.
A. You may attend the funeral yourself or, if not, loan your car to your relative so he can attend the funeral. This is different from going to a wedding of a former Catholic who is marrying outside the Church. That would not be right for you since you would be signaling by your presence that you approve the marriage of a former Catholic in a Protestant church.
However, your presence at this person’s funeral does not indicate approval of his leaving the Catholic Church, but is rather the exercise of the Corporal Work of Mercy to bury the dead. Even though you would have preferred that this person be reconciled with the Catholic Church, you can still pray for his soul and ask God to forgive whatever sins he may have committed out of weakness.
Q. I am reading a most interesting book about Mexico called Blood Drenched Altars, written by Most Rev. Francis Clement Kelley. What is the Americanist heresy? — K.E., via e-mail.
A. According to Fr. John Hardon’s Modern Catholic Dictionary, Americanism was “the movement propagated in the United States in the late nineteenth century which claimed that the Catholic Church should adjust its doctrines, especially in morality, to the culture of the people. Emphasizing the ‘active’ virtues of social welfare and democratic equality, it underrated the ‘passive’ virtues of humility and obedience to ecclesiastical authority. Americanism was condemned by Pope Leo XIII in an apostolic letter, Testem Benevolentiae (January 22, 1899), addressed to Cardinal Gibbons.”
The problem with Americanism, said Pope Leo, was that it “would have the Church in America to be different from what it is in the rest of the world. But the true church is one, as by unity of doctrine, so by unity of government, and she is catholic also. Since God has placed the center and foundation of unity in the chair of Blessed Peter, she is rightly called the Roman Church, for ‘where Peter is, there is the church.’
“Wherefore, if anybody wishes to be considered a real Catholic, he ought to be able to say from his heart the selfsame words which Jerome addressed to Pope Damasus: ‘I, acknowledging no other leader than Christ, am bound in fellowship with Your Holiness; that is, with the chair of Peter. I know that the Church was built upon him as its rock, and that whosoever gathereth not with you, scattereth’.”
